When I moved in nearly two years ago I got used to £82 dual fuel.
Up to £240 before Christmas last year.
Now its £355
Usually when I budget each month I have a few hundred spare for savings but not anymore
Might have to start doing overtime at work just to have the ability to do things!
We were on £161 dual fuel a couple of years ago (1940's built semi with good loft insulation etc..), then £186 up until November 2021, then up to £271, and as of this month up to £388 per month. It's having a significant impact on future planning, as I was hoping to be able manage fairly comfortably on a pension as of next summer, but the sums are not looking quite so good now - especially with further price rises in the offing.
The price rises are despite already managing to reduce our gas usage fairly significantly by dropping central heating temp at the boiler by 5 degrees, and hot water temp also by a few degrees. We only heat the rooms we are using as have TRVs on all radiators. The bars on the graph are this year, the lines last year:
Unfortunately, in terms of cost, the gas is around 35% of total, so in an effort to reduce the electricity, I have gone round turning off at the plug anything electrical that may normally be on standby, and am now monitoring for a few days at a time what is being used by various items in the house with a plug-in meter
like this one. I'll see at the end of April what (if any) impact that is having on electricity usage...
A few years ago I already replaced all the lights with LEDs, and stuff like the pinball machines are only switched on when I'm actually using them, so not sure what further improvements will be possible, short of actually changing some kit for more modern stuff, which in itself will be costly not to mention the environmental impact of creating more electronic "waste".
About the only inefficient items really are stuff like hifi kit (2 x 35 year old Sugden power amps I got when at college), and maybe my main computer (2009 Mac Pro), but these are still performing admirably for my needs, and in any case are only switched on when actually in use.
May need to look at rigging a generator up to the cross trainer and bicycle turbo trainer, and of course then actually use them a lot more!!