The Cost Of Living Crisis

[Nuff Said 5,142]

29 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

In fact we will end up cold and dirty as nobody will put the washing machine on or shower. And how many tumble dryers will be on Marketplace?

I have started wearing things more than once *if* they are still clean, but that’s as much about the environmental impact as money saving. I guess that is a positive unintended consequence of the crisis, most of the mitigation measures people will take will also be good for the environment. As we saw during lockdown, emissions were right down and some of that has persisted.

[1902 1,167]

1 hour ago, keelansgrandad said:

In fact we will end up cold and dirty as nobody will put the washing machine on or shower. And how many tumble dryers will be on Marketplace?

So, you are saying that Russian soldiers really didn't need to go to war?

[1902 1,167]

53 minutes ago, sonyc said:

It's a good tip. And for many people your approach makes common sense and will save resources and money. The real worry is that people who are in good health and under the age of 75 can tolerate such measures but those older often cannot and have to have heat on. Like my mother in law (90) ...she has to have the heating. It would be dangerous for her if she didn't!

Even with government help it won't be enough for some not to be badly hit in the pocket. The cap at £2500 still has meant a £500 increase for the poorest people. Quite a sad human story and I just hope we don't hear of many shocking stories as winter comes.

 

 

That's my fear as well but I hope that lower usage by those of us under 75 will see lower prices across the continent. Tbh, price pressure alone will see a lot of Europe keeping its thermostats down and probably keeping the heating off for longer. That might mean that December-Jan-Feb is not as difficult.

Edited September 28, 2022 by 1902

[Essjayess 307]

19 minutes ago, 1902 said:

That's my fear as well but I hope that lower usage by those of us under 75 will see lower prices across the continent. Tbh, price pressure alone will see a lot of Europe keeping its thermostats down and probably keeping the heating off for longer. That might mean that December-Jan-Feb is not as difficult.

Think those who are prone to the cold are feeling it right now, partly due to the long, hot and dry Summer we just had, just a short few weeks ago it was in the 90s or higher and suddenly we are back to normal service with rain and 50s in the day and 40s at night..thats a big drop and not what we are used to.

Would be ironic if us and Europe in general had a pretty long and harshly cold Dec to Feb winter...we are for sure due one and the way things are going......well, lets hope its not.

[Nuff Said 5,142]

3 minutes ago, Mr Angry said:

I work in the Revenues and Benefits section for two local authorities. We've just had an e-mail telling us that 13,500 of the residents across both authorities who were eligible to receive the £150 Energy Rebate Grant have not applied. The closing date has passed so we are going to credit their Council Tax account with £150 each.

It may be that most of these people would prefer to have the payment credited to their Council Tax account anyway although that is not the experience I have had with people who have made complaints about the application process. 

13,500 seems a huge number (although I suppose it depends on what the total number eligible was). Is that because it was hard to claim, poorly advertised or people didn’t want it?

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

45 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

13,500 seems a huge number (although I suppose it depends on what the total number eligible was). Is that because it was hard to claim, poorly advertised or people didn’t want it?

Can't successive Governments see that there is  too much dependency on benefits. Until they realise we are in a good position to make this country a high wage economy, and indeed show some will to achieve or even recognise it, there will be massive numders qualifying for benefits.

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

Will get more of a clue re. the use of a heated throw next month bearing in mind I only got mine a couple of weeks ago, but bearing in mind I've been hitting that hard my electricity consumption doesn't seem to have changed much. There is the obvious caveat that I was away for a week in total on two different trips to Warsaw and Vilnius though.

Noticed that the storage heater in my hallway was on fairly high, so turned that down a fair bit to compensate. My aim's simple though - to use the grants and keep my monthly instalments such that I put myself several hundred ahead for August next year when my fixed rate contract expires. If prices have stabilised by then (a big if), I can claim a nice rebate, and if not then I'm not so badly hit by higher rates.

