Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Baileys_Babe

Beautiful socks @marionmgcars

EssexHebridean

Lovely socks Marion!

ouch to your broadband cost Foxgloves - that’s extortionate! I’ve not seen our increase notification from Vod@f0ne as yet - we’re currently paying £22 a month though (for fast fibre - more than good enough for MrEH to WFH, and for the occasional bit of streaming etc. I assume that as you are more rural than us you’re in one of those areas where the more budget friendly options aren’t available. 

The prepayment meter issue currently creating headlines - the “forced” installation of PP meters - has been going on for a long while, and definitely through the last several changes of “colour” in power in Westminster. There is a very robust process in place to deal with this issue - and in the British Gas case which is currently in the news it sounds like somewhere along the line this system has failed or been bypassed which I completely agree should not be able to happen. Vulnerable people should be on the priority services register too - which entirely changes the way they have to be dealt with. In most of the cases highlighted by the media it’s been very evident that registration onto that scheme has not happened - and of course it’s not possible for suppliers to know that someone is vulnerable unless they are told! (I’ve certainly taken steps to ensure that my Mum is registered with her suppliers - and actually ensured that MrEH’s parents were myself when I dealt with their energy transfers after their house move). I believe Ofgem’s website has full details of the process for dealing with non communicating persist on payers, if anyone is interested in fact-finding on the subject. The problem is, in the case of someone simply not willing to pay for the energy they use, or someone accessing that energy fraudulently- there SHOULD be a process in place to deal with it, otherwise the cost of that energy use ends up falling to all honest consumers - and that includes pushing up the price for those vulnerable, struggling consumers who DO make every effort to ensure that their priority bills are paid!  

Makingabobor2

Wow, that broadband cost is terrible. We pay £38 at the moment, for another year, then it will be reviewed and we will haggle again. That is with V/gn and we have internet, TV & landline in that price. Every time they write and say it is going up, DG rings and haggles, threatens to leave, quotes them their advertised price for new customers and tells them they should appreciate loyal customers more etc etc. We've been with them for about 20 years now. 

foxgloves

@Makingabobor2 - We are with VM. Mr F has done a fair bit of haggling with them in the past, but as soon as we had no landline, they were not as accomodating. I loathe the industry as a whole - tax avoiders all over the place.
F

Suffolk_lass

Just in case it helps Mr foxgloves, we are in a rural village, FTC not premises yet and have just signed up for a 24 month Plusnet contract for phone and broadband (min guaranteed speed is 53.9mps) Unlimited Fibre Extra (no calls included) 24 months from 19 Jan 2023 £23.99. Mr SL also gets his mobile through them for £8.94 per month for 12 gb data and unlimited calls & texts. Apparently there is a referral option that if quoted, knocks about £1.24 per month off the referring account details. So if you want it, PM me and I will send you the link and our username. I know you said you don't have a landline but this is still cheaper. Here's a link to their full fibre offering (no phone line required). From £25.99 per month.

The only thing I would add is I bought a BT Home-Hub 6 and configured it myself for our Plusnet ISP as the Plusnet router at that time had a recurring problem with dropping out. If you were moving to a full-fibre service that router does work with it.

Have a good day x

foxgloves

Thanks for that info @Suffolk_lass. Mr F is defo getting onto it at the weekend & will be comparing all the options. I'll pass on your info as he always likes to get a comprehensive picture before he makes a decision. No, we don't have a landline. My parents were the only people who called us on it, so after they died, we got rid of it & now just use our mobiles. Our mobiles are with a different network & are still in contract. They're not linked to our broadband supplier at all. We do like the very fast internet speeds of VM, but £50 per month just for broadband.....well, it's taking the p*ss, isn't it?
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Makingabobor2

Its odd what you say about being charged all that but its only for internet. One time when DH rang to haggle, he asked how much cheaper it would be if we got rid of the TV package...which is only the basic package anyway, and they said the price would go up if we didn't have TV as it is cheaper for us to have a complete package.....how they work that out I don't know. One year they even sent us a new upgraded Tivo box, just to stop us leaving. 

foxgloves

There seems to be little logical rhyme or reason to their charging. We expected a small price drop when we ditched the phone, but were told the landline made no difference to the cost. We did have a TV package from them years ago, but we got rid of it after realising we mostly watched Channel 4, the BBC & a few Freeview channels. When Mr F rang them, they couldn't believe we didn't want Disney or sports channels. Re Disney,Mr F said we don't have any children. So the advisor said "Well what about your grandchildren?" It was pointed out that if one doesn't have children, one doesn't have grandchildren! So the guy actually said "Well what about when you have the neighbours' children round?" .....at which point Mr F said that would be his worst nightmare!
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Humdinger1

Clutching at straws...or reading from a script regardless of what answers come back perhaps?! Xx

Makingabobor2

Oh my word, just shows they don't listen to what people actually say. My GKs come round but they don't want to watch Disney....its either football, F1 or Top Gear for the bigs ones, and CBeebies for the little one, that's if they actually watch TV, they'd rather play games on their phones and tablets....lol  The world has changed and not always in a good way.....gosh I'm sounding old