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Cost of living

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,106 ✭✭✭Fann Linn


    .....'more laws for the side of banks....'

    Oh wake up. They'd no problems writing off €4,000,000 from Michael Lynn after only 10 months. Or Garrett Fitzgerald's debts also for that matter.

    Banks ain't no angels here, and have no issues looking after their own at the expense others.



  • Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Yes, correct 😀 Relax....

    My last electricity bill was €95 for two months and I work from home. Others in the house too.

    Gas was reasonable too but can't remember the figure off hand. It has been a very mild winter though.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,177 ✭✭✭Fandymo


    Your post has absolutely nothing to do with why mortgage rates are so high. But rant on....................



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,177 ✭✭✭Fandymo


    I make 35k a year, and rent in Co. Dublin. I'm hardly Rockefeller. Maybe I'm missing the self-pity gene?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,081 ✭✭✭✭zell12


    Eh, it's a credit on your electricity account, not on one specific bill.



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  • Posts: 4,575 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Are you claiming Fuel Allowance (€33 per week for 28 weeks totalling €914 per year) and the Household Benefits Package that would contribute another €35 per month which you could offset towards your electricity bill?

    I have to be honest, I think the supports paid toward fuel specific costs are quite generous, all things considered, totalling €1334 per year, or €25 per week over 52 weeks.

    That would be the equivalent of €200 paid towards each bi-monthly bill.

    In March / April , you will receive the €200 energy credit, plus an additional fuel allowance lump sum payment of €125 (if you're claiming it).

    You need to find out why your energy bill is so high at over €600 for two months. I don't mean to be harsh, but the government can't regulate for your usage. Is the oil heater an oil filled radiator type? If so, I suspect that could be what is running up your bill.

    Post edited by [Deleted User] on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20 gettingold2013


    Lol wow, good for you.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20 gettingold2013


    Are you in your 60's with heart disease and a son with Autism that relies on you. What it must be like to not have any worries, good on ya.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,175 ✭✭✭spaceHopper


    Can you see what grants you could get to improve the energy efficiency of the house to make it more comfortable for you. It would be worth talking to the public health nurse or OT to see if they can recommend grant aided schemes. Car wise, can you do a bigger shop so that you drive once in 10 days instead of every week. Sorry you are struggling hope it gets better.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,395 ✭✭✭✭Furze99


    A cheap Japanese car - is that your answer LOL!!

    I've a much simpler solution as I do a little work for various public bodies - I just add an extra €50 here and €100 there to invoices. They tax me and I charge (tax) them more. What's not to like - that's how the real world works. And why we should all be very wary of inflation getting out of hand. Prices tend to rise but they rarely fall back and we're all poorer.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,177 ✭✭✭Fandymo


    So because you made bad life choices, it's everyone elses fault? What you you want? A violin solo?



  • Posts: 8,532 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Sorry to hear of your troubles.

    Have you applied to the warmer homes scheme? You would qualify to have your house totally retrofitted (External or Internal wall insulation, Attic insulation, proper ventilation installed and possibly a new heating system. This is all free as part of that scheme.

    https://www.seai.ie/grants/home-energy-grants/free-upgrades-for-eligible-homes/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,180 ✭✭✭tinytobe


    The description here about the cost of living in Ireland is sadly a similar situation in Canada. Things are probably worse, for those on fixed income, pensioners and in general older people.

    One of the countries which isn't that much affected by that cost of living is Germany. What's a particular problem is the high cost of renting in Ireland.

    I also think part of the overall cost of living issue is also the low value of the Euro currency and the EZB not raising interest rates.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 552 ✭✭✭B2021M


    I was simply referring to the poster who talked about Czech interest rates. They are not in the Eurozone so their rates are not comparable.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,177 ✭✭✭Fandymo


    Well I would imagine I'd have seen it on the news if they'd been forced to move into a 200 year old cottage, up a mountain, miles from shops, transport links etc. rather than chose to live there



  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 23,467 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kiith


    Feck all we can do other then immediately switch out provider for pretty much everything annually. Got a note to say my monthly electricity bill was to go from €91 a month to €307 a month after the discounts ran out. Switched provider, and it should now be around €150-200 a month now. Still almost twice what it was last year, which is insane, but what can we do about it?

