Gas & Electricity

bluemonkey71 said:
That’s from my Jan to March bill. Electric cooker, gas hob with Octopus. They are hooked into a smart meter somehow but I haven’t got a display so no idea what’s sucking it all up. Monthly electric is averaging about 320 kWh.
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I was forced to switch from Bulb to Octopus. Since being with Octopus my "usage" has somehow rocketed so much that they are now doubling my DD. That's fine and I can handle it but considering I never used even half of the DD with Bulb then it's quadrupled. At least.
 
mackenzie said:
I was forced to switch from Bulb to Octopus. Since being with Octopus my "usage" has somehow rocketed so much that they are now doubling my DD. That's fine and I can handle it but considering I never used even half of the DD with Bulb then it's quadrupled. At least.
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Perhaps that’s why Bulb went bust…
 
I’ve just had a letter from British Gas informing me my direct debit is goi long from £160 per month to £540. Still in shock
 
Just stop the direct debits and pay quarterly, I got fed up of calling to tell them to take it back down. Try and get your credit refunded also.
It's a cash grab by them to sit on millions of other people's money.
If enough people stop the DD payment method and move to quarterly, they will have to change their business models and you will only pay for what you use.
 
The discount is tiny, also factor in they are holding your money you will struggle to get it back even if you are massively in credit time spent on the phone to sort out the ridiculous uptick in direct debits, they wanted 300 a month off us a couple of years back. My last waurterly bill was 360
 
olly-1-mcfc said:
I’ll be ringing tomorrow but my boiler will be getting switched off if its right - because I can’t afford that!
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check your account. They have been going through a migration of accounts onto a new system. As part of that process they produce new estimates which in my case were way out. It might be the same for you which is driving that increase. Check everything, they are a shower of gobshites and I will be moving very soon.
 
Uncle Wally One Ball said:
Fuck me thats a lot
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Same here. My dd with British gas for both gas and electric £184/mth. They sent me a letter saying it was going up to £496 from May. I sent in the meter readings and renegotiated the d/d to £300. I'm going to send in monthly readings. Hoping to build up a bit of credit over the summer.
 
We paid 250 a month all through winter, turns out we are now 700 in credit and they have dropped the payments to 77 a month, she had to argue for a return of some of the credit though.

We bought Oodies, kept the heating down to as little as we could manage, basically on enough to stop damage to the house, dampness etc.

It was cold at times but no worse than the 70's lol so now we know we can cope, next winter will be the same routine and the Energy companies will have lost money from us thanks to their initial greed.
 
bluealf said:
We paid 250 a month all through winter, turns out we are now 700 in credit and they have dropped the payments to 77 a month, she had to argue for a return of some of the credit though.
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Ovo owe me over £400 so that conversation will be held over the summer. What reasons did they give to make getting the money back difficult, if you dont mind me asking. Just so I can be prepared with answers to any bullshit
 
Uncle Wally One Ball said:
Ovo owe me over £400 so that conversation will be held over the summer. What reasons did they give to make getting the money back difficult, if you dont mind me asking. Just so I can be prepared with answers to any bullshit
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They tried to make out it needed to be kept on credit to pay for the oncoming bill, the guy was Indian and it was very hard to make him understand the problem from the off.

We got an online bill that said they would keep 245 but would repay the rest into the bank, which didn't happen.

We are with EDF (forced due to ours going bankrupt)

I also will admit that I do nothing and my wife is the boss of accounts lol

She just stood her ground and in the end demanded they returned our money, we sit and wait but she will be right back at them in a weeks time if nothing has gone in, woe betide the poor person who takes the next call lol
 
We had a £1100 gas and electric bill for March, which made me really look into this shit. We have a large house so I’ve never really quibbled before, but fuck it, enough was enough. What with all other bills going up too.

It turns out despite us giving the energy company readings each month, they’ve been billing us based on inflated estimates for over a year.

The bill should have been about £600, which is still a lot, and I should have looked closer before now.

Anyway, I decided I want to give these fuckers as little of my money as possible going forward so made a few changes.

Bought some Oodies for the whole family, myself includes (Primark ones do the job nicely!) - less than £100.

Changed the Hive settings to only reach the thermostat temp for about 3 hours a day (versus it trying to hit that temp all day every day before now).

The mrs had an ancient tumble dryer which was shite on energy. So I found a decent deal on a heat pump drier on Hot UK Deals which is about 70% cheaper to run. Paid £400, she sold the old one for £150 on Facebook - so net outlay was £250, but that’s probably gonna pay for itself within a few months.

This month, we’re on track to spend less than £150 on gas and electric all in, including standing charges.

Pretty chuffed with that and barely noticed any difference. Kids haven’t noticed, and the mrs hasn’t moaned.

Going to keep pressing on and aim to cut energy bills to sub £100/month asap.
 
gandalfthebrave said:
We had a £1100 gas and electric bill for March, which made me really look into this shit. We have a large house so I’ve never really quibbled before, but fuck it, enough was enough. What with all other bills going up too.

It turns out despite us giving the energy company readings each month, they’ve been billing us based on inflated estimates for over a year.

The bill should have been about £600, which is still a lot, and I should have looked closer before now.

Anyway, I decided I want to give these fuckers as little of my money as possible going forward so made a few changes.

Bought some Oodies for the whole family, myself includes (Primark ones do the job nicely!) - less than £100.

Changed the Hive settings to only reach the thermostat temp for about 3 hours a day (versus it trying to hit that temp all day every day before now).

The mrs had an ancient tumble dryer which was shite on energy. So I found a decent deal on a heat pump drier on Hot UK Deals which is about 70% cheaper to run. Paid £400, she sold the old one for £150 on Facebook - so net outlay was £250, but that’s probably gonna pay for itself within a few months.

This month, we’re on track to spend less than £150 on gas and electric all in, including standing charges.

Pretty chuffed with that and barely noticed any difference. Kids haven’t noticed, and the mrs hasn’t moaned.

Going to keep pressing on and aim to cut energy bills to sub £100/month asap.
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Someone paid £150 for a clapped out, ancient, inefficient tumble dryer?

For April our usage would have been £160 plus s/c but based on week 1 of May it could be £110 for this month. That’s purely down to the temperature being warmer last week.
 
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