The Electricity/Energy Situation

 Like about a million other people I got caught up in the run of electricity companies going bust. I was with PFP and I only found out when I went on the website to check my bill.

And now energy prices are through the roof. At the time I got swapped to British Gas as "supplier of last resort". It sounds all very procedural according to OFGEM. But according to the very bitter email I received from PFP (which incidentally was a not for profit aimed at bringing reasonably priced energy to homes that needed it) this is not the case. According to them, the customers of failed energy companies are Dutch auctioned amongst the five big suppliers. It's a bidding process and in PFP's case British Gas "won".

From the start I was told not to swap supplier as it can cause "confusion". Well, I could not give a toss about confusion. The writing was on the wall: energy was soaring in price and the price cap was getting pushed up in October. So I totally ignored that advice and started looking for a reasonably priced deal.

The first bad sign was that quite a few of the better known "cheap" suppliers had already been gobbled up by the big suppliers while they were still in the black. Why would they do that if not to remove competition?

Next was that a number of switching websites were only offering deals from companies that they had "partnered" with. By that I can only assume they meant they were taking money from to direct their way.

Another issue I found with switching sites is that they are set up for a more competitive market than exists now. uSwitch and many others are designed to take your details, look at your current plan and show you who is cheaper. Great in a market working the way it is supposed to. That's just not today. So when no-one is cheaper you get a blank screen. As far as I could see there was no option to just show me the entire market and I'll make my own decision. If you don't have any supplier then you are screwed.

In the end I've gone with Neon Reef. They were the cheapest of what was on offer but by no way cheap. But even this is not straight forward. They will give you an estimate of what you will be paying a month based on your usage figures. Great, looks good.

But the next page is where you get the kick in the balls. What they actually showed you is the average over the year. The way they run payments is that for six months you pay 50% extra so that they can buy contracts for energy for the last six months of your deal. It turns out that instead of paying £40'ish a month like what they lured me in with, I am actually paying £65 a month for the first six months then £35 for the next six months.

That's a pretty big financial shock if you are running a budget where every penny is accounted for. An extra £25 a month needs to come from somewhere. It doesn't matter that my bill will drop in half next May, I need that money here and now.

I'm pretty lucky in that I can massage my budget so that it adapts to that. It still means cutting something else out of my budget for now (I've got a few options for that and not decided which is going). For a lot of people that is simply not affordable. I would guess that is how most energy suppliers are going to start operating. Charging you up front fees so that you can have cheap energy on average over the year. Trouble is, for people who are already facing fuel poverty that isn't going to happen. They can't just magic up an extra £25-35 a month for a short period.

So what happens to them? Stuck on the big 5 suppliers at their inflated prices because they have a captive market and shareholders to keep happy. Utility switching is something else that is now a privilege of the middle class.

This is something that has always pissed me off about "personal finance" experts that populate social media. They are almost always aimed at the middle class and are about getting more for less by using the leverage that being middle class brings.

It's about leveraging good credit scores. Having cash that you can afford to move around different bank accounts to get cheap deals. Two-for-one deals on dining out and hotel rooms. That kind of thing. If you can't afford a treat from your local chippy then none of this has any relevance.

It's sold as "advice" but the reality is it's more like school gate gossip. It's not about financial survival. The usual response for people like that is "speak to Citizen's Advice". They don't want you. This is about people who already have "stuff" getting more "stuff" while those that need it are shut out.

There is a lot about what is happening right now that I do not understand. There is a government that is performing dreadfully, one of the worst performing in modern history. Even if you factor out covid there is no getting away from how badly Johnson et al have done since they took power. No-one is opposing that. The other parties are dead in the water. The media is largely supportive of the government, including the BBC. But worst of all, there is no public backlash. Where are the protests? The only thing you see are a bunch of affluent London pensioners and trust fund students lashing themselves to the M25 over insulation. It is incomprehensible that the public, regardless of political leaning, should tolerate such utter incompetence and bad management.

We are also an affluent, stable democracy (and if you don't believe that you need to look at most of the rest of the world). But we have collapsing supply chains. Food shortages. Fuel shortages. Sky-high energy and utility prices. Massive inflation and a stagnating economy (a bounce-back to pre-covid levels is not growth regardless of how it is spun). These are the conditions you would expect to see in emerging economies.

It is baffling.

Update October 2020

I can't remember the last time I did an update. I know I wrote one but never uploaded it.

As usual, everything has just disappeared into the pile of shit that this year has become. I guess like a lot of people I'm not in the greatest of places mentally. To be honest, I'm pretty down at the moment and have been for a while.

