Re: Rising cost of living
 

That’s quite funny OB. A baseless post followed up by a baseless post. Maybe I’m earning more than a Tube driver, for less hours, with less responsibility, concentrating far less and in a cheaper part of the country?

Maybe I’m red-green colour blind?

Maybe all of the above is true. Either way it’s entirely irrelevant and none of your business OB. Your invitation to debate the subject at hand is quite entertaining since you are the one who derailed it.

Pointing out you have no evidence base for your increasingly spurious posts might hurt your feelings OB. However, if you take them as insults then that’s perhaps indicative that you should spend less time clutching at straws on an ever increasing range of topics for which your only interest is to defend the Government and/or denigrate the young and poor.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I’m sure there will be many examples against the trend, particularly those who have in the last few years borrowed at or near the maximum they can for a mortgage. The underlying assumption is a greater rainy day fund and/or greater discretionary expenditure (socialising, holidays, more expensive car). It won’t be the case for everyone, and the squeeze on multiple fronts (mortgage rates) certainly has the potential to exhaust much of this in the coming months for many of those that do have the luxury.

Less discretionary expenditure has wider economic impacts for those employed as a result of it in pubs, cafes, restaurants, retail, etc. I’m certainly not intending to imply they’ll have no problems individually nor present a wider economic problem even if they can tighten their belts accordingly.

Found an interesting read - it doesn’t answer the question but an indication of just how many households savings could be decimated if this lasts a couple of years.

https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/savings...avings-uk#nogo

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Spot on.

But it seems that Unions nowadays are more focused on improving the outcomes of the 45, than the 25 or indeed the 15.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Maybe, but if there's a vote for strike action in local government then I'll be on strike. I'm a union member and knew the 'risks' when I joined so will be out. The future does indeed look very very bleak for some sections of society, very bleak for others and bleak for others. I think it's only a very small percentage of the country that'll be able to absorb the costs with little or no impact to their ongoing lifestyle.

We'll be ok but will have to change our aspersions for the coming year or 2. The holiday we were planning for my wife's 50th will be postponed or scaled back and I'll make my car last another year or so. I know some people will scoff at our concerns and yes in the whole scheme of things I know how lucky we are but I do really worry about some of the junior people at work who just don't have the ability to cut their outgoings as easily as we do and some of them with young families are already hurting so are really going to struggle. If help is put in place to mitigate the rise in fuel costs then that'll help but the general rise in the cost of living is still going to hurt many people.

And this is where my politics varies from many on here. Whatever people say we are one of the wealthiest countries and we should be ashamed at the stress and worry some people are experiencing at the moment. I don't agree in paying people to do nothing, but we must understand not everyone is as able or capable as we are and we must help those less fortunate than us. I've no problem with public services paying their way or even making a profit but I do feel they should be in public ownership so we all benefit from any surplus not just the privileged few or foreign state owned companies. I think it's not too late to become as near to energy self sufficient as possible and it's not to late to set up a sovereign wealth fund to ensure the whole country benefits from the spoils of exploiting our natural resources. If we had a state owned oil company, there'd be no need for windfall taxation because as the owner the country would benefit year after year. I'm sure carbon capture has improved to the point that coal could now be cleaner, indeed the CO2 captured could fill the gap now it's uneconomical to make it in the fertiliser factories.

If all this makes me a leftie in the eyes of some people here then sign me up, because there is a much better way of doing things than the system we have now.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Morrisons is trying to pull a fast one. I received a coupon for £15 off £60 for online sales, delivered or click-and-collect.

I browsed online, and saw Purina One dry catfood on sale at a great price.

So I clicked to add some to my virtual trolley.

It immediately asked me to sign in.

I did so, then searched for the catfood on offer. It no longer was. I logged-out, searched again, and there it is. Still on offer!!

Re: Rising cost of living
 

might be store specific it is on offer till 30th. Did you set a cart date after then ?

