My younger bruv, too young for the State Pension, has been in touch to say I should receive a ‘one off’ fuel allowance...last year I think I received £200 as I was born in ‘55.
Checking eligibility....I’m not in receipt of any benefits, and my only regular income is the State Pension, it seems I’ll receive £500...so £300 extra. Seems too good to be true. Is this correct ?
I’ve received no correspondence, although my old mum, born in ‘27, has received a letter saying she’ll get £600. That’s ok.
Half what she’s been paying a week in a care home whilst I’ve been away and unable to sort her out most days.
Unfortunately she’s too old to spend her savings on anything apart from a care home...unlike someone I could mention who’s hell bent on spending it whilst he can, and sod the future.
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>> Checking eligibility....I’m not in receipt of any benefits, and my only regular income is the
>> State Pension, it seems I’ll receive £500...so £300 extra. Seems too good to be true.
>> Is this correct ?
Yup, HM gov is paying me 500 squidlets
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Thanks Z for confirming.
Go towards my Brittany Ferries fare next year.
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I'm getting it too despite still working. Or at least half of it, Mrs O'Reliant gets the other half.
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>> Go towards my Brittany Ferries fare next year.
>>
£500 into my bank yesterday.
Covers my outbound Brittany Ferries Plymouth > Santander next May. I’ll probably book the return later as I’m winging it and have no firm plans for the final few weeks in the hilly bits twixt France and Spain.
Don’t suppose Brittany F will let me sublet part of my cabin...
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Don’t suppose Brittany F will let me sublet part of my cabin...
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There's probably an app for that.
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>> Don’t suppose Brittany F will let me sublet part of my cabin...
>> >>
>> There's probably an app for that.
I bet you could put it on Airbnb.
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We're getting £250 each, I've tried to look up how this is worked out and all it says is that it includes a
"‘Pensioner Cost of Living Payment’. This is between £150 and £300. You’ll only get this extra amount in winter 2022 to 2023."
The WFA was £100 each last year so I infer that the £250 is £100 WFA + £150 one-off cost of living payment.
We are also getting £400 "energy payment" by way of credits to our electricity account each month from October for 6 months - I have already seen a £66.66 credit on my electric bill. I assume you will get this too LL & Zero.
So for our household that is £100 x 2 +£150 x 2 + 400 = £900. Very generous. And in addition to the cost of the "£2,500 energy cap". No wonder we have a budget deficit.
I am also claiming the Renewable Heat Incentive which for us is £165 per quarter for 7 years. So this year my expected £3,000 energy bill will be ameliorated by about £1580.
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 11 Nov 22 at 17:26
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Just checked my DD to Octopus. Normally £90pcm, but £52.63 this month. So £37.37 knocked off. And I’m £215 in credit. And have 3 log stores full of free timber and more pallets full of hardwoods waiting for my pal with his chainsaw.
First time in my local since late September. Beer gone up 10p pint..now £3.50 pint of excellent Ossett Pale. It’s not a ‘Spoons. Bar 13 in Settle.
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I think this all relates to the muddle that now exists to support pensioners as different schemes were rolled out at different times during the current energy crisis.
The £400 fuel allowance payment was agreed in July 2022 and is administered by energy suppliers over 6 months starting October.
The £300 cost of living payment to pensioners was announced (i think) in September 2022
The original WFA is £200 for <80, and £300 if more than 80 years old. This is the only allowance that is likely to continue (subject to further energy price issues)
The muddle exists because (a) it was unclear if/when the current crisis and war in Ukraine would end, (b) issues associated with those paying for energy through repayment meter etc, (c) benefits for others on universal credit etc, (d) different rules for one or two pensioners, of different ages sharing the same household.
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I'm not going to turn it down but this has gone to basically all pensioners whether they need it or not.
Having realised the level of cost I wonder if it will provide a rationale for watering down the triple lock. I hope not because that's the only inflation proof income we have.
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>> Just checked my DD to Octopus. Normally £90pcm, but £52.63 this month.
