Bugger, just had my first bill from EON after Igloo went tits up - it's gone up from £56 to £121 & I've not been using the heating much as it's been mild.
So what's the best guess on how much energy prices will go up this year when the price cap is increased?
Currently on the SSE standard variable (long story of incredible incompetence that could really wind me up but life is too short) and been offered a 2 or 3 year fixed at about 30% higher than the current standard variable. Trying to work out if I should stick or twist. Will 30% increase look like a deal or just about what it will be anyway.
btw - this is leccy only as we're LPG/log burner for heat.
Martin Lewis has been saying the cap will rise 40+% However he also says stay on the standard variable tariff at the moment. Tbh, if the fee for early departure isn't massive then fixing in march before the new cap seems worthwhile to me.
I think the mild autumn and early winter has shielded us from some of the pain. Hope the market gets sorted out soon.
We are on a pretty low fixed tariff with Sainsburys at the moment. I’m going to try and invest in some things over the next year which will save on gas use. I can’t see I can do much more on electricity use as we already have all LED lights, and only have on otherwise things like fridge/routers/sky box etc.
I wasn’t going to get the Hive TRVs yet as they are quite spendy but a pack of 5 will enable a lot of switching off of rads at various parts of the day and I reckon I’d save the £150 cost pretty quickly as the prices jump up. My tariff ends Jan 2023.
My solar tracking app plots 30 Min spot pricing from octopus agile import/export tariff under my solar output
I did the maths last year based on the current 16-20p pricing and it was in favour of not having a battery installed.
I suspect it's tipped the other way now.....still a big loan to committ to on relatively infant technology.
Martin Lewis has been saying the cap will rise 40+%
I suspect the government will step in with a one off tax on gas companies to subsidise the price hike. A 40% rise in fuel costs will cost them the next election.
Tbh, if the fee for early departure isn’t massive then fixing in march before the new cap seems worthwhile to me.
But you won't get any decent fixed tarrifs in March if the wholesale prices are still high enough to mean a big cap increase. Its a catch 42 situation, as my nan once said.
My Octopus fixed tariff is up in Feb, currently paying £107/mo but they've offered me two deals
1/ Fixed for 12mo at £245/mo
2/ Because I've been with Octopus for a while, fix for 12mo at a special deal of £196/mo
Or go std variable at £128/mo.
Am I right in thinking if Martin Lewis is right then +40% on 128 is still better than both, or am I missing something entirely.
[3 bed '50's end of terrace with 4 of us living here so almost exactly their example family]
Another extra cost is £1.83bn which will be passed onto consumers to pay for the compenstation payments given to the suppliers who take on the customers of those suppliers who collapsed.
Then Bulb (special case) has already cost £1.7bn on it's own and rising to be kept going after folding...
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59409595
We just had a Bulb email putting our monthly payment up. It’s gone from £123 to £191, so a £816 year rise and I’m expecting it to go up more in April. Flippin’ ‘eck.
We just had a Bulb email putting our monthly payment up. It’s gone from £123 to £191
Yeah, a 50% increase immediately is what I'm led to expect when my fixed price deal with Shell runs out at the end of January, with roughly the same again in April.
Now, how much do you think I can get away with inflating January's consumption by before they send someone round to check?
We had a message from Bulb a few days ago saying, loosely, "It looks like you've used £125 worth of gas and leccy in Dec, compared to your monthly payment of £86" So that suggests ours is shortly going the same way too, roughly 50% up. They're just softening me up for what I'm already expecting
My fix ends at the end of next month and will go up by 35% to SVR with a projected 40% minimum rise in April (bringing it to >90% total from where I am now)
Looking at another fix it seems I can fix at a total of 70% increase. Going 2 months early may cost me money but not fixing sounds like it could be worse. Stick or twist, hmm.
Monthly payments are just an approximation based on predicted usage. I would urge anyone to calculate your own usage and work out what you need to pay.
My annual consumption hardly changes, so it makes it quite easy to pop the unit prices into a spreadsheet and work out what my bills would be.
Additionally if you’ve already had a notification that you are using more than you are paying, get ahead of the curve and start paying more (unless of course you have die. The sums and know it will balance out in summer)
Edit: Plus as they’re all made in China I suspect the UK has given the Chinese Army the capability to remotely disconnect all domestic energy users in the event of a confrontation…..