Just for reference Amazon has it 4 for £45 with a 20% off voucher for first subscribe and save which you take then cancel if you do not want more. On mine it would be £35 for 4

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Welcome to the dystopian future of capitalism. Dynamic pricing based on who you are, what you can afford, how much you are willing to pay, etc.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Harrods :)

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I set the collection date as today, so a day before the offer ends.

It's the same story today. :(

Re: Rising cost of living
 

The amazon deal is better

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Just shove moggy outside , to scavenge out of bins, kill birds and crap over other peoples gardens like other cat owners. Big saving.:)

Re: Rising cost of living
 

It's depressing reading how much using a washing machine and taking a shower will cost and how much a pint of beer will be, for me it will be a choice of drinking or stinking :shocked:

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Surely there's no choice to be made there? ;)

Re: Rising cost of living
 

That's not a choice. Where would you go anyway if everywhere is shut.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

My cat eats 90% chicken breast topped up with whiskers biscuits.

---------- Post added at 12:13 ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 ----------

Drink at home toasting my smelly feet in front of my coal fuelled stove.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I been washing myself cold since the last price hike. Only use hot water one bowl for washing up a day as for clothes washing I do one full load and drip dry. I guess in the winter I will need to use the rads but I will do it as sparingly as possible

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Well it was the £5.16 costs (jan 23) of cooking a Sunday roast that did it for me.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I remember when i was a child, we only had one tap and it was cold, we had a coal stove and had to boil water on it to fill the tin bath that lived on a hook on the outside wall next to the outside toilet, there was a hierarchy of bath usage and i was last, I thought i would never see people living that way again.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I think a lot of the problem would be solved if they simply stopped tying electricity prices to the price of gas cuz then we could just boil a kettle. The rising prices of food and so on imo pales when compared to the rise in energy prices

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Gas is still used to produce a sizable chunk of our electricity (37% in 2020).

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Octopus buy a very large amount of Green Electricity produced in this country. Why should the bill payer pay the same as gas produced electric ? simply answer is they should not so I repeat I wish they would stop tying Electric prices to Gas prices

Plus using your figures that is 63% of electric that costs should not be tied to gas prices

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Re: Rising cost of living
 

An innovative ecological solution to harness the steam off the previous occupants shit. I applaud it.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

It really is a shame we can not harness the hot air constantly blown across this website hahahaha

Re: Rising cost of living
 

It was beneficial to get on the seat once someone had warmed it up for you.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Picked several bags of blackberries this afternoon. Get brambling, it's a bumper year and they freeze well !

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Preserving's probably better - won't be able to afford to run the freezer early next year...

Re: Rising cost of living
 

The alternative to capitalism as part of a mixed economy is infinitely worse.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

What's not mixed about billions in bailouts and subsidies to the private sector as it is :rofl:

Re: Rising cost of living
 

But then everybody else would bid higher and higher for that limited amount of cheaper electricity, and prices would rise anyway. Who would decide, who gets that cheaper electricity? Also Wind and Solar has to be backed up by gas.
At this very point in times, renewables(includes Biomass) may look fairly good at 30%, but that can drop quite markedly. Think of at night, in winter, with wind producing 3% or less, Biomass at 7%, where is the rest expected to come from?

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I do not care I just want cheaper bills.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Clearly, you’ve conveniently forgotten about all the help given to people during the Covid restrictions and you are not taking account of all the measures the government have already taken to help the poor, let alone measures about to be taken to prevent huge increases to the fuel bill impacting on them.

You need to look at the world through both eyes, not just the dodgy left one. :smokin:

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Now, now OB. No need for your pitiful insults. It's understandable that you have bitterness about the ideology you blindly support being exposed as a case of the Emperor's new clothes but there's no need to take it out on me. I didn't create this series of events although I've sounded the alarm bell for some time.

Those ideas are, somewhat ironically, about to expire like an old retired person under capitalism, weak in mind and body, discarded to the side as no longer useful and unable to contribute to 21st century reality.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Sorry, jfman, but yet another unjustified post from you, with more incorrect assumptions and statements.

Getting on with the topic, I am pointing out that people are already being helped considerably, and there’s more to come when Liz is prime minister.

