Oh, here we go again!

[Workingman]

The latest forecast from an energy 'thick tank' is that energy bills will rise to £2000 a year. Cue, weeping and wailing from the media. So what 'should' the bills be? £20 or £5000. We have to pay for everything; from food to clothing to transport. Nothing is free.

If we are strapped for cash we can cut down on all sorts of things, including those already mentioned. We can also cut out non-essentials such as eating out, takeaways, Netflix etc. We will still have comfortable lives, but the media make out that we would be living in penury.
J-sus wept.

BTW £2000 per annum on energy is £5.50 per day and that's for cooking, heating, hot water and so on. Many spend more than that on a coffee a meal deal and a bag of crisps. For those over 23 on minimum wage that's just about half of one hour's pay - per day. The other £74 (full time pay after tax) can be spent on anything. For a 40 hour week they get £21,880 per year.

Yes, times are hard, again, and people do struggle with rent and mortgages, but we ain't shooting arrows to get our food or traipsing miles to the nearest spring for fresh water. Teaching people how to budget and what to budget on should be a schooling priority.

[Suff]

I just fitted my pellet burner. It has been sitting in the garage for 2 years, the warranty is expired and the boiler was incorrectly built. Fixed now.

But after I got it nearly half price, it sat in the garage because pellets rose 4x. They are now down to just over 1.5x and the convenience is worth the extra price.

Part of this is hype and headline mongering. Part of it is that some people will be badly impacted. They just won't be the "average".