Helping Simone keep a warm home amid rising energy prices

When garden centre employee Simone’s* home energy company ceased trading, she was very concerned that her bills would go up after being transferred to a new supplier. She’d been on a low fixed rate tariff and had budgeted carefully based on those costs.

We were happy to hear from Simone and gave her some much-needed reassurance. As she has a long-term medical condition, we explained that for her health she needed to keep warm and offered to look into avenues of support so that she could afford to keep up with her payments. We also provided a priority service phone number for her new energy supplier and told her what they could provide.

“When I finally got word of my new energy tariff, I rang my caseworker to let her know. It was nice to have someone to talk it through with and she told me of the £150 energy rebate on my council tax too which was great news. I added the new figures to Perennial’s budget planner which I’d used in the past and was relieved to see that although things would be tight, I could just about manage financially.”

This year will be tougher than most, particularly for those on lower incomes. So, we are continuing to work with Simone, and others like her, to see if they can reduce their costs and help them to feel more in control of their finances.

*Name has been changed to protect client confidentiality and photo is posed by a model.