Gas is just insane!!! In winter,when the heating needs to be used it’s actually scary opening the bills! Even in summer,when we’re only heating the water for 30 minutes a day it’s still extremely steep.

Itchy try living in an apartment with only electric heaters and you’ll appreciate having gas so much more! It’s a nightmare during the winter months getting bills of near €500 just to keep 4 radiators hot and have hot water!

Been there and done that ted,but luckily it was just me and I didn’t have a family at the time. Definitely feel for you!! Also,don’t use the tumble dryer as much if your in a house as you have the room to use airers and don’t have to rely on radiators as much either,at least not in the summer

We have stopped using bulk gas because of the price. Installed a solid fuel stove that will heat about half the house. We have no hot water in the summer, and build up what we can to burn in the winter. Could be worse?

I’d love a solid fuel fire but as it’s a rented house we gotta just accept what we’ve got until we manage to buy.
As for the hot water,we’ve got a toddler in the house and a baby on the way,having a shared bath a couple of times a week is a luxury I’m not willing to give up,especially while pregnant with all the aches and pains ;) the tumble dryer becomes a bit of a necessity with babies and young children too as it never seems to stop raining here so it’s hard to get stuff washed and dried without running out, so although it isn’t used often,it is used on occasion. It’s either a tumble dryer or buying even more clothes….

We found in the winter leaving the gas on all the time at the absolute minimum setting worked out cheaper than having it off while in work and turning it on at a higher level when we got home from work in the evening. Need good insulation in the attic space though.

…and good windows.

Lmao….at least your honest kid :-)

maybe lose the Iphone?

Supes, you owe me a fiver

Join the queue Alan!

Haha

example – Your bills are ?2300 per year (Gas/ESB/Road Tax/ Insurance/TV licence/Sky etc.) so you get a loan for ?2300. This will cost you ?47.91 per week plus ?2.40 interest. This loan is issued on the first week of the year and runs for 48 weeks.
So if March comes round and your Car insurance needs renewing, you bring your bills to the CU and they cut a cheque for the total annual amount (this means you don’t pay the interest applied when you pay by Direct Debit) it also means you don’t have a month where you have to find a big chunk of money from your monthly income.
And by paying over 48 months, it gives you 4 weeks (Dec.) where you don’t have the extra cost of the loan. Simple and clever.

Congrats to your sister Daithi, really good and simple idea, this should be a service offered by all the banks.

We put all loose change in a jar over a year and pay the TV licence out of it, not a new idea but one that works for us.

It is… It called a ‘masterplan’ account both AIB and BOI have had them for the last 20 years

Thanks Andrew, I’ll look into that, I’m with Ulster Bank so I don’t think their IT systems could handle it.

Absolutely agree. Meteor are terrible for this in my experience.

What I have done is set up two current accounts. Each month, I put the expected cost of the bills into the ‘bills’ account. Remainder is for everything else. Means I’m not caught by random dd dates.

all our main bills are through direct debt too, but its getting harder to meet them with the rising costs in electricity, car insurance ,oil etc. i’m dreading this winter with the expected double figure rise in fuel coming ,as we know the govt will not object to that as it means more revenue via v.a.t. and carbon tax , i am on disability so if the govt cut benefits and allow price rises or the cut the rent subsidy then we will be in real trouble. as regards the date of d/d/ being paid, i agree with you Ronan , you think you have a bit of spare cash and then realist that the d/d hasn’t yet gone out , some of the banks,a.i.b in particular don’t show transactions on statements until 2 or 3 days after they have gone out, then you get charged for not having enough funds.

Eric

Do you know that if you collect your SW payment in the post office you can have a certain percentage of it stopped directly to pay for utilities, which is what I do. My rent is stopped plus 8 euros toward my ESB and and 10 euros for my phone. Obviously I have to put an extra10 -12 euros to the ESB from the cash I recieve with an easy pay card. Ring the GPO and ask to be put through to the household budget section and ask them to send you out a form (get 2 in case you make a mistake. Its one of those forms with little boxes to write each letter in and a pain if you make an error.

Also a friend of mine bought her self a satelite unit in Lidl or Aldis which picks up hundreds of TV stations including the ones you would have access to with Sky or UPC and when she bought her last telly it was was programmed to pick up saorview.

@ Ann Reddin, thanks Ann, i am aware of the household budget and used to use this system the only problem was that every time my rent was reviewed (im on the r.a.s scheme through the local council ) it took me months to change the payment amount and either put me in arrears or meant i was in credit which i couldnt claim back, as for the t.v i hooked up to an old English sky box which means i get all the freeview programs for nothing, the dish cost me nothing as someone chucked out into a nearby field and i installed it myself.
it’s the rising costs that are the problem along with the cut’s, thats why i get so irate with some of the people on here who think life on benefit is a doddle.

And how can the banks justify charging €10-15, if you don’t have enough funds in your account. I taught all these systems were computerised, it’s not like they have to pay vast amounts of wages to staff to manually handle these transactions.

Oops, forgot about the property tax! The house will never be mine so.

Lucky u fair dues I’ll be on my Zimmerman frame :)

well said Thomas, Fine Gael and Enda Kenny don’t understand not everyone is a second generation politician born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Alan Shatter statement last week about people selling personal jewellery just goes to show how out of touch these c***s are with real people.

Never use the rumble dryer only in extreme circumstances, I know people with a back garden who never hang out clothes, always use the dryer. That’s lazy…and expensive!

Would love to be able to dry clothes on a wasing line. Living in a flat I dont have that option.

got an electricity monitor off airtricity 6 months ago now we can see how much we are using massive drop in bills just watch what we plug in would recommend getting one not with airtricity any more changed to esb cheaper shop around for everything its worth checking out bonkers.ie comparison site for everything smaller bills all round. you can still have your digital tv

with you on that Caroline , if the reported fuel increase and cutback go ahead in the next budget it will be impossible to get by, this country is being strangled by the banking debts and bondholders. and the sad thing is no one is standing up to the bastards, fighting irish ?my arse!

Itchy- why not try using hot water immersion instead of gas for the showers- I set my alarm for twenty mins early and put on immersion- seems to work our cheaper than the central heating

Rented house,to get hot water we turn off a valve in airing cupboard which stops the radiators coming on,but still has to use the boiler. Stupid set up I know

Life would be unbearable though!

Then I would cancel the direct debit! The Ulster Bank syndrome could catch on and take money out which isn’t owed! Woof.