‘UK national price hike day’: what to expect and how to lessen blow

theguardian.com:

The squeeze on household budgets will increase from this weekend when a raft of price and bill hikes take effect. These concern everything from mobile phone contracts and council tax to the cost of stamps, NHS prescriptions and going to the dentist.

Saturday, when many of the increases come into effect, has been described as “national price hike day”, while the fact that some of the increases come in over the next few weeks has led to some commentators labelling next month “awful April”.

UK consumers always face a wave of higher costs on or around 1 April, as that is the month when many official bodies and private firms increase their fees and annual bills. But this year things are different for two reasons.

Some of these latest increases are the biggest for decades, or ever: some mobile phone customers are being hit with increases of up to 17.3%. The problem is that many of these bills and costs are linked to the official inflation rate, which has been running at 10%-plus in recent months. Some firms such as telecoms companies use consumer price inflation or retail price inflation, and then add a further amount on top – often 3.9%.

And of course, people’s finances have already taken a battering as a result of much higher energy, mortgage/rent, food and other bills, so these hikes are arguably going to cause even more pain than usual.

In some cases, yes. When it comes to broadband and mobile deals, if you are “in contract” – perhaps you signed up to a new tariff within the last year or two – the price rise is likely to be part of that, and in most cases this will mean you are not able to cancel penalty-free, according to Martin Lewis’s MoneySavingExpert website. It says the two main exceptions are Sky broadband and home phone