Nope, absolutely not. The level of security applied to the smets2 meters being rolled out currently is immense. They are well protected and the steps a supplier has to take to communicate with a meter leave no room for a mass takeover by another state.
We're currently over paying on our gas and electric from bulb but they still want to put it up because "based on this usage you'll be in debt come winter"... They are absolutely useless.
Additionally if you’ve already had a notification that you are using more than you are paying, get ahead of the curve and start paying more
No thanks. Unless you've real problems with budgeting it's never a good idea to hand over money before you have to. Especially to an energy company in the current market, though I suppose the ones we're left with are fairly unlikely to go bust while holding overpayments.
It’s gone from £123 to £191, so a £816 year rise and I’m expecting it to go up more in April. Flippin’ ‘eck.
Swalec put mine up from £54 to £108 last month despite me being in credit to the tune of £200. Pretty crazy considering I only have electric for everything! Currently arguing with them about dropping the DD amount and also getting the excess back too. Oh and they also switched me to Ovo at the end of December too, just to make things interesting 😠
No thanks. Unless you’ve real problems with budgeting it’s never a good idea to hand over money before you have to. Especially to an energy company in the current market, though I suppose the ones we’re left with are fairly unlikely to go bust while holding overpayments.
Read What he said again. Because your talking about something else entirely....
Monthly payments are just an approximation based on predicted usage. I would urge anyone to calculate your own usage and work out what you need to pay.
Just did, exactly the same figures, this is with my current supplier so I'd hope they were right. Good check though.
Already paying £300 per month (hot tub and 2 gaming PC's) but keeping an eye on bills/useage monthly.
Shell have asked for a meter reading so I guess they want to check my usage and not just base their DD setting on last year.
I turned down all the programmed temps by half a degree last night, I wonder how long it'll take my wife to notice 😀
Bulb actually emailed me to say I should reduce my monthly DD of £70 (current credit £211++) to something lower but I just let it be.
Normally, the total for both my electricity and gas together was under £70 even during the winter. My last bill (end December 2021) has gone up to £80.78. Same period in December 2020 was £52.80.
My current living room temp is 12C and bedroom temp is 8.6C at the moment. This is just a small flat with two rooms. My computer CPU temp is currently at 18c to max 25c that's how cold my living room is.
Went to one of my friend's house and it was 21c and his bill was more than £150/month but his is a bit house.
I normally WFH so I guess I need to keep warm by turning to office from now on ... I hate cold.
12 degrees is too low, you'll run the risk of damp and mould forming. My uncle is a real pennypincher and won't turn his thermostat above 10 degrees then wonders why his boiler keeps on failing every autumn when the temperatures drop. He's in a council bungalow so just gets them the fix/replace it every time. He's been warned about how he uses it and also had warnings for keeping the place too colf as he has damp issues but he refuses to accept he's causing the problems, it's always the council's fault and he expects them to fix it every time. Min you this is the same person who paid for broadband for over 2 years despite it being broken as he refused to let the engineer in to fix it, he didn't trust them to not nick anything!
12 degrees is too low, you’ll run the risk of damp and mould forming. My uncle is a real pennypincher and won’t turn his thermostat above 10 degrees then wonders why his boiler keeps on failing every autumn when the temperatures drop.
Hhhmmm ... I normally heat it up to 17c (temp never get above 18c even after heating for 2.5hr) but it takes about 2 hours a day to get to that level, and I only switch on the heating for two hours a day if I can. I have no neighbour on one side so that room is even colder. It looks like it's getting expensive for me.
Not sure if it is me but I can't seem to see any "vapour" coming out from the neighbour heating exhaust. Are they using central heating? The person above my flat never seem to switch on his central heating ...
Why are people suggesting paying more now to get ahead of the curve. Won't this just sit in their account and then just be charged at the higher rate anyway?
Why are people suggesting paying more now to get ahead of the curve. Won’t this just sit in their account and then just be charged at the higher rate anyway?
How do you pay otherwise?
I know when I first started with Bulb, I was minus (-ve) credit for 3 months then they kept asking me to increase my payment, so I did.
I turned down all the programmed temps by half a degree last night, I wonder how long it’ll take my wife to notice 😀
My Hive is great but for this. In the past when she wanted to fiddle with the controls, she had to go into the other room to do it. Now, she's on her phone or iPad perpetually anyway, and the first I know she's either turned it up or boosted it is when I start to sweat.
