Such an exciting topic but what is your monthly electricity bill? Ours is ridiculously high - I think- but nothing to compare it to!

[Bagelsandbrie]

Family of 4. I’m a sahm, dh works outside the home full time and we have 2 dc, 18 and 9. To be fair of course with Covid we’ve all been at home a lot more etc, devices streaming, stuff constantly on etc but even so... our monthly electric is now £150. We do have the tumble dryer, dishwasher and washing machine going a