The rising cost of living

[markavfc40]

Just looking at the weather and every night for the next couple of weeks it is going to be freezing and even in the day not get much above freezing. I really feel for people struggling now and can sympathise with @Jonesy7211. Even with government help average energy costs have doubled since start of the year. 

[Genie]

11 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

Just looking at the weather and every night for the next couple of weeks it is going to be freezing and even in the day not get much above freezing. I really feel for people struggling now and can sympathise with @Jonesy7211. Even with government help average energy costs have doubled since start of the year. 

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the energy costs. It’s on top of food, drink, petrol, mortgage etc etc. It’s absolutely brutal.

[sidcow]

52 minutes ago, Genie said:

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the energy costs. It’s on top of food, drink, petrol, mortgage etc etc. It’s absolutely brutal.

It's genuinely life changing stuff. 

And as with anything it hits the poor worse. 

For me it hits spare cash and eats into savings. 

For others its destitution. 

We really really need to wean ourselves off fossil fuel urgently and electricity needs to be decoupled from gas now. 

Then transport costs tumble with electric vehicle running costs and heat pumps pay for themselves quickly meaning cheaper heating and for the long term. Forever really. 

[Jonesy7211]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the energy costs. It’s on top of food, drink, petrol, mortgage etc etc. It’s absolutely brutal.

It's hitting everyone, and I'd consider myself to be fairly lucky in that I can afford three meals a day for the whole family, send my kids to two clubs a week, buy Christmas presents etc.

It absolutely breaks my heart that some families cannot even afford to feed their kids, and that's before you consider heating and other things we take for granted. There truly is a crisis in this country. I've never known it so bad. The Tories and their policies of milking the taxpayer dry and cutting public services dry to pass profits on to their mates have a lot to answer for.

[phily85]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

It's genuinely life changing stuff. 

And as with anything it hits the poor worse. 

For me it hits spare cash and eats into savings. 

For others its destitution. 

We really really need to wean ourselves off fossil fuel urgently and electricity needs to be decoupled from gas now. 

Then transport costs tumble with electric vehicle running costs and heat pumps pay for themselves quickly meaning cheaper heating and for the long term. Forever really. 

I've seen you post this a few times what does it mean?

[Genie]

5 minutes ago, phily85 said:

I've seen you post this a few times what does it mean?

I think it means the price of electricity is currently tied to the price of gas, even if gas is not used to generate the electricity.

We need to break that connection, then green electricity will be far, far cheaper.

[sidcow]

42 minutes ago, phily85 said:

I've seen you post this a few times what does it mean?

What @Genie said. 

Currently if we produce 23.5 hours of cheap electricity from wind and solar to power the nation, but 1 gas turbine is switched on for the last half hour, the whole days electricity is paid at the expensive gas price. 

I don't think we've ever had a day yet where renewables have provided 100% of electricity (though that day will come) so we're just not benefitting from dirt cheap electricity. 

It's madness, electricity is artificially much higher than it should be now we're getting a substantial amount from renew sources. 

Once you break that cycle and we pay the true (cheap) cost then things like heat pumps become substantially cheaper to run than gas boilers and electric cars are far cheaper to run than petrol cars. 

And no nation or global events change that cost.  As long as the wind blows and the sun shines we have cheap power. 

Need grid scale storage and home batteries for a buffer and we will have expensive Nuclear supplements in an emergency. 

It's a complete no brainer and needs doing urgently. 

We've just opened the worlds largest windfarm and are opening a bigger one next year. 

And the very very cheapest electricity is from land based turbines. 

The cheapest AND quickest to build yet the frigging Tories are against it.  Utter madness full stop let alone in an energy crisis. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by sidcow

[phily85]

so is directly in the power of government to decouple them or is it something that needs to be negotiated with the energy companies who will obviously be reluctant because of profits

[sidcow]

7 minutes ago, phily85 said:

so is directly in the power of government to decouple them or is it something that needs to be negotiated with the energy companies who will obviously be reluctant because of profits

It's in the power of the Government to re-negotiate the deals. 