In case you can’t recollect what Rishi has done already, here’s a gentle reminder.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/m...g-energy-costs

Re: Rising cost of living
 

OB I think you’ll find you are making my points for me here if you revisit what was actually said.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

You’re completely ignoring the fact that the generating market is totally rigged right now. Ending the practice of artificially pricing all sources at the level of the most expensive does not then require an unregulated market to be put in its place. We have a regulator and we know what it actually costs to generate electricity from renewables or nuclear. There’s nothing to stop a cost plus fair profit system being imposed, for at least the duration of the emergency. It would require an Act of Parliament but it can be done.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

:shrug::confused:

Re: Rising cost of living
 

You would need the sort of energy market they have in the US, where prices can vary from moment to moment, depending on where the energy is coming from.
Eg

Which customers would get to pay that? Nearly £10/KWh(unit). That iirc is what happens in the US.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I too remember those days. Don't forget the outdoor look with squares of newspaper on string and the hurricane lamp in over winter to stop the pipes freezing. The "good" old days.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

The price is set be external markets.

The price is set by demand and supply.

We can do two things, increase supply or decrease demand.

We should have had control over supply several years ago. At the moment we’re ****ed and will be for some time.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Not entirely. The gas price is set by the global market but the UK’s internal electricity generation market is rigged so all producers get the same unit rate as the most expensive. The abnormally high gas price means we are paying way, way over the odds for wind, solar, hydro and nuclear right now, because the most expensive electricity is produced by burning gas so that’s what’s setting the market rate.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Re: Rising cost of living
 

You might want to remember (as I pointed out a few months ago), the fact that Octopus "buy" green energy doesnt mean the electricity you use is cheaper, or even green.

Who you pay (Octopus, Bulb etc) has zero bearing at all over where the actual electricity you use comes from, thats entirely controlled by the National Grid.
Switching supplier doesnt magically change where your electic actually comes from. Its perfectly possible (tho unlikely) that 100% of what you use was generated by gas.
It could even have been generated in another country.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I know all that I am not thick hahaha

Are you tired mate? I do not think I have ever seen so many spelling mistakes (well there is only 1) or general lack of punctuation in one of your posts before

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Wonder what price rise VM are planning ? They'd better be careful as their support forum is already full of people trying to downgrade/cancel. After utility bills people might not have much for tv subs.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

my last deal is meant to run with no price rises so guess I will see

Re: Rising cost of living
 

No doubt about that as l know several people who are having to cut their cloth accordingly despite having reasonable paid jobs.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

We'll be looking to dump the TV and phone and go for the minimum BB pack that does the deal. Freeview and free streamers will do the business.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Worth bearing in mind VM Essential Broadband if you want broadband only for £15pm and are on Universal Credit. You can also trade down to this without a penalty. They state Universal Credit as the criteria, I don't know if they can take comparable support into account instead

https://www.virginmedia.com/broadban...ncome-families

See also https://www.express.co.uk/finance/pe...fits-broadband

Re: Rising cost of living
 

It may well come to that but VMs is pitifully slow compared with some other companies alternatives.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Think a lot of folks will be doing that calculation. Do they really need gigabyte broadband, or is 100mb more than enough for their needs. Suspect it is for most.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Maybe none or is that a bit crazy?

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Might be the sensible move and result in more income if they want to keep customers. But when did VM do common sense?

Re: Rising cost of living
 

ASDA Click-and-collect is no longer free. But at 50p it's no great thing.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I have a delivery pass, £35 for the year, giving me free delivery as often as I want (on a Tue/Wed/Thu), and a recurring slot.
Minimum spend is £40, but thats never an issue with 4 adults and a child living here.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I have the same with Tesco. I pay a little more but monthly £3.49

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Sounds fun.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

indeed

https://www.thenational.scot/busines...ple-uk-ransom/

If this claim can be substantiated, it's really a scandal.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I think this might be because we don't/cannot store electricity so we're selling it to Europe in the hope that this winter they'll sell their excess back to us. Not too sure about why the pricing is different though

Re: Rising cost of living
 

We need to invest in electrical storage like Norway does eg pumping water up hill into lakes using wind and solar power and then releasing it when those sources are not generating so much power.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Why is it a scandal? The French consumer may pay lower than a UK consumer, but the French taxpayer is paying the difference.
We don't have a surplus of production as such, but we do have the gas-generated capacity, while France has issues with its Nuclear plants.
We're even exporting to Norway.
You can see the figures here.
We even import from Ireland, which seems odd.

