THE typical energy bill is set to fall by £238, but don’t crack open the champagne just yet. That money will instantly get sucked up by these other expenses.
Water bills
Not content with piping raw shit directly into the country’s lakes and rivers, water companies are set to jack up their prices by six per cent as well. Just like the energy bill reductions, this price rise will come into effect in April, meaning you will be just as poor then as you are now. Oh well. Perhaps start buying lottery tickets?
Council tax
Practically every council in the country is poised to increase this charge by the maximum amount of 4.99 per cent come April, so don’t go splashing out on frivolous luxuries like new pants or dental work. Your hard-earned money needs to go towards already-neglected, unappealing libraries and waste collection services that sometimes pick up your rubbish every fortnight, if they feel like it.
Food
Inflation is still stubbornly high, meaning food looks set to keep bankrupting you for the foreseeable future. That extra £238 in your pocket won’t cover your weekly shop of seven Pot Noodles, two bottles of Doom Bar and a Twix, so try foraging for scraps from restaurant bins if you want to put something away for a rainy day.
Train tickets
You had to sell off your car because the cost of petrol was too high, but that’s okay because the train was a semi-affordable way to get to work. Not anymore. From March, tickets on Britain’s busiest lines will soar by £100, unless you fancy getting an off-peak ticket at half five in the morning. But at least you’ll be able to sit in a dark office for a couple of hours and think about how much energy you’re saving.
Your mortgage
Energy bills might be tumbling but your mortgage rate continues to soar. What used to be an almost manageable sum is now squeezing you for an extra few hundred a month, and you’ve still got three more decades of that to look forward to. It’s got to the stage where it’s nearly as expensive as renting a box room in a houseshare, which is both a terrifying thought and not a great advert for living in modern Britain.
