April brings warmer weather but it also brings yet another raft of inflation-busting price hikes and many of your day-to-day activities will cost you more. Each household will have to find an extra £90 over the next 12 months to cover the increased costs, says money.co.uk.
Here’s what we’ll have to pay more for:
Council tax bills are expected to go up by an average of 4 per cent in England and Wales.
Water bills will increase by £6 (2 per cent) to £395 for the average household.
Prescription costs will also go up by 20p from £8.40 to £8.60.
NHS dental charges payable for a check up will increase by 90p (almost 5 per cent) from £19.70 to £20.60. The dental charge for a band 2 course of treatment will increase by £2.40 from £53.90 to £56.30. The charge for a band 3 course of treatment will increase by £10.60 from £233.70 to £244.30.
First-class stamps have risen from 64p to 65p and the price of a second-class stamp has gone up to 56p. Posting a small parcel now costs 5p more up from £3.35 to £3.40.
TV licence costs will also go up by £1.50 from £145.50 to £147.
Air Passenger Duty on long haul flights (over 2,000 miles) is set to increase by 2.74%, hiking flight costs by as much as £12.
T will roll out their planned price hikes on April 2 which includes; ‘Basic Broadband’ isgoing up by £2.50 per month, landline calls will go up by 1p (to 12p and 16p), BT Sport (Sky box users) increasing by £1.50 per month and call plans (such as weekend calls) will cost a whopping 30p more.
EE bills will rise by 2.5 per cent across the board in line with January RPI.
O2 bills will increase by 2.6 per cent in line with February RPI, alongside a hike to all call charges outside the monthly allowance.
Vodafone customers that took out a monthly plan on or after May 5, 2016 will see a bill hike of 3.2 per cent in line with March RPI.
Scottish Power customers will seen their standard dual fuel bills rocket by an average of £86 per year.
nPower dual fuel bills have just gone up by 9.8 per cent, leaving customers on a standard variable tariff £110 out of pocket on average.
Co-op Energy bills will crank up prices across its standard rates by 5 per cent, leaving those with a dual fuel tariff typically £58 worse off.
EoN is also jumping on the bandwagon later this month with an average price hike of 8.8 per cent for its dual fuel customers meaning an annual bill hike of £97 on average.
SSE will not be increasing its gas prices, however 2.8 million electricity customers will be hit with an eye watering 14.9 per cent price hike at the end of the month, so dual fuel customers will be landed with an extra £73 to pay a year on average.
Hannah Maundrell at money.co.uk says: “These hikes may appear to be small and ‘nothing to worry about’, but add them all together and it could cost you around £90 extra over the next year.
“While you can’t avoid some of the increases, you can certainly take control when it comes to managing the cost of your energy, phone and broadband. We’ve got the bumpy Brexit ride ahead of us, with no idea what the future holds. The more money you can keep in your pocket and not pass on to suppliers the better. Why should you pay more for something you can get far cheaper elsewhere?"
Action plan
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