[Mr Angry 1,562]

1 hour ago, Nuff Said said:

13,500 seems a huge number (although I suppose it depends on what the total number eligible was). Is that because it was hard to claim, poorly advertised or people didn’t want it?

The uptake is 76% in one authority and 73% in the other.

It's possibly a combination of all 3-people who pay by Direct Debit were told that they didn't have to make a claim as it would be paid automatically-although this is not the case if the name on the bill doesn't exactly match the name on the bank account. The Government told us we had to put a 2 line message on this year's Council Tax bill about the payment but I don't know how much advertising we did. Both authorities have the same Section Head and I know we're not exactly proactive in some areas and our websites leave a lot to be desired-something which is very frustrating for me as I deal with appeals and complaints, as a lot of our policies-that we have to publicise by law-aren't publicised. Unfortunately our Section Head is also a bit of a control freak and gets involved in all sorts of lower level stuff that should be delegated to others.

[Mr Angry 1,562]

23 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Can't successive Governments see that there is  too much dependency on benefits. Until they realise we are in a good position to make this country a high wage economy, and indeed show some will to achieve or even recognise it, there will be massive numders qualifying for benefits.

This wasn't a benefit-you get it if your property is in Band A-D regardless of your financial circumstances.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, Mr Angry said:

This wasn't a benefit-you get it if your property is in Band A-D regardless of your financial circumstances.

I mean any benefits.

[Nuff Said 5,142]

9 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

Can't successive Governments see that there is  too much dependency on benefits. Until they realise we are in a good position to make this country a high wage economy, and indeed show some will to achieve or even recognise it, there will be massive numders qualifying for benefits.

Easy to say when you don’t need them.

[nevermind, neoliberalism has had it 159]

Could it be that these people who have not applied for this 'reverse truck system' realise that this is money that will be given to them to be spent on energy bills, only.

[Barbe bleu 826]

37 minutes ago, nevermind, neoliberalism has had it said:

Could it be that these people who have not applied for this 'reverse truck system' realise that this is money that will be given to them to be spent on energy bills, only.

No

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

12 hours ago, Nuff Said said:

Easy to say when you don’t need them.

I know it is. I did post how I was astounded that I will be getting the £400 plus another £200 winter fuel allowance when my tariff is fixed until August 2023. I don't deserve it. I am lucky that Mrs KG and I are what is called comfortable.

The money I am getting would be better going to a genuine case.

My point about benefits is that Thatcher used them to create a low wage economy. She used reliance on the state, an anathema to the Tory Party, via benefits, to drive everything down. In that 40 years we have come to acknowledge benefits as part of the weekly income rather than something that was there if you fell on hard times.

[Pyro Pete 1,897]

Just a reminder that a cost-of-living protest is happening in Norwich on Saturday, if anyone's interested.

Starting at 11am, on King Street near Last Pub Standing, NR1 1PD

https://m.facebook.com/events/s/enough-is-enough-national-day-/420002796934039/

https://twitter.com/norwicheie/status/1574513662814986241

[Nuff Said 5,142]

4 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

I know it is. I did post how I was astounded that I will be getting the £400 plus another £200 winter fuel allowance when my tariff is fixed until August 2023. I don't deserve it. I am lucky that Mrs KG and I are what is called comfortable.

The money I am getting would be better going to a genuine case.

My point about benefits is that Thatcher used them to create a low wage economy. She used reliance on the state, an anathema to the Tory Party, via benefits, to drive everything down. In that 40 years we have come to acknowledge benefits as part of the weekly income rather than something that was there if you fell on hard times.

Surprisingly, Boris Johnson seemed to be trying to reverse that trend, talking about a rise in real wages, but I guess Truss has thrown that out of the window now. She appears to be pushing the low cost, low regulation ideology to allow her billionaire backers to squeeze the maximum profit out of the UK’s workers. But she’ll probably argue that we can’t afford to maintain benefits at their current level with the level of debt we are now heading for.

