Energy bills caps to be raised by 80% from 1st of October.

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I had already seen customers could expect to pay 58p per kWh (I currently pay 19.093p until 30/9/22) and standing charges up to around 50p+ per day, before the cap was announced. Then another article thought energy would be around £6000 per year by April. That's 75% of my State Pension, and almost half my total income. I've been putting aside what I can to cover this winter but now realise it's not nearly enough, even with the handout. That £400 won't even cover one month. I bet the sale of thermal underwear has shot up!
 
As I spend a lot of time on the pc I have signed 3 petitions to try and stop this just this morning, in fact I have been signing them for quite a while, there is also the can't pay, won't pay group, we shall see how It all goes
 
john e said:
As I spend a lot of time on the pc I have signed 3 petitions to try and stop this just this morning, in fact I have been signing them for quite a while, there is also the can't pay, won't pay group, we shall see how It all goes
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I suppose it's good that our future PM candidates are talking a bit about the problem, now that they've established that they're against wokeness and stressed the importance of single sex bathrooms (apparently the most urgent issues confronting the country). They've still not proposed anything anywhere nearly significant enough to address it but I imagine they feel there's not much advantage in doing that yet (none of the options are going to be popular amongst Conservative Party members).
 
We got in touch with our energy supplier and opted to sign up for another fixed rate which will start when our current one runs out early September and we have nailed that down for the next year - we will be paying 53.0g pKWH for leccy and 13.43 pKWH for gas instead of 20.32 - leccy and 3.97 gas previously. We've budgeted for that and fingers crossed things will be more sensible in a year's time. My mum's fixed rate runs out in a couple of months and she has a big old house with archaic heating so I dread to think what her bills will end up.
 
We are already making all reasonable reductions in the use of gas and electricity, switching off lights, minimum use of the washing machine, hanging up clothes carefully so they don't need ironing, not using the big oven - but I am fuming about the profits being made by the suppliers and the dividends paid out when some people already can't afford what they are being charged.
 
Yet Isle of Man has capped energy prices at current level until March next year.

Really is annoying when in times of crisis so many companies are raking in vast profits, BP Shell being just 2.
 
nonethewiser said:
Yet Isle of Man has capped energy prices at current level until March next year.

Really is annoying when in times of crisis so many companies are raking in vast profits, BP Shell being just 2.
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It is up to the government to set caps and distribute windfall taxes. The utility providers are bound by law to maximise profits for their shareholders and can be prosecuted if they fail to do so. Legally speaking the only way to stop them making huge profits is by government control. Which is why the Isle of Man can do so as they have the authority and have chosen to use it. Our government has chosen not to do that.
 
NotWorriedAtAll said:
Legally speaking the only way to stop them making huge profits is by government control.
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Which is already done, though energy suppliers aren't really making profits at present. The cap was intended to stop suppliers from ripping off customers who didn't switch every few months (or at least reduce the amount by which they were ripped off), and (unsurprisingly) it sucks at protecting consumers now.

Energy producers are making big profits but they're not really part of the discussion at present. The government (in its wisdom) decided to split the market between producers and suppliers to prevent a unified producer/supplier from offering better rates to its customers than a supplier that bought on the open market. Which makes sense if you're ideologically committed to producing a market in energy suppliers (forcing customers to switch suppliers every few months). Doesn't seem so relevant now.
 
NotWorriedAtAll said:
It is up to the government to set caps and distribute windfall taxes. The utility providers are bound by law to maximise profits for their shareholders and can be prosecuted if they fail to do so. Legally speaking the only way to stop them making huge profits is by government control. Which is why the Isle of Man can do so as they have the authority and have chosen to use it. Our government has chosen not to do that.
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France have (or are in the middle of) nationalising EDF and so the price rises for their citizens has been kept at 4%
 
Well my mum has been offered a fixed rate deal from her energy supplier which comes to £9,000 pa!!!!

One ninety year old person living in a house!!!
We are getting to grips with trying to reduce her energy consumption and have been trying for years but she is stubborn - or has been over the years.

Fingers crossed she will finally acquiesce to a new boiler which is long overdue and all the other measures we need to take to get her consumption down drastically without making and negative impact on her activities. This year we finally managed to stop her using a huge electric oven to make two pieces of toast instead of using her toaster!!

We installed a timer switch on her immersion heater this weekend to prevent her forgetting to turn it off and we are going to make some changes to her heating and hot water system to make it less wasteful and we are going to paper some of her rooms with silver paper and polystyrene lining paper before putting the decorative stuff over it. Then we will set the thermostats on some rooms to just frost protection and persuade her to keep doors closed to the colder rooms.

We have also started a claim for attendance allowance for her - another thing she's been resistant about up until now. She is legally blind (amongst other things) after a stroke eight years ago but has not had that officially diagnosed yet - so that is going to happen next week - we've organised a home visit for her to be officially diagnosed.

So needless to say she is not signing up for the fixed rate of £9,000 - she's on £2,000 a year until October which gives us some time to get her energy consumption down and fingers crossed to get the attendance allowance sorted too.

We are lucky that we have strategies to cope with all this but it is still very scary. £9,000 is half my mum's yearly income and up until now she's been doing quite well except for this awful lack of being careful of her carbon footprint.
 
NotWorriedAtAll said:
Well my mum has been offered a fixed rate deal from her energy supplier which comes to £9,000 pa!!!!

One ninety year old person living in a house!!!
We are getting to grips with trying to reduce her energy consumption and have been trying for years but she is stubborn - or has been over the years.

