Oh dear, I am so angry right now. I am trying to cut back and have gone through our bills which DH said he was on top of and there was nothing we could cut back there. So I have been trying to make savings with food shopping and meal planning. However, today I decided to look through our statement and was shocked at finding the following:
- SKY - we were paying nearly £80 a month. DH said it was less than this and that although we had sports and movies (whihc no one watches!) that it was virtually free as it was on offer. The offer expired months and months ago. So I rang them, got rid of movies and sports, complained about the boradband charge which they then reducted to £5 instead of £7.50 and paid my line rental upfront for the year which went from £14.50 a month to £9.90 a month. Overall saved loads and monthly sky bill is now £37. But I am cross with DH being so laissez faire in his views re SKY tv. Also, when I asked sky why i was being charged £7.50 for broadband and my sis was paying £5 a month he said if people rang in they automatically got the discount and told about paying bills upfront. pfft
- Gas and electric. We live in a smallish 4 bed detached new-ish build with energy efficient boiler. We have no gas fires or electric fires. But we do have gas central heating. My eyes nearly fell out of the socket when I realised we pay £140 a month for gas and £50 for elec. thats nearly £200 a month! my parents who live in a 4 floor massive terrace pay £300 a quarter and have the gas fire on all day. I rang southern electric who assured me they had accurate meter readings and nothing could be done. I asked her to explain the difference in billing between ours and my parents bill (with same company) and she went off to re-look at our bill. Oh, it seems we are over £200 in credit so she 'kindly' decided our gas bill could be reduced to £100 a month and elec £40. So saved a bit there.
I am angry with myself and DH and these greedy companies. I STILL think our gas/elec bill is too high! We pay £50 a quarter for water which seems ok? but again much more than everyone else I know.