Part of the problem is it may be a National Grid, but still the power has to be roughly in the right area of the country. Eg Over a month ago, London was at risk of a blackout, so we had to import extremely expensive electricity from Belgium, even though overall the UK had the spare capacity, just not in the London area.

---------- Post added at 10:46 ---------- Previous post was at 10:38 ----------

Why are we exporting 1GW to Norway at the moment? :confused: They are having problems with lack of water for their Hydroelectric plants.

We generally don't have the geography to do that(it needs 2 reservoirs per plant), but we do have 4 pumped storage plants. They use electricity at night when demand is lower. Solar isn't going to be much use then.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

If it's to Northern Ireland that makes sense to me.

Because Norway has water problems doesn't mean the UK necessarily has water problems as well. I'm sure that more pumping and storage capacity can be built, it's just that the private sector has less incentive to develop more capacity when it can just by gas on the global market and pass on the costs to the consumer.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I read "IC Irl" as being from Ireland. It may still be, but the link is from NI to Scotland.
Pumped storage needs 2 reservoirs.
At the moment, Pumped Hydro: 0GW, Hydro 0.09GW. Not exactly even a small contribution.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

There's one from the Republic of Ireland to Wales. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E...Interconnector

Pumped storage needs 2 reservoirs.

At the moment, Pumped Hydro: 0GW, Hydro 0.09GW. Not exactly even a small contribution.[/QUOTE]
We need more investment here, then. Not something we've invested in, but as you know, we've not invested in energy infrastructure much in the last 20 years.

---------- Post added at 13:21 ---------- Previous post was at 12:50 ----------

A small morsel of good news for those of you like me, car owners who live near Co-op petrol stations. Generally these are quite pricey for petrol.

However, the chain has now been sold to Asda so hopefully we'll be seeing lower prices under Asda's ownership by the end of the year. :)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...nvenience-push

Re: Rising cost of living
 

You mean more of these.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Yes, thanks for finding it. :) :tu:

This article also suggests some other options:
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/br...070000486.html

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Solar battery storage?

https://www.power-technology.com/mar...age-system-uk/

https://anesco.com/project/slepe-farm/

Re: Rising cost of living
 

We don't have the same geography as Norway. You still need the geography for a reservoir at the bottom. We have 200 hydro-electric plants, but all they can summon up at the moment is 0.08GW.
Pumped storage still needs night-time gas generated electricity, so where's the savings? If there are upper limits to generating capacity, then you are just bringing forward the time of the gas-generated electricity.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Actually pumped storage hydro operates on whatever electricity is in the system at point of need. This is as likely to be wind as anything else as base load is fairly predictable overnight and gas powered plants can be wound down.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

If gas powered plants are still needed overnight, then there are no savings. All it can do is reduce the daytime requirements for gas powered plants, leaving the spare capacity available for surges in demand or generation problems elsewhere. Still doesn't explain why the pumped storage generation is zero.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Pumped storage hydro is exactly what it says it is - a store of energy. A great big battery, in effect. It uses excess base load generation overnight to run the pumps that push water uphill and releases the water back down through the generator during the day. Hydro can spin up very quickly so it is used to satisfy demand spikes especially at peak times.

The overnight electricity comes from sources that can’t easily be stopped, like nuclear, coal/biomass and, to a limited extent, gas, though a gas plant can actually be started and stopped quite quickly at the cost of reduced efficiency. As we can’t control when the wind blows I believe a fair amount of wind power may also end up being used to run the pumps, if the wind is blowing.