    Crazy that its cheaper to switch every year, rather then stick with someone long term.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,173 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    Cost of living is a global problem currently as post-covid demand starts to ramp up in general but supply chains are still in disarray. There is very little in reality that our government can do to make a big difference. We're a small boat in a big ocean, we can only try our best to steady our ship until the storm passes.

    Russia agitating and other similar politicking around natural resources also doesn't help much.

    Abandoning climate change as an issue and resorting to fracked gas or dropping carbon taxes would be a decision to allow long-term damage for a short-term problem.

    Supplemental energy payments/rebates based on income & family size would be a reasonable alternative. Say at the bottom end of the scale, anyone reliant on social welfare monthly gets €20 per adult and €10 per child (under 16) which is redeemable directly by their energy provider(s). If you're earning but less than €50k, it's €15/7.50. And so forth. Any household on €100k or more gets nothing.

    Keeps the energy costs low for those who need it without creating a "use as much as you want" problem, and which can be withdrawn easily when prices settle down again.



  • Posts: 4,575 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    My circumstances are not relevant. But as you ask, I'm in my fifties with a disability and an adult child with a heart condition which means they cannot work. So yes, I have worries.

    Something just doesn't add up about your original post. Literally.

    I note you haven't answered my query on whether your autistic son receives of any kind of benefit payment of his own, (and given you've posted you're both in your 60s I presume your son is of a qualifying age). Or if you are in receipt of the secondary benefits I mentioned.

    Given that, and the tone of your response, I'll leave it there.



  • Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I can’t see how the bill is so high either. How many KWs a month is that?

    Im a full time carer for my father and the bills in this house are nowhere near that. There’s medical equipment running too.

    Because I don’t live here but I’m here all day everyday, I don’t qualify for fuel allowance. I just get the basic 224 p/w.

    Edit: but my father gets fuel allowance at his home which is where I am all day every day.



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  • Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I just went onto bonkers. Assumed you were with electric Ireland, rural location, standard tariff, pay by DD, 600 euro bi monthly

    5C8C665D-80F2-40E0-8C18-3D21F5104A8A.png




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,370 ✭✭✭joseywhales


    If you think the government has any control over inflation you'd be wrong. Only the ecb can have any effect by raising interest rates and they should do so quickly.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 516 ✭✭✭BattleCorp1


    And that will hit mortgage owners and squeeze them further.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 642 ✭✭✭J_1980


    https://www.inside-digital.de/news/strompreis-schock-so-teuer-ist-strom-jetzt-wirklich

    Average electricity in Germany is 36c/kwh far higher than Ireland. If your supllier goes bust you drop into the Grundversorgung at 1€/kwh

    difference is:

    German people just work and budget. Irish people largely don’t work and don’t budget and ask for government free stuff



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,177 ✭✭✭Fandymo


    Give out about the nanny state whilst asking the government to nanny them.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,692 ✭✭✭touts


    Eamonn Ryan on the news at one. He basically admitted higher prices were a strategy to force people to retrofit their houses and stop driving petrol and diesel cars. Apparently anyone who is suffering with energy costs should just retrofit their homes now.


    He has completely lost the plot. If the FF FG backbenchers don't move against him now none of them will be left in a job after the next election.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,370 ✭✭✭joseywhales


    One would hope they had the sense to get fixed rate



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 516 ✭✭✭BattleCorp1


    The banks are already thinking ahead. They have put up the fixed rates already. I'm 3 years into a 5 year fixed period.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,750 ✭✭✭✭ednwireland


    if you can't afford 100k for a retrofit and new electric car don't vote green

    My weather

    https://www.ecowitt.net/home/share?authorize=96CT1F



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,370 ✭✭✭joseywhales


    I'm 2.2% one year into 15 year fixed. Rates were at their lowest in history, still they are historically low. What were people thinking if they were not locking in these rates? They weren't going to fall much further.



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