Even she was shocked by the new tariff offers (my post a week or so back) - I've told her she can afford a really nice new jumper if we can turn the heating down by 10%
yes, I can only assume what is meant is that if you start overpaying now then when prices increase you won't need to increase your monthly DD by as much as you already have credit. In essence a savings plan held by energy co; you could be saving it yourself but the tendency is that it looks like disposable income and hence gets disposed.
You won't get any extra power at the cheaper price though, you'd have to overegg your meter readings for that.
Or they are suggesting divide your years usage over 12 . Either that or you might as well just pay monthly when the direct debit bill comes in. Fwiw ovo offering a competitive interest rate on funds held on account.
I think what Andy is saying is to give higher false readings over the next few months until it goes up.. then slowly give lower ones over the 6 months after that..
Not sure how much it will save or how much you can get away with..
I thought that was the point of DD payments, certainly what i do. 'overpay' and build a buffer in summer, which then insulates the usage in winter.
Never been a problem with Octopus, I had to argue the toss over and over with Avro when i was with them - "you're overpaying .... / "No i'm not, it's July!
think what Andy is saying is to give higher false readings over the next few months until it goes up.. then slowly give lower ones over the 6 months after that..
Or by its other name.... Theft....
Worth it ? Maybe if your running a grow operation in the attic ....
ovwerpaying / going DD is just giving the energy companies a free loan.
I always looked at it as an end of year bonus, was nice to have a (semi) surprising few quid to claim back. One of the suppliers, though I can't remember which one, used to give 4% interest on positive balances!
ovwerpaying / going DD is just giving the energy companies a free loan.
Well yes but given (as evidenced by this thread) so many folk seem surprised when they set their payments up in summer and are asked to pay more in winter.
It's not overpaying if you have averaged your yearly usage out over the year it's balancing your costs through out the year.
And as pointed out above.... Pick wisely and you will actually do better than your bank interest in the UK...
Monthly payments are just an approximation based on predicted usage. I would urge anyone to calculate your own usage and work out what you need to pay.
We're with Octopus, you submit your readings monthly and get an updated statement about 10 mins later with your real balance etc.
Do you then sit and write a cheque for the pounds and pence and post it in ? Sorry I mean ammend your DD on a monthly basis ?
All seems a bit retro to avoid having a very small balance sitting ....(assuming you have an accurate yearly usage)
Since we got a smart meter it's even less hands on.... They draw down the balance on a daily basis ......maybe I should just put in the relevent amount each day to avoid giving them an interest free loan ? Put a penny in the meter style .
Do you then sit and write a cheque for the pounds and pence and post it in ? Sorry I mean ammend your DD on a monthly basis ?
The comment you replied to (assuming you meant the bit where you work out what you've used) was in relation to comparing tariffs when switching.
We were with British Gas before our recent house move and it was very simple to get direct debit discount without getting in credit - submit meter readings on the website, they email the bill a few days later and the dd was automatically adjusted so apart from submitting the reading we did nothing.
New house is ashp and with eon for the next few months so expecting a nightmare whilst things settle down and we learn consumption. First impressions of eon aren't great - useless website, customer services shut right through entire Christmas and New Year period and then only now open weekdays 9-5.
Yep, E.ON are useless.
Yep, E.ON are useless.
Yet still many times better than Scottish Power.
Now with octopus following the collapse of avro. They just advised me to up my DD from £94pcm to £110pcm. Based on my usage it needs to be nearer £150pcm....
Energy companies are truly awful at estimating usage, and I think deliberately (or at least knowingly err) under quote so customers end up in debt at any fixed term, so are unable to switch.
All they have to do is take the meter readings, and generate a bill. Billing is a core function so getting that right is surely something they should be able to do?
And don't get me started on their competence in dealing with economy 7 meters.... Every supplier I've ever used I've had to explain (in single syllables) the I do not want an economy 7 tariff, despite having an economy 7 meter. So much so I got a smart meter installed to solve the problem, that then wasn't then properly registered by the installer so I'm still having the same issue! I missed out on the last of the "cheap" fixed rates beforehand all this kicked off because of that.... Costing me hundreds of pounds in the long term.
