SO just as we are about to turn on the central heating for another winter, gas bills have gone up by 12.4 per cent.

The record rise in energy bills came into effect on Monday (September 20) after British Gas announced the massive price hikes last month.

Oh, and the company's 15 million customers are seeing electricity bills increase by 9.4 per cent as supplies of North Sea gas dwindle and oil prices rise.

Meanwhile, petrol prices are spiralling close to the psychologically important £4 a gallon ceiling.

The annual cost of filling the tank is some £150 more than it was at the start of the year and protestors have warned of blockades across the UK.

Over the past few years we have seen property prices rise to the point that young professionals are priced out of the market while beach huts sell for more than £100,000.

And as the steam is gently released from that pressure pot, many with mortgages have had to soak up five interest rate rises since November.

On top of that, one in three homes in England could get pushed into higher council tax bands under government plans set to come into force in Wales next year.

The new assessments would cost the average household an extra £257 a year, it was revealed at the weekend.

Rubbing salt into that wound in your wallet, history tells us that as bills go up services generally go down.

Councils up and down the country are looking into what cuts can be made next year, but I'm guessing it won't be charges.

In 2003, Bournemouth residents were told they would be paying 14.7 per cent more to the council after last-minute cuts prevented an even sharper rise.

This year brought a 5.9 per cent rise.

We were told a £2.7 million package of cuts had helped keep the bill down.

You don't have to be a mathematician to know the sums are not adding up in households across the country.

The days of double digit pay rises are long gone.

That is unless you are some suit brought in to turn a company's fortunes around.

Then you are paid a vast sum, you give yourself several whopping rises and eventually when everyone notices you have failed to do what you were hired to do you leave, taking a six or seven-figure golden goodbye with you.

In the real world, most of us get a pay rise of a few per cent a year.

The last few years of the last Labour government and first few years of Thatcher's rule saw inflation floating somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent.

It peaked at a colossal 25 per cent.

Inflation over the past few years has been low.

Lower clothing prices helped it drop to 1.3 per cent last month.

We can no longer see prices of goods rising before our eyes on the supermarket shelves as we could 30 years ago.

But other large household bills are.

I had not even paid my first installment on my mortgage before the building society informed me it would now be requiring £15 more a month.

A spokesperson from the Transport and General Workers' Union, one of the UK's largest trade unions, said: "We are worried that wages are not keeping up with the cost of living.

"Employers need to take into account the additional financial pressures on their workers when dealing with wage claims."

We may have a stable economy and low inflation but we still somehow have to bridge the gap between earnings and the cost of living.

We may have to cut our holiday budget, forget the new car for a while.

People may take from their savings.

They may borrow more, adding to this country's growing personal debt mountain.