Gas And Electric Bills

[cgksheff 44]

10 minutes ago, The_DADDY said:

My supplier Bulb are insisting I pay £205pm.

I've told them to do one and I'll pay what I can. If I end up in arrears then so be it. 

You run the risk of being changed to a pre-pay meter and the increased costs associated with it.

Look at your average usage over the last year.

Calculate the actual cost at last year's rate (actual tariff - not direct debit) plus standing charge.

Increase by 54% and pay the  monthly equivalent of that.

[The_DADDY 3,481]

11 minutes ago, cgksheff said:

You run the risk of being changed to a pre-pay meter and the increased costs associated with it.

Look at your average usage over the last year.

Calculate the actual cost at last year's rate (actual tariff - not direct debit) plus standing charge.

Increase by 54% and pay the  monthly equivalent of that.

Ah, well I'm absolutely terrible at maths..  I wouldn't even know where to start working this kind of thing out.

Any tips will be greatfuly received 😁

[fools 447]

33 minutes ago, cgksheff said:

Calculate the actual cost at last year's rate (actual tariff - not direct debit) plus standing charge.

Increase by 54% and pay the  monthly equivalent of that.

Prices have more than doubled since last year.

 

The often quoted 54% rise demonstrates how poor the media is at distributing information, the actual percentage depends on personal circumstances.

 

Ignoring them and paying what you want will inevitably lead to you paying more, and possibly damaging your credit rating, which can affect other prices.

Edited April 18, 2022 by fools

[Jim117 72]

Beware of smart meters, suppliers push these to those in arrears as they can also function as pre payment meters set to any rate they choose. Likewise use standing order rather than DD to avoid getting robbed.

[fools 447]

15 minutes ago, Jim117 said:

Beware of smart meters, suppliers push these to those in arrears as they can also function as pre payment meters set to any rate they choose. Likewise use standing order rather than DD to avoid getting robbed.

Quite the opposite, you'll end up paying more for being difficult.

Edited April 18, 2022 by fools

[Jim117 72]

19 minutes ago, fools said:

Quite the opposite, you'll end up paying more for being difficult.

Nope, we’re paying less than the supplier wanted and still fulfilling our obligations. Bear in mind that courts generally take a dim view of organisations that bully customers who are offering reasonable payment. 

[fools 447]

14 minutes ago, Jim117 said:

Nope, we’re paying less than the supplier wanted and still fulfilling our obligations. Bear in mind that courts generally take a dim view of organisations that bully customers who are offering reasonable payment. 

In a thread about the crippling rise of the cost of gas and electricity, you are advising people to:

 

a) not have a smartmeter.

b) not pay by direct debit.

 

both of which are a more expensive way to run their affairs.

 

 

 

[Jim117 72]

4 minutes ago, fools said:

In a thread about the crippling rise of the cost of gas and electricity, you are advising people to:

 

a) not have a smartmeter.

b) not pay by direct debit.

 

both of which are a more expensive way to run their affairs.

 

 

 

Yeah pretty much. As stated a smart meter can be switched to pre payment at any time. Also my neighbour had one fitted and it has made no difference to her bill. You don’t need a smart meter to figure out which are high demand appliances. As for DD. Some years ago we discovered in the nick of time that our very own council was about to empty my OH’s account via DD due to their own **** up. So strictly standing order for untrustworthy and greedy organisations since then. On the subject of pre payment there was a recent case in Scotland where a mum was working two jobs to feed her meters and still having to use food banks to feed her kids. So yes I do advise people to avoid handing that kind of power to their utility company.

[fools 447]

Smart meter tariffs are cheaper, as are direct debit tariffs, so anyone following this advice will be worse off.

 

some kerfuffle over a **** up from years ago isn't a reason to avoid dd's. cutting off your nose..

 

having a meter installed doesn't reduce the amount of power used, it makes it cheaper to read.

Edited April 18, 2022 by fools

[redruby 280]

26 minutes ago, fools said:

Smart meter tariffs are cheaper, as are direct debit tariffs, so anyone following this advice will be worse off.

 

some kerfuffle over a **** up from years ago isn't a reason to avoid dd's. cutting off your nose..

 

having a meter installed doesn't reduce the amount of power used, it makes it cheaper to read.

We got a smart meter about 8 years ago after being pestered by the energy company for ages about all the wonderful benefits of them. My OH finally agreed to shut then up. It made no difference to our energy usage or costs. But we knew that anyway. At some point last year the stupid thing stopped sending readings to the energy company. So we are now back to sending them readings.  They don’t seem to be anxious to replace it. What a waste of time.

Edited April 18, 2022 by redruby

[Jim117 72]

3 minutes ago, redruby said:

We got a smart meter about 8 years ago after being pestered by the energy company for ages about all the wonderful benefits of them. My OH finally agreed to shut then up. It made no difference to our energy usage or costs. But we knew that anyway. At some point last year the stupid thing stopped sending readings to the energy company. So we are now back to sending them readings.  They don’t seem to be anxious to replace it. What a waste of time.

Yeah that’s a common problem. As for being pestered we get a kind of low level harassment where we read the meter, then a meter reader turns up followed by a request for a meter reading a week later 😂

[hackey lad 3,993]

We use Prepayment meters for gas and electric . Know its a bit more expensive but we know where we stand . Was dreading April 1st but since then , electric has stayed about same and gas has gone up about £7 a week . Was expecting both to be a lot higher