Are you on a fixed tariff LL?
My DD is £497 for a 3 bed detached. Gas and Elec. Using about £11 a day for electricity according to the smart meter. The gas part doesn't seem to be working. Noticed it was £431 ish this month after the rebate.
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>> Are you on a fixed tariff LL?
I honestly haven’t a clue. Should check it out I suppose.
1999 built 4 bed stone detached which I moved into 2000. Lots of loft insulation. Gets full force of south westerlies, elevation 555ft in the YDNP. When I’m in winter residence I dress accordingly..merino t, paramo shirt.
I’ve never felt the cold ( much) so that’s a bonus.
Don’t use much heating...old multi fuel stove lit at lunchtime, free wood, expensive new smokeless coals, exercise when dry out, pub early doors most days.
Don’t use much electric either.
Don’t have a smart meter.
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£11 a day on electricity, zippy?
Just paid our quarterly electricity bill. Two months of the free £66, of course, so I paid £121.
Add the free £112 back and our bill would have been £233 for the quarter, which is a little up on the same quarter last year as I now charge the car.
That’s what, about £2.60 a day, before the free money.
£11 seems a lot? I’m still on a fixed tariff of about 20p a unit, but even so?
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>>
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>> Using about £11 a day for electricity according to the smart meter.
>>
I think the local nightclub must be tapping into your meter. We're using £3 worth a day, and that's despite Mrs O'Reliant's habit of leaving lights on everywhere.
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>> >> Using about £11 a day for electricity according to the smart meter.
>> I think the local nightclub must be tapping into your meter. We're using £3 worth
>> a day, and that's despite Mrs O'Reliant's habit of leaving lights on everywhere.
Yeah, £11 a day is way over the the top, about £3.50 a day here for a 4 bedroom detached bungalow
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>> Yeah, £11 a day is way over the the top, about £3.50 a day here
>> for a 4 bedroom detached bungalow
Four bed detached house and in same ball park as Zero. Just over £4 today but we've had the tumble dryer on and the caravan is on the drive on the 'shore supply' as we're sorting to be off in it for the weekend.
Can you use your smart meter and some selective isolating to work out how those kwh/hr are getting used?
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This month I'm using £10 a day. But that includes heating and hot water. No gas. About 35p/unit. And 40p standing charge daily
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500 notes here LL.
Bar 13? Have you been banned from the Talbot :))
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Talbot. Excellent range of ever changing beers...20p off pint for camra members.
Too busy with weekend tourists Friday & Saturday. Beer garden too cold ( after 28C in Espana).
Sound familiar ?
I’ll pop in early doors Sunday
Last edited by: legacylad on Fri 11 Nov 22 at 21:07
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My Nov electricity is about £45 so far but quite a lump of that is the car getting fed. (£14ish). So about £3.10 a day, without standing charge but incl VAT.
£11 seems a lot
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I am at a loss.
According to Octopus we are using an average of 27kw of electricity a day which is about £10 at the current rate + standing charge. Plus we are using about £3 a day heating water with gas. We have not used the heating yet.
Looking over the stats, it peaked at 52kw on 18/01/22!
I think I might need my meter tested!
Last edited by: zippy on Sat 12 Nov 22 at 00:25
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Something is amiss Zippy. Like others on here my 4 bed house currently costs about £3 a day in electricity on the new tariff. About 10kwh a day then. Gas, without heating so just hot water and hob, has only been about £8 a month over the summer excluding standing charges. The hot water is set to manual and I just give it a one hour boost now and again which costs about £1 a time in gas. You seem to be using about ten times that. It’s surely unlikely that both your meters are faulty but it’s worth checking.
In my case, when the heating goes on my gas bill will shoot up and my cost will be about £150-£200 a month. My supplier forecasts about £1400 pa for gas and £1200 for electric. Pre-panic I was paying about £1200 pa in total.
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>> I am at a loss.