There are various reasons why pumped storage may presently be showing zero generation. It might be that in summer the load spikes aren’t there. It might also be that a balance must be maintained with the amount of water flowing naturally in the highlands where most of these systems are. There is reduced rainfall in Scotland this summer, albeit not as bad as in England.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Now I do realise that there are some desperately poor people in the UK but we had an email from the organisation that we sponsor children through about the increase in costs in the communities our children are in.


The price of bread (for example) has increased 300% and many of the families were already spending 60-70% of their income on food. Price rises of that order mean many can not afford food at all. I don't know many people in the west facing that same degree of increase. I'm sure there are some and you can't make direct comparisons but it does make you think (I hope).

Re: Rising cost of living
 

where has bread prices increased 300% ? the seeded batch loaf I buy from Tesco has gone from 90p 800g loaf to £1 even the expensive seeded loaf has only gone up from £1.50 to £1.85. Their cheapest loaf is 36p. You could feed a family of 4 egg and beans on toast for less than £2 or egg chips and beans for the same

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I think it's in Africa.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Real concerns about the care sector. Saw this posted:

The private care home sector will just close the homes if they are unprofitable.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Another post where the figures make no sense. 90k to over a mill is way over a 400% increase and if is 90K each then £1.16mill is way less than 200%

I seen the books in a care home and this was years ago they were charging 600 quid per week per patient (in was a care home for bad cases though)

Re: Rising cost of living
 

It's because the cap only applies to residential. Commercial suppliers can charge what they think they can get away with, they have to cover their costs and that's a bigger worry for government than residential because if the government aren't careful there'll be wholesale failure in the business world.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Another post:

I have no way of verifying these numbers but I see no real advantage in faking this.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Given these type of energy quotes would apply to the vast majority of businesses unless something radical is done very quickly l can foresee a tsunami of business closures.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

They must have been on a good deal before.

Wholesale electricity used to bounce around a bit between 4p and 9p per kwh.
Then in Sept 2021 it rose a bit, and for the next 9 months, bounced around again, mostly between 12p and 20p (with a couple of 35p peaks).
In July 2022 it started to steadily rise, reaching 55p last week. Atm, its dropped to 33p.

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...chmentid=30109

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Agreed - time is of the essence.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Panic-buying was evident in a local supermarket. Shelves stripped of toilet paper, canned goods, flour, bottled water, pasta, and many other items. I thought it was a problem with restocking until I looked around the car park and saw many cars and vans being loaded from multiple trolleys.

I often buy new winter quilts around this time. I had to climb to the top of shelving to get the last 13.5tog ones. The stock shelves had only 8tog ones left.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Something is not quite right then:

https://twitter.com/EdwardsofConwy/s...55345170731008

https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2022/09/1.jpg

Re: Rising cost of living
 

There's also a likely hike in standing charges to consider as well, to bail out the likes of Bulb.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Because domestic energy has a cap, could it be businesses are being forced to make up the shortfall for energy companies?

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Very probably. They have to pay their bills to the wholesalers. The energy market is very convoluted, with daily prices, week-ahead, month-ahead, etc. You have to be a bit of a soothsayer to get the best deals.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

any chance you can shrink this image but it is blowing up my browser :)

Re: Rising cost of living
 

105p per KW is bad enough (and OTT) but a standing charge £59 per day (!) - someone is taking the pee.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

And if this is widespread it's only going to end badly for many many companies.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Another post from a small restaurant owner:

https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2022/09/2.jpg

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Who is making all the money from these hikes.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Mainly those getting the stuff out of the ground. The rest are just percentage merchants and as we've seen some of those got it wrong and went to the wall.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

From the ONS.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

More from the ONS.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Mad thing for me is with the £400 spread over 6 months and the second cost of living payment due plus hopefully the WMD I for the next few months even with higher energy and cost of living will be better off than I have been for at least 2 years

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Re: Rising cost of living
 

i bought 2 steaks in the yellow packs range 2£ each, it was like boot leather, moral of this story you get what you pay for:(