I wish I could say it was the toll of all the restrictions and anxiety over coronavirus. That would be the easy answer. But I know it isn't. I'm pissed off and I think I'd be pissed off if everything was normal.

It's back to money worries again. For a couple of months everything was great. There were no demands, it was summer, no need to spend any money. But that has all changed. My daughter has started high school and that transition has ended up costing the best part of a grand.

There's uniform. Apparently that is a cost effective, egalitarian system. The fuck it is. Schools tie up with a sole supplier who price gouge the fuck out of parents because they know they can't go anywhere. You want an egalitarian, cost effective solution? Tell them to wear what they like as long as it comes from Primark. Simple. You'd have a year's worth of clothing for a quarter of what these money-grabbing cunts charge and kids would all be wearing the same. I never wore uniform at all where I grew up. Ever. It caused me zero issues either then or as an adult.

There's all the shit that they need. PE kit. Maths kit. A particular model of calculator. A particular type of laptop. Laptop? Yes, a fucking specific laptop. And no, you can't just buy a refurbed £99 laptop from Ebay. It has to be a particular £300 Chromebook that isn't even half as powerful or durable as that £99 Ebay special would be. So that was August fucked.

Then my car needed MOT'd. Another £300 for that. Then the fucking battery died last week so another £75 there. And tonight it's started making a horrific clunking the moment it goes past 20mph and the steering wheel judders at anything past 40. Fuck knows what that is, I suspect a CV joint so that's probably another £200.

Now Christmas is coming and I'm dreading it because it's another drain. I know that makes me sound miserable but it inevitably becomes a pissing contest with my ex-wife. I'd happily have quite a modest Christmas and my daughter would be more than happy with it. But her mother doesn't see it that way. She'll spend to excess, buy her a shameful amount of stuff. And on Christmas morning I'll have my little pile of presents for after. I hate it on so many levels. I hate how materialistic it is. I hate how bad it makes me feel about myself. I hate how broke it leaves me.

Then there is the weather. I bought a load of logs at the end of spring when they were cheap thinking I'd be starting autumn with most of them. Summer was so shit that they were gone by September. Now I'm back to the fuel poverty of last year. I remember how bad it was, wondering if I should light the fire or just go to bed a bit earlier.

I'm worried about work as well. The project I am working on is due to finish around April/May time. At one point that was a year away. Now it doesn't seem that long. I don't know what there is at the end of it. I'm supposed to be a permanent member of staff but I'm the only person of my discipline in the company and there are no other projects that need my skill right now. I have no idea what they outlook is. Being isolated means you don't get to hear the office chatter and gossip, you don't know what is or isn't coming up. I've got this constant nagging in the back of my mind that come the spring I'm going to be out of work.

I'm so pissed of at the minute and it is all financial. Of all the anxiety I feel, none of it is coronavirus related. As a single parent I didn't exactly have a rich social life to begin with so the impact of these restrictions has been minimal on that. I was lonely and bored before any of this started. That was something else that got on top of me. I've been divorced for five years and my ex-wife still manages to have a significant amount of control over my life. If it wasn't for her I wouldn't have been living like this. I know I'm free to go anywhere but I also know exactly how she would react. If I think I am broke and depressed now then that's nothing compared to the misery she would go out of her way to generate for me if I moved far enough away that we wouldn't have our daughter for equal amounts of time.

My only escape is just getting away on my free weekends. Get out into the wilds, set up a little camp away from everyone and everything. But that's slowly getting eroded. I can't afford the diesel to go far. My car is fucked so I'm not going anywhere until that is fixed. The weather is shit. And the constantly changing restrictions have left me confused as to whether or not I'm even allowed to go anywhere.

I'm burnt out. I've noticed that the time I've been spending with my daughter has left me really mentally exhausted. I know that only happens when my anxiety levels are high. I feel constantly on edge, constantly like I'm on red alert. I walked past the back door last night and freaked out when I saw my reflection and thought it was some outside. I feel ready to go to war at a second's notice. It's exhausting me. I had PTSD in the past and I felt like that then: always ready to go into an aggressive defence mode when it was needed. Only it was never needed. Same as now.

I'm tired. I'm depressed. And I don't even have the excuse of a pandemic to blame. If there was no coronavirus I'd be in the same place. It's payday and with all the bills paid I don't think I've got enough to get me to the end of November. I'm sick of this cycle and I don't know how to escape. Every penny is accounted for and I still don't know why I am skint.

I'm going to try to blog a bit more regularly in the hope that it actually makes me a bit more able to keep a handle on things financially. Talking into the void of the internet is also my only real outlet at the minute. I literally don't have anyone to talk to other than my daughter and that weighs heavy. I need this space to vent.