I'm pretty annoyed about these rises but at least I can afford them.  Does anyone know what the poor are supposed to do about it?  Will income support be immediately adjusted to take account of it?  I vaguely remember (about 20 years ago!) reading a breakdown of all the things my benefit was meant to pay for so maybe the system is sensitive enough to recognise that a 3% increase based on the RPI won't do.  I don't think that applies to the minimum wage, though.  The purchasing power of my wages has been falling for about 3 years now but it's not so critical for someone on a decent screw.  And it did rise disproportionately for several years before that due to drastic falls in the prices of food, clothing, CDs, electrical goods etc etc. 

I've just been on You Switch to compare prices and find I can save money (although not a lot) by switching to Scottish Power.  However another one which would be cheaper is e-on which also gives you Tesco club points!  Also, something else I didn't know, it seems all the suppliers are cheaper if you go to paperless billing and manage everything on-line.  Worth a thought.

Like opilec we're with n-power for both gas and elec, paying now for the lower bills we got from them in 2006.

Our December qtr bills are maybe not 'bad', family of four in a 3-bed detached, modern insulation, gas was £134, elec was £100, but with the increases we can expect the March bills to be about £300 together.

It's our landline phone bill annoys me, over £200 per qtr ! Even with us all having mobile phones the landline bill has never reduced. Internet is 59, line rental and local bills and friends low-cost deal is another 40, national calls 40, overseas calls were 40, VAT about 30. I hardly use the damn thing! Except for the internet  so my missus pays half the phone bill 'out of her purse'   

I'm still 'pay as you go' on the mobile beause I only spend 20 per month but the rest of the family have contracts that cost them about 35 a month each, so that's over 100 a month total .

Oh, and Christmas credit card spending, just had the card statements in, about 1500. Just as well we are all working or got money coming in.

John W,

Your phone bill sounds unneccessarily astronomical.

Have you looked into your options?

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/home-phone-calls

I've just checked out BT and see they are offering free evening and weekend calls for a year if you sign up to Together 2 Option and pay by direct debit.  I've signed up and they said they have sent me an email.  Nothing has arrived as yet    After 12 months the cost of free calls (if that's not a contradiction) will be £3.45 a month, minimum contract 18 months.  Seems like a good deal to me.

John, when I was calling abroad regulalrly I signed up with one tel and entered a code and calls were 3p a minute as opposed to BT's 50p a minute.

But Ants, doesn`t the hang-up-when-you-get-to-59 minutes clause still apply?

I wouldn`t go back to BT for all the plain chocolate coated marzipan in the world. Like JW, my `phone bill in no way represented the amount of time I spent on the `phone. All their money saving packages formed the bulk of my bill

Hmmm, I have just disssected my Virgin bill which thudded through the letterbox two days ago.

Line rental           £11
Talk Unlimited      £7.95  (unlimited my foot!)
Caller Display      £1.75
Broadband         £18.00

I am paying them more than I paid OneTel. Oh why did I ever leave them?