I haven’t done much in the way of writing this year.
Why?
Because I’ve been so damn busy working my backside off to ensure our household doesn’t fall into a pit of financial crisis in the midst of the big crisis. That cost of living one we are all very aware of.
Thankfully, we’re doing ok and that’s not a brag. It’s just me saying that we’re in the very small minority by the looks of things. But, we’ve worked for it.
This does not mean we’re out of the woods yet. It just means we’re “doing ok”.
The government has provided everyone with a small token of help for a few months by putting a few quid into the energy companies which has been distributed across all of our bills.
Now, let me just break this down based on the past 16/17 months or so.
We moved into a house with oil-powered central heating and then everything else is on electric.
In September 2021, our first purchase of heating oil was around £230 for 500 litres.
We were paying around £1.40’ish per day electricity which equated to around £42 - £43 per month. (There or thereabouts)
Today, I was quoted £470 for the same amount of oil. This isn’t too bad as it hit around £600+ earlier in the year.
But…
I’m inspired to write this because I have just gone into the kitchen to grab a cuppa and noticed our smart meter showing £3.13 today alone.
Now. When I paid my October electric bill, the first of the £66 (I think that’s the right number) government-funded amount, meant that I only ended up paying £25 for the month.
That was quite nice.
My November bill (I pay my bills on the 12th of the month so forgive the mid-month weirdness there) had already jumped to £40 even after the government fund. So it had nearly doubled in that short period of time again!
Having noticed the £3.13 already showing for today, I scanned back over the past few days and it averages around £3.75 per day.
This means, that my bill next month will approximately be around £116/£117 for the month!
That’s essentially going to be £50 after the government fund comes off.
£25 > £40 > £50…
Those numbers aren’t a nice trend. I’m already paying more money per month than I was last year, even after the government support which isn’t going to last long.
And don’t forget – that’s just my electricity. Then we have the oil on top, plus all the other stuff that’s increasing in price.
But here is the reason I’m writing this rather long-winded way of making this next point.
I’ve just gone online to have a nose around what’s happening with these companies taking all this money from us.
They’re claiming that they are simply passing on their increased costs due to the war in Ukraine.
But are they really? Or are they just using it as an excuse to cream more money out of everyone while they can get away with war as an excuse?
So here we go. Are you ready for this?
Make sure you have a calming “something” around you right now. (Mine is a whiskey as it’s later in the evening – Yours might be a cuppa depending on the time of day)
BP – Second quarter of 2022, they tripled their profits to a record £7bn. (That’s just a 3-month period)
Shell – April to June 2022, they made record profits of £10bn. And promised to give shareholders payouts worth £6.5bn! That's nice then.
Centrica – This is the owner of British Gas. Operating profits for the six months ending June 2022 = £1.34bn. That’s FIVE times higher than the same period 12 months prior.
E.ON – First 6 months of 2022 = £3.047bn
The National Grid – Privately owned – Profits rise in the financial year 2021/2 to £3.4bn.
The above equates to around £25bn right in the midst of utter carnage for the rest of us. And you might note, pretty much all of that is “record” profits.
You simply cannot sit back and state that you are passing on rising costs of business, absolutely flaw the country and most of the households in it and then say you’re making record profits of many billions of pounds.
One of my biggest bugbears here is that the government is putting a few quid here and a few quid there. (Let’s face it. As individuals, the amounts we all receive are very small, regardless of the overall number they’re supporting being very large on paper)
On the back of that few quid etc, we’re going to end up paying it back 10 fold in additional taxes etc over the coming years.
Why the hell is no one stepping in and doing something to stop the energy companies from getting away with this?
What can be done? I don’t know. I’m not in the game and not a politician or an industry expert.
But guess what.
Somebody out there is.
And they now need to put that expertise to good use, step up, fight the fight and ask us all to join them.
Are you in?
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