Fingers crossed she will finally acquiesce to a new boiler which is long overdue and all the other measures we need to take to get her consumption down drastically without making and negative impact on her activities. This year we finally managed to stop her using a huge electric oven to make two pieces of toast instead of using her toaster!!

We installed a timer switch on her immersion heater this weekend to prevent her forgetting to turn it off and we are going to make some changes to her heating and hot water system to make it less wasteful and we are going to paper some of her rooms with silver paper and polystyrene lining paper before putting the decorative stuff over it. Then we will set the thermostats on some rooms to just frost protection and persuade her to keep doors closed to the colder rooms.

We have also started a claim for attendance allowance for her - another thing she's been resistant about up until now. She is legally blind (amongst other things) after a stroke eight years ago but has not had that officially diagnosed yet - so that is going to happen next week - we've organised a home visit for her to be officially diagnosed.

So needless to say she is not signing up for the fixed rate of £9,000 - she's on £2,000 a year until October which gives us some time to get her energy consumption down and fingers crossed to get the attendance allowance sorted too.

We are lucky that we have strategies to cope with all this but it is still very scary. £9,000 is half my mum's yearly income and up until now she's been doing quite well except for this awful lack of being careful of her carbon footprint.
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Wow - and I thought my £6000 was high, for a small 2-bed modern terrace with full insulation and modern double glazing. That's almost 50% of my pension income. I just don't see how Truss' plan of reducing NI and taxes will help me, or the vast majority on pensioners. I don't pay NI and my monthly tax wouldn't even buy a meal out - not that I shall be doing any more of that either!
 
Felinia said:
I just don't see how Truss' plan of reducing NI and taxes will help me, or the vast majority on pensioners.
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It won't. The positive spin is that she's not saying what her real plans are because anything that would actually be effective would be unpopular in the Conservative Party. I suspect it's more that neither candidate is really willing to do something genuinely sufficient. But we'll see, I guess.

Seems hard to believe any government would just allow tens of thousands (or more) people to die through destitution, but who knows.
 
My latest purchase that I am eagerly awaiting is a hand cranked washing machine!!! :rofl:
There were some models on Amazon over a hundred quid and some well over a hundred quid but they all operate on the same principle.
Basically they are like a large salad spinner and you agitate the laundry first then drain it and then do it again with detergent and then drain again and then add the spinner and place the wrung out clothes back in and spin and then you should be able to hang things up to dry or tumble them for a short time.
I already had microfibre towels that dry very quickly and I have bought similar leggings and new seamless underwear that washes and dries very easily so a large proportion of my washing should now be much less demanding on our power consumption.
Hubby looked around online and found the same model that was cheapest on Amazon available even cheaper directly from Aldi so we haven't overspent. Given the rise in price of power it should pay for itself fairly quickly. I also think it will count as increasing my activity level which is good for my diabetes.

I suspect it is still a bit over priced even though the cheapest I can get it but fingers crossed it will do the job and I might even find it fun to use.

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NotWorriedAtAll said:
My latest purchase that I am eagerly awaiting is a hand cranked washing machine!!! :rofl:
There were some models on Amazon over a hundred quid and some well over a hundred quid but they all operate on the same principle.
Basically they are like a large salad spinner and you agitate the laundry first then drain it and then do it again with detergent and then drain again and then add the spinner and place the wrung out clothes back in and spin and then you should be able to hang things up to dry or tumble them for a short time.
I already had microfibre towels that dry very quickly and I have bought similar leggings and new seamless underwear that washes and dries very easily so a large proportion of my washing should now be much less demanding on our power consumption.
Hubby looked around online and found the same model that was cheapest on Amazon available even cheaper directly from Aldi so we haven't overspent. Given the rise in price of power it should pay for itself fairly quickly. I also think it will count as increasing my activity level which is good for my diabetes.

I suspect it is still a bit over priced even though the cheapest I can get it but fingers crossed it will do the job and I might even find it fun to use.

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I'm planning to do most of my washing by hand, but I will do the bedding and towels in the washing machine.
 
Amity Island said:
This morning spin to win giving away prizes to pay peoples utility bills. :(

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George Orwell in his novel "1984":

“The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made their living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being nonexistent persons.”
 
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We bought a dehumidifier as we tended to put the washing on an airer in our spare room, but when we had the stairs decorated it was found to be damp from condensation. But with the dehumidifier on for 4 hours it gives out enough heat to dry the clothes, we get about 2 litres of water in the reservoir. It is 600 watts.
 
Leadinglights said:
We bought a dehumidifier as we tended to put the washing on an airer in our spare room, but when we had the stairs decorated it was found to be damp from condensation. But with the dehumidifier on for 4 hours it gives out enough heat to dry the clothes, we get about 2 litres of water in the reservoir. It is 600 watts.
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we have some dehumidifiers because we had condensation in our living room but we found our electricity bills shot up once we used them so I am a bit nervous of using ours now.
 
NotWorriedAtAll said:
we have some dehumidifiers because we had condensation in our living room but we found our electricity bills shot up once we used them so I am a bit nervous of using ours now.
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Interesting as we use one as supplementary heating for our garage well workshop really. I will have to get my OH to test then as he has a plug- in meter.
 
I've had a dehumidifier since early 2000s. First one was an ebac (the compressor type) and it used about 100W I think (I'll have a look later and revise this if needed). The type I have now is the one that heats up zeolite and can use up to 300W if it's on the laundry room setting (which it never is). The first one, the duty cycle was a lot longer. The second one, stays on for a while when first powered up but then settles down and maintains a comfortable humidity. I think in the long run, over a billable quarter it'll use a lot less power than the first one.
 
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