There is a bill due early next year but expect it to be watered down as usual. 

Yes the companies enjoy the profits and will argue that they won't earn enough to invest in more windfarms. But they were building windfarms quite happily at the price point of electricity from 12-18 months ago so they can't argue that going back to those kind of levels is unsustainable, but even that was way over their actual generation cost. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by sidcow

[Demitri_C]

I know its not perfect way to live but for now to save money have people looked into electric blankets? Ive found one its fantastic and its only 4p a hour to run keeps me super warm

[Genie]

11 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I know its not perfect way to live but for now to save money have people looked into electric blankets? Ive found one its fantastic and its only 4p a hour to run keeps me super warm

Octopus energy have been giving tens of thousands of them away for free to its customers.

Personally I’m fine once in bed, I wouldn’t use an electric blanket very often. 

[stuart_75]

42 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I know its not perfect way to live but for now to save money have people looked into electric blankets? Ive found one its fantastic and its only 4p a hour to run keeps me super warm

Every bed in my house now has one. Can't put the heating on so the blankets are on smart plugs and get turned on 20mins before bedtime. I'd be lost without them now.

[sidcow]

41 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I know its not perfect way to live but for now to save money have people looked into electric blankets? Ive found one its fantastic and its only 4p a hour to run keeps me super warm

My daughter has a very cold room. Above the garage and uninsulated sloping roof above. 

I got her an electric heater as the central heating is off much more and thinking about and electric blanket too. 

[Demitri_C]

Honestly lads its a life saver right now i can dee dales going through the roof once people realise how good some are

48 minutes ago, Genie said:

Octopus energy have been giving tens of thousands of them away for free to its customers.

Personally I’m fine once in bed, I wouldn’t use an electric blanket very often. 

Didnt know that thsnks for sharing. For me i have leather sofas in one of the rooms so u can imagine how coldthat gets with wooden floor combined! So the electric  blanket comes in handy

[Xela]

On 05/12/2022 at 13:20, Jonesy7211 said:

Due to the rising cost of gas, we're not turning the heating on as often as we used to, which is probably true for a lot of people. However, I'm faced with an ethical dilemma. I do not have a smart meter, and a close family member who is also a gas engineer has offered to swap my meter around to a dummy one and then reverse the change every two weeks, meaning that I won't be charged for any usage during the time the dummy meter is connected as I'll only give the meter reading for the meter my company know about. I know that this is an illegal practice, however my wife and youngest child both have asthma, and are coughing terribly at night due to cold. We only turn the heating on for an hour at bed time, but it's still not enough. I'm not going to suddenly start wasting heat by having my windows open and the heating on, but I'd like to run the heat at a low temp overnight to allow my wife and child to sleep properly and not suffer with asthma.

Just wondering what other board members might do in the same situation?

I am doing everything else I can to reduce my energy usage, but I have two young kids and a family home to run. We use a fair bit just on the washing machine and dryer.

Don't do it. 

Cut back on some other things if you can first. 

[Xela]

10 hours ago, Genie said:

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the energy costs. It’s on top of food, drink, petrol, mortgage etc etc. It’s absolutely brutal.

I'm ok with the energy stuff, luckily. I haven't had the heating on today, not needed it. I'm feeling it in my shopping more than anything. My weekly shop has doubled! I may be eating more though as I bursting at the seams! 

[bickster]

7 hours ago, sidcow said:

We've just opened the worlds largest windfarm and are opening a bigger one next year. 

Largest offshore, not the largest

[sidcow]

14 minutes ago, bickster said:

Largest offshore, not the largest

 

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, Xela said:

I'm ok with the energy stuff, luckily. I haven't had the heating on today, not needed it. I'm feeling it in my shopping more than anything. My weekly shop has doubled! I may be eating more though as I bursting at the seams! 

It'll be standard unleaded next

 

[Genie]

33 minutes ago, sidcow said:

It'll be standard unleaded next

 

My brother in law run his transit van on super plus unleaded  He‘s one of these that would never put “cheap” supermarket petrol in his car. Now that it’s more expensive than some other garages it must really confuse him.