Anyone else feeling a little sick right now

xzibit

Feeling a little sick? I’m feeling like there’s little point in trying to live a life anymore. It’s just all too hard. Everything costs so much, you spend every penny on just surviving. I’d leave the gas running from the hob, but I can’t even afford that. 

If the government don’t step in, protests and riots are inevitable. People are already choosing between essentials. Hungry, cold people get cranky quite quickly. 

Vegastare

I think that the constant access to 24 hour new and news apps etc increases the anxiety.  We had nightmare before years ago and you heard it at 6pm or 9pm and got on with things in between.

I am not making light of this situation I have health concerns and worry what lack of warmth will bring.  But I know that there are some much worse than I.  Can those idiots not see how worse things are going to get.

One of my concerns is the certain increase in mould and damp and lack of ventilation, that will cause more  illness to the very young and upward, you will find fuel poverty brings so many illnesses the NHS will swell even more and the Numptee in No 10 wont even have thought of this.

France is used to riots and people having a voice....so maybe the French have had the best idea of privatising EDF last month.

pochase

Evan3020 said:

My calculations show 2 years maybe.
A 100w panel mounted at the correct angle would make around 103kwh a year.
My 4kwp makes 4150 kwh a year.
103 kwh a year @ 65p (your figure) is around £67 a year.

I just paid £40 for a 120W mobile solar panel (part of battery pack, where the 120W panel did cost me £50 more). By you calculation I will be able to recover the cost early next year. T

pearl123

Vegastare said:

I think that the constant access to 24 hour new and news apps etc increases the anxiety.  We had nightmare before years ago and you heard it at 6pm or 9pm and got on with things in between.

I am not making light of this situation I have health concerns and worry what lack of warmth will bring.  But I know that there are some much worse than I.  Can those idiots not see how worse things are going to get.

One of my concerns is the certain increase in mould and damp and lack of ventilation, that will cause more  illness to the very young and upward, you will find fuel poverty brings so many illnesses the NHS will swell even more and the Numptee in No 10 wont even have thought of this.

France is used to riots and people having a voice....so maybe the French have had the best idea of privatising EDF last month.

There is also an increase in strokes and heart attacks in cold weather. If I turn the heating down  to low levels I always pop on a wooly hat in the hope it offers some protection. 

It's crisis after crisis. I think we need a coalition government. Plus, I'd like to see all the energy companies charge the same amount at the present time. It needs to be fairer. 

Northern_Wanderer

pearl123 said:

It's crisis after crisis. I think we need a coalition government. Plus, I'd like to see all the energy companies charge the same amount at the present time. It needs to be fairer. 

With the price cap, every one on that tarrif is paying pretty much the same regardless of which company supplies you, which is the majority of people now as far as I know.

gazapc

Inigo_Montoya said:

- Im just worried that the government spending 10's of billions more now to help people with their energy bills will just fuel yet more inflation

Exactly. Clearly some people do need assistance but the problem is not lack of money to pay for gas; it is a shortage of gas. At best extra cash means prices will rise further. At worst it means gas/LNG supplies are diverted from developing countries who need it for critical services so that westerns can instead heat their homes to 20 degrees.

What we should be doing is a combination of short, medium and long term measures. In the short term the uncomfortable truth is we need to reduce our gas consumption. If we don't do that voluntarily then there is a significant risk it will be forced on us (by blackouts). Unless you think gas prices will return to 3p/kWh next year then we need some sort of 'moon shot' style programme to permanently reduce it, diversify supply, and least mitigate the risks of supply shocks.

Raxiel

I've been feeling pretty anxious.

I was kicking myself for not taking a fix back in April, and was determined not to get caught out again this time so took the (eyewatering) July v4 fix from Octopus. Friends and family told me I was mad. FIL told me I could get 23p (Variable) from e.on like him (I tried pointing out that wouldn't last, but fell on deaf ears). Began to wonder if I'd made a big mistake, even MSE was saying fixes more than 70% over the April cap don't seem to be a good deal. I was about to back out of it, but then Tuesday's news dropped.

I'm still going to be paying 3p/unit over the cap for gas until January (3p! five years ago i was paying less than that in total) but if the predictions are right I've saved myself some pain over the year as a whole. Relatively speaking

We've cut what we can. We only just had a load of insulated plasterboard installed. It's already been welcome in blunting the heatwaves, I'm hoping it can do a miracle on the winter gas bill. We paid over the odds to get it fitted just because of the trouble finding an installer who would actually quote, but it may yet pay for itself before all this nonsense is over.

