National price hike day will see eye-watering costs for Brits
It is National Price Hike Day in the UK on April 1st – and the cost of living is set to spiral upwards by £1581 this year for every UK household.
According to the annual National Price Hike Day Report from financial comparison website money.co.uk, Brits are set to be hit with a raft of inflation-busting price hikes on Wednesday.
According to the data, each household will have to find extra cash over the next 12 months to cover the increased costs of standard bills across the UK.
And in real terms, that means an eye-watering £4.2 billion in extra costs over the next 12 months across the 27.6 million households in the UK. Since 2015, the cost of living for UK householders has risen by almost £25 billion, according to the data.
Salman Haqqi, personal finance expert at money.co.uk, said: “The start of a new financial year is always a good excuse for many companies to raise the cost of their product or service – everything from stamps to watching TV.
“Some of these price hikes might seem small and insignificant on their own, but when you add them all together they could cost you an extra £158 a year and it couldn’t come at a worse time for consumers, who are already coping with the effects of the coronavirus outbreak.
“Some increases will be impossible to avoid, but you can do something about dealing with the cost of your energy, phone and broadband. Always check you’re on the best possible tariffs and don’t think twice about switching providers for a better deal if your contract is up.”
Here’s what is going up in price from April 1st:
Stamps
A single first-class stamp now costs 79p rather than 70p. That’s a price rise of 9p or 13% more than 2019. It’s a 25% increase in price since 2015.
Prescriptions
The cost of a standard prescription has risen from £9.00 to £9.15, a 2% rise on 2019 but a 12% increase compared to prescription costs in 2015.
NHS Dental Check
The cost of getting your teeth checked on the NHS is expected to rise to £23.902 from 2019’s cost of £22.70 – an increase of 5% but a 26% rise since 2015.
TV Licence
The price of watching the BBC through buying a TV licence is up from £154.50 to £157.50, a £3 increase, or 2%. TV licences have gone up by 8% since 2015.
Air Passenger Duty
The cost of duty for air travel (Band B – over 2,000 miles) is up from £172 to £176 – an increase of 2% on 2019 and a 24% rise since 2015.
Pint of Milk
The cost of a pint of milk has risen from 44p to 50p, a 14% increase on 2019.
Mobile Phone Contract
The cheapest sim-only contract will now cost £3.95 per month, up from £3.00 in 2019 – a 32% increase3. Since 2015, however Mobile phone sim-only contract costs have actually declined in price by an average of 47%.
Broadband & Home Phone
The cost of the cheapest broadband and home package has risen from £9.49 per month in 2019 to £15.90 in 2020 – a price hike of 38%3. Broadband prices have also been fairly steady since 2015, seeing just a 2% average rise in price since then.
Council Tax
The cost of a band D average house has risen from £1,750 in 2019 to £1,817 in 2020 – an increase of 4%. Council Tax bills have risen 22% since 2015.
Not all prices have risen for 2020 however. Some have actually fallen in price compared to their cost in 2019. These include:
Energy
The cheapest tariff for a household with medium annual usage reduced by £127.19 from £903.33 on 1 April 2019 to £776.14 today – a reduction of 14%3.
Households who haven’t switched for over a year and are more likely to be on their supplier’s poor value Standard Variable Tariff will see a slight reduction in the cost of their tariff. The energy price cap on Standard Variable Tariffs is going down by £17 (1.4%) a year on average, from £1,179 per year to £1,162.
Water
The average cost of a UK water bill has been slashed from £413 in 2019 to £396 in 2020, a 4% reduction. Since 2015, the rise of water bills have increased by an average of 3%.
