Here we go again,that time of year.

Cartel springs to mind.

Average £30 a week for heating etc,doesn't it just tick you off

Yeah but they're really, truly sorry.

Makes you wonder how Milliband is going to make his price freeze stick, not that he'll get a chance to put the brave words into practice mind...

Bonuses all round and dividends to the fore.

Don't you just love the IDLE rich, sat playing with their computers, drinking, smoking, eating and not producing anything of benefit to the country.

Ooops sorry

That should have been the lazy feckless disabled.

As [iWhich?[/i has illustrated in the most recent issue of its magazine, there's a huge amount of lies going around about, for instance, wholesale prices – and also the 'government costs' (ie the green stuff).

Perhaps OFGEM should try and be more like OFWAT,
They at least do a reasonable job holding the water industry to account.

A 'bit' of fuel poverty is a small price to pay. We must think of the welfare of shareholders.

In amongst the price comparison sites, I chanced upon examples of longterm deals available - you can fix a price up to around 2017 - but you will start off paying a significantly higher rate. Understandably.

Anyway the point is it glibly said that the future prices over the period, and based on past experience, are predicated on whatever happens, prices rising at around 10% per annum. Now, that is bad enough - except
a) price competition was supposed to keep prices in check - yet if the price comparison people (who should know) are keeping accurate records, then across the board, all the suppliers are consistently averaging 10% pa price rises, each year, every year.
b) the 10% is not just on this years prices but on last years increase. The cumulative effect is that for every £1000 annual bill in Year 1, it rises to £2357 at Year 10. And this is in a so-called low inflation era. At that rate, after another 10 years it is £6115

Of course before long we will also be getting our annual hikes for council tax, water and all the rest.

At the same time, the Tories have more or less achieved wage deflation, significantly so if inflation is factored in.

If this continued then pretty soon nobody will have anything whatsoever left of their wage.

Don't worry ..... oh no!
You can change supplier ... to one with a strangely cheaper type of gas.
That really addresses the problem.

Don't worry ..... oh no!
You can change supplier ... to one with a strangely cheaper type of gas.
That really addresses the problem.

If we skipped the bills, they would all eventually go bust and reform the industry.. and then we'd have nothing further to complain about.

But who wants to brave the first wave of heavies, at the door?

I wonder how easy it would be to not use ANY gas or electricity at home ?

Heard a story on local radio today of some young bloke in an apartment who said that he was not paying water rates because his water was cut off and he was living quite well without it and not spending any extra money by purchasing bottled water and bathing with wet wipes.

Yes he did sound a bit barmy but how easy would it be to just not use and gas or electricity in your house ?

It would be easier if you had fireplaces with chimneys that could be re-opened and an old cooking range in the kitchen that you could base family life around, and candles or paraffin lamps for light ?

Throw away your TV and Skybox etc and cancel the TV licence then watch internet TV (don't tell anyone) and then You'd only really need electricity to charge up your laptop and mobile devices - sounds like it could be fun.

Letter to your electricity provider - "You've made me use some of your electricity to switch on the printer to send you this letter to tell you to stick your electricity bill and its standing charge where the sun don't shine, from now on I want to be on pay-as-you-go electricity..."

Is the question "Jumpin' Jack Flash"?

You deserve to be Stoned for that.

Not sure at all about this. How much would his share of water rates in a flat or apartment be?

If you assume he needs 2 litres per day to survive in terms of drinking water, then @ 17p (Asda cheapest) x 365 = £61.88 pa

But that doesn't leave any water for laundry, and so if he instead goes to the launderette regularly there's a cost he wouldn't have if he had mains water.

Then what about washing up? You can't take that to the launderette, and if you dispense with washing up, by eating takeaways, your budget will go through the roof.

Then what about cooking? You can't boil a cabbage, or pasta, or even an egg, without a pan of water.

As for wet wipes - I don't see that. How on earth, in the long run, can you keep yourself properly clean using nothing but wet wipes? How the feck many does he use? Asda sell packs of 20 for £1.50 and I can't see how you could, in a day, need any less than that. £1.50 x 365 = £547.50 pa

Hard to wash your hair with wet wipes. i suppose you could just shave it all off, or else do that thing where you never wash it and claim hair is "self cleaning"!

I suppose each time he wanted a pee or a crap he could trail to a nearby pub, supermarket or garage if they would put up with that but I don't see that as a practical solution to avoid the water for flushinga bog.

So it sounds fishy to me.

Well I did say he sounded a bit barmy.

A couple of other things he mentioned was that he only ever used paper cups and plates so that he didn't need to wash anything, all of his food was microwaved and that he cheated once a week by going to his mates house for a shower.

In theory you can flush a toilet using bottled water and it probably uses less than a normal flush would - save your poo-time for during office hours and flush your house-pees once a day and you have a solution of sorts although what you'd do on a weekend is not worth thinking of.

Which all goes to show how much we rely on energy and how they have us by the spheroids.

in reality, the average energy bill isnt that expensive when you consider what you actually get for it, and what you would have to give up if you didnt have gas/electric.

At about £1,500 a year for the average bill, (say between 2 people in a house) that works out at about £2 per person per day for power, warmth and entertainment.

Affordable 'pay as you go' energy, time of use tariffs, demand reduction technology (i.e. that automatically turn your freezer off for an hour at peak times), are the way forward, all of which should be a reality once every home has a smart meter installed in the next few years. Then you will actually pay for what you use, and get rewarded for not consuming energy at times of peak demand.

Thank you for putting it into perspective, but a steep and remorseless increase is still just that.
Call me cynical, but I suspect the more we try to cut down the more the price will rise to maintain profits.

Because the use of metering for poor people hasn't resulted in them paying more, has it?

, Likewise the money spent by the energy companies to insulate homes, and therefore use less energy.
"Let me see

, Spend more money in order to receive lover volume sales, so how do we reward our shareholders.......? I know......

"

pre-payment metering in its current form is inherently unfair, and results in higher charges for people who have to (or choose to) pay in advance, but this is mainly down the outdated software systems that these types of meters run off, and subsequently a higher cost to serve these customers.

When smart meters are in place, and it is possible to have 'live' charging for consumption, and the suppliers start to implement new systems, I see "pay as you go energy" becoming much more competitive, widespread and socially acceptable than it is now.

What makes you think that some technology, used more widely, will change the behaviour of the major energy suppliers?

It is possible that it may happen.

Unfortunately there is a similar precedent with water meters which have been available for a couple of decades at least now and are always fitted on new housing but the retrofit onto the vast majority of housing stock being at the choice of the homeowner.

Obviously only the homes which will benefit from a meter (ie no children, out at work all day, etc) ever voluntarily ask for a water meter whilst the heaviest users stick to the clumsy water rates method.

If a smart meter allowed me to choose pay-as-you-go electricity then I would only be interested if it saved me money, sounds obvious, but its more obvious that someone somewhere has to pay more for the service to work.

I am not sure Ed Milliband should step into this row. 5% of energy costs are due to the VAT that is required by his beloved European Union - an organisation which the Little Europeaner won't allow the British public to have a say on whether our nation remains inside of this isolationist, backward, economically disastrous political union - whilst approximately £112 (will rise to £300 by 2020) of our bills each year are as a result of the green taxes that he implemented whilst in Government.

You've been reading the Daily Mail! Which idiotic party took us into the "Common Market"? Which idiotic PM signed up to Maastrict (while pretending to be tough on Europe), which party does our imbecilic, overgrown schoolboy of a PM belong to?