What does £175 buy you? – The full list!

What does £175 buy you?

It’s the average annual gas and electricity price increase for Scottish Power customers (and likely other companies soon) but it buys you no more energy than you get now. So, I asked people on Twitter what that £175 means to them…

As the answers flowed in I realised it was almost like poetry and a great insight into how different people view money and the impact of the hike. The question itself was:

What would the £175 hike in energy prices buy you? Be warned I will nick good ideas for a column I’m writing!"

And the answers: (unedited)

• Amazon kindle and all the ebooks I need for my 4th yr Uni!
• £175 would go towards a new wardbrobe now i’ve lost weight
• My 8 yr olds school uniform
• 8 and 3/4 lap dances
• A week of childcare for 1 of my three kids in the summer ! Just the other 5 weeks 4 her and 6 weeks for the other 2
• 14 weeks school dinner money for my daughter.
• It would buy my car insurance or car tax…. So frustrating.
• £175 would buy me more than a winter’s use of coal. Or loads of yarn to knit keepmewarm blankets!
• Probably pay for the energy survey to sell the house…
• £175 would buy me a nice weekend accommodation away with my family
• £175 would buy me 5 months car insurance or 3 months mortgage insurance
• Half a pair of jimmy choos
• Probably a tank of diesel at today’s prices.
• A solar panel??
• A device for monitoring the energy I am wasting?
• After a 1p flight to Spain, 90p train ticket to Brighton, £5 Travelodge Room and £5 mobile phone I’d still have a lot left!
• A bike to ride to work to save money on tram fares!!
• A Radley_London handbag?
• Approximately a months worth of shopping for a family of 4! Or car tax for a year.
• A 22" High def TV
• £175 would pay for my bus fare to work for a year!
• It would buy the tortoise I plan on getting for my son!
• About 414 toilet rolls!
• £175 would buy me a return flight from Bristol to Funchal (Madeira), including all Easyjet’s baggage and other charges
• 35,000 half penny chocolate mice, to throw at David Cameron
• £175 can buy me a pair of MBT running shoes. A healthy body deserves a healthy pocket. Or vice-versa.
• 87 tickets on euro lottery
• A nice new bike so I can burn off some calories before my holiday.
• A new bathroom suite (obvs a basic one, but some nice ones out there)
• A month’s commute
• 3 months of petrol to get to work and back for hubby. Disgraceful the hike in fuel charges. Rant over
• Cavity wall insulation 🙂
• Insurance so I can start up my own therapy business…And a very large bar of good chocolate..heehee
• That kind of hike could mean a one way ticket to the homeless shelter….its getting harder to survive!
• An electricity meter bypass kit – if you know the right website to buy it from 😉
• This would take away food from my children’s plates, clothes off their backs, a smile from their faces when I can’t buy things
• It would buy me 175 items from the pound shop!!
• An xbox with kinect to help me lose my baby weight
• A spa weekend or a great day out with the family!
• Apparently penny sweets have inflated to 2 pence each , so I’d have 8750 fizzy cola bottles
• A week of child care
• 15 hours of house cleaning services
• It would plan days out for the kids in the summer hols.
• A car service or a 4 day week at nursery for my boy
• Two weeks grocery shopping or 10 Chinese takeaways and a tank of petrol.
• It would buy 4 Asda dinner suits and dress shirts that I could sew together to make one that fits me.
• Concessionary season ticket for Bristol Rovers’ south stand = £175
• 20 and a half Preschool Sessions for my daughter
• A computer desk and chair which I could really do with!!
• 12 months’ free mobile phone usage!
• Peace of mind that the £14 plus each month would pay for my life insurance – I am a pensioner!!
• 2 tank fulls of petrol….oh that’s no great is it?!
• How about a lotto ticket every Saturday for nearly 6 months? 😉
• Some expert tax planning advice that may just save you another £175 ?!?
• Test match tickets
• Buys a short break at The Barn at Holmfirth
• £175 would buy some bottles of champagne! I would rather huddle under a blanket and have a few glasses than put heating on!
• A ticket for the British Grand Prix!
• A decent A+ rated electrical product no doubt. Or a whole bunch of energy saving lights!