Remains to be seen how much fat we can cut from the Electric though. Everything is already A rated, with as many + as was available. Had a good day today, 5kwh total, including me WFH, a few loads of laundry, a duvet in the drier, kids in front of the TV all day and a hot meal. If they were all like today we'd half the bill, but I know they won't be.

I've been getting quotes for Solar. Now that has my stomach in knots trying to decide if I can afford to install it, or if I can afford not to?

And If I don't decide soon, inflation will likely make the decision for me.

Chrysalis

The situation is not sustainable.  That alone will mean something else get done, whatever that may be.

Think of the consequences of the government ignoring whats going on.

The first obvious consequence will be more and more bounced or cancelled direct debits.
Another one is that consumer spending on other goods and service will plummet.  This obviously is bad for the economy, in particular I can see the hospitality service sector taking a large hit.
There is already news reports of people taking on debt to pay their energy bills, the BBC has one on a guy taking out a 5k loan.
Unchecked energy bill rises will keep pushing up inflation.  Which puts pressure on the government and is likely to lead to high interest rates.
High interest rates puts pressure on paying for their housing, probably both home owners and private renters.
There will be an increase of consumer disobedience (not paying bills) and crime.  Apparently there is a sharp rise of meter fiddling happening now.
The consequences of not paying debt is not great, but also often the full debt is then not paid, once people realise this there is a chance they have a low debt compliance for the rest of their life.

This would be a disaster.  Also I am aware pre payment meters can get fitted to enforce payment of energy debt, but if the levels go high enough there is a reasonable chance they wont be able to install these new meters in a timely manner.  In addition it wont help on other unpaid debts that will be accrued.

Lloyds bank revealed the averaged out bank balance is just £500.

ian1246

I feel pretty worried. We moved into a oldish house last June - gas use 21,000 kwH over the course of the year and our electricity use 3700 kwH - I've since had cavity insulation put in, but need to get loft insulation upgraded - the issue is we have dormer loft rooms, so don't have a loft (just a tiny ventilation space), which means to upgrade the insulation will involve ripping down the ceiling plaster board & installing new - not to mention the dormer windows (the sides) themselves probably also need insulating. About 1/3 of the house is a solid wall also....

So, basically we re in a bit of a tight spot for heating. As for electricity... whoever put in the lights was mad. We have 18(!!!!) Bulbs in our main lighting in the hall/living room, split between 3 switches, each switch operating 3 lots of 2 wall mounted lights, all on dimmer switches. Needless to say- we re going to swap out the dimmer switches for normal switches and that in turn will allow us to replace the current E rating bulbs with A** ones. As for other electric use.... some of the other rooms are equally insane (4 bulbs in the kitchen for a 3.5metre by 3 metre space), so need to work out a solution, whilst trying to push our other electricity use down.

Fortunately we re fixed till next August with octopus energy, but its still scary knowing what's coming. Currently I m projecting a rise from £138 to £400+. 

Happily, we have a 12month lead up to this. That gives us time to do some improvements to the house and *hopefully*, we ll be able to save up enough to pay off my student loan early (it would be paid off in another 10years or so at current rates), which would free up around £200+ from being deducted from my wages, covering a large chunk of the energy cost rise.

Sea_Shell

Chrysalis said:

The situation is not sustainable.  That alone will mean something else get done, whatever that may be.

Think of the consequences of the government ignoring whats going on.

The first obvious consequence will be more and more bounced or cancelled direct debits.
Another one is that consumer spending on other goods and service will plummet.  This obviously is bad for the economy, in particular I can see the service sector taking a large hit.
There is already news reports of people taking on debt to pay their energy bills, the BBC has one on a guy taking out a 5k loan.
Unchecked energy bill rises will keep pushing up inflation.  Which puts pressure on the government and is likely to lead to high interest rates.
High interest rates puts pressure on paying for their housing, probably both home owners and private renters.
There will be an increase of consumer disobedience (not paying bills) and crime.  Apparently there is a sharp rise of meter fiddling happening now.
The consequences of not paying debt is not great, but also often the full debt is then not paid, once people realise this there is a chance they have a low debt compliance for the rest of their life.

This would be a disaster.  Also I am aware pre payment meters can get fitted to enforce payment of energy debt, but if the levels go high enough there is a reasonable chance they wont be able to install these new meters in a timely manner.  In addition it wont help on other unpaid debts that will be accrued.

Lloyds bank revealed the averaged out bank balance is just £500.

Add to that list, the number of people who will have no choice but to reduce any pension contributions that they may currently be making, therefore being less able to provide for themselves in retirement.    

The "can" can be kicked a long long way down the road, if you boot it hard enough!!!!