There are many options to donate your government payments if you want to redirect them to others who need them more:

• National Energy Action https://www.nea.org.uk/donate/
• Turn2us https://www.turn2us.org.uk/
• The Trossell Trust https://www.trusselltrust.org/

And sadly hundreds more.

[Pyro Pete 1,897]

115,000 posties on strike today, arguing for fair pay.

[KernowCanary 214]

1 hour ago, Pyro Pete said:

115,000 posties on strike today, arguing for fair pay.

“Solidarity”, they keep saying.

Sod em I say, workshy ar$ewipes messing up small businesses!. I work at a place where our clients are elderly and so cannot use a computer to fill in a form, let alone e-mail to send it off. Old fashioned pen to paper and a stamp on an envelope is all they are familiar with when it comes to communication away from the phone and talking to others verbally face to face and it shows; ever since the strikes there is hardly any work on!.

They should be ashamed for creating these problems and for simply copycat bandwagon jumping with the train lot and the barristers.

I encourage anyone running a small business to turn to the courriers.

Just stop sending us back to the 70s and making the 20s the worse decade since the 40s even more so!!!!. It totally annoys me that there are people who rely on these services that support the strikers and keep saying “Solidarity” so many times until the word becomes annoying!.

Getting back on topic, I’m glad Martin Lewis has learnt to keep his mouth shut for once. He was dying to start talking his claptrap as soon as this “crisis” began, none of it was helpful and I don’t know anyone who’s saved money by watching his overproduced “Specials” with a ridiculous production budget on ITV. He just keeps shouting down webcams and hasn’t done anything helpful whatsoever.

“Crisis”, try using that word in regards to those people in Ukraine, scum media.

Edited October 13, 2022 by KernowCanary

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

Just looked at Octopus's prices for kilowatt hours and such, and decided to do a tariff compare via uSwitch. This is one of those times where I have come away very well when I fixed my prices for two years last October (thought it was August, but that was the name of the tariff so must have been when they started it).

Hell. Prices are three times higher per kilowatt hour. uSwitch said I was definitely on the best rate, but that's no longer available. So whilst I don't need the benefit they're giving me - as said before Octopus had automatically reduced my DD to £3 a month to take the grant into account, I put it back to £60 (was paying £70 before), I definitely will use this as a buffer for when my fixed rate deal expires simply as I don't know if these hugely elevated electricity prices will remain into October next year.

If this new electric throw saves me a fair bit compared to the storage heater in my open-plan area, and next summer is like previous ones, I might end up about £800 ahead.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

Forget energy. What are mortgages going to cost by Christmas?

[Pyro Pete 1,897]

Even the Waitrose crowd are turning to Spam and corned beef:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/20/spam-and-pilchards-are-back-as-cost-of-living-crisis-makes-cooks-more-thrifty

Actually, I love corned beef cakes!

[sonyc 5,525]

 

 

[Tetteys Jig 830]

35 minutes ago, sonyc said:

 

 

A fair way to go to get to pre 2022 levels but we’ll take it for now!

[KernowCanary 214]

Just like Covid, the commercials are constantly referencing this latest bad news media story of the moment.

[ricardo 7,395]

On 13/10/2022 at 21:24, Pyro Pete said:

115,000 posties on strike today, arguing for fair pay.

Look on the brightside, bills may not arrive.

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,187]

34 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Look on the brightside, bills may not arrive.

Are paper bills sent to people's homes still a thing?

Mine get sent straight to my bank account 

[Pyro Pete 1,897]

BBC News - University staff to strike over pay and pensions

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-63351675

[Pyro Pete 1,897]

115,000 posties are on strike today, fighting for fair pay and conditions.

[Pyro Pete 1,897]

Now ambulance workers are voting on strike action.

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

52 minutes ago, Pyro Pete said:

Now ambulance workers are voting on strike action.

 

Its Putin's illegal war that is causing this