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>> According to Octopus we are using an average of 27kw of electricity a day.....
...plod have got to power their covert surveillance cameras from somewhere..
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>>
>> ...plod have got to power their covert surveillance cameras from somewhere..
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Oh har-de-har-har!
:-D
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BG have just changed my monthly DD.
£283 for gas and £180 for electricity!
All of us in the house have been doing our utmost to save on both (gas is only for heating).
Is the discount applied at source or I'm I supposed to be getting a lump amount?
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Is that a monthly 'budget' payment, or what you have actually used?
You should have £66.66 in credit applied somewhere.
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Average use for a 4 bed detached house is ~4000KWh pa for electricity + gas for space heating and hot water ~12000KWh pa.
Bear in mind that if heating by electric you would likely need ~4000KWh as you would almost certainly install some sort of heat pump (air or ground source) with a coefficient of performance of 3-4.
Even with a larger (say) 5 bed detached I would not expect electric (assuming gas CH) to exceed 6000KWh pa - an average of ~500KWh per month = to a standing order of ~£160 a month.
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I'm pretty sure it's their calculation to make sure I'm always going to be in credit with them.
I haven't used that much gas in the 'warm' September & October.
Today they've even sent an email changing my date of the DD to the first of the month with a prominent wording of 'please make sure you have funds to cover the change of date', cheeky monkeys!
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Unlikely, but not impossible, that it's the meter.
One thing I think I'd do is I'd go round each room and write down everything which is plugged on or connected, to make sure I knew exactly where and what might be using the power.
Do you have old bills from your previous meter that you can compare usage (not cost) against?
I imagine you have a visual display of your power usage (IHD), look at that every so often to see if usage is constantly high or is peaking and/or if you have half hour billing look and see if high usage happens regularly and/or in a similar time frame each day.
I can point you towards tools to get your historical Octopus data if you want - you can dump it into a spreadsheet to analyse as I know you are quite handy with Excel.
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>>Do you have old bills from your previous meter that you can compare usage (not cost) against?
Unfortunately not. It was changed to a SMETS1 meter within a few weeks of us moving here.
>>Octopus...
Good idea!
I have done it for the days but didn't think about the half hours - DOH!
The data has gaps in it. I will split in to the half hourly segments and see when the main usage is.
Thanks
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So if you don't have it, you can get your data here. This is in about the most granular ways you can get it. There are other ways but this is the one I know is reliable. I originally met the chap who wrote it on a forum and he's quite a technical wiz at this stuff as well as being very knowledgeable about the market etc, and he's since got a job with Octopus. But this (clearly) isn't an official site.
energy.guylipman.com/sm/admin?source=octopus
You'll need your account number concatenated with your API key, which is available in the developer section of your Octopus portal (here, once you've logged in) octopus.energy/dashboard/developer/
I think you can go back as far as you want so long as you've not been enrolled to SMETS2, as all historical data is wiped when you are - so if you manage to get your data from day 1 it's worth keeping it, as you never know when you might need it.
You can download the entire dataset into csv by not entering any dates. It works for gas too.
Alternatively you could sign up to data.n3rgy.com/home, give them the same details, and get the same data back.
I also have a Pi program which I'm not prepared to release as it is embarrassingly amateurish, full of bugs and needs to be quite messily changed for a new user, but if you were really stuck and didn't mind sharing the same account API info with me (via private message) I could produce a historical spreadsheet for each day showing consumption and cost, and an aggregated single spreadsheet for all dates with fields broken out for easier filtering and sorting e.g. month, hour etc. (This updates automatically each night for me and has done since I started with Octopus in late 2018 and the gas and elec data is only about 200mb)
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Did you see this update Zippy? ^^^
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My £250 went in today, a few days later than the previously regular 27th November. I'll have to check tomorrow if Mrs O'Reliant's half has gone in (She won't touch the internet).
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Thanks Smokie, I have a few days off between Xmas and the New Year and will give it a go then!
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Winter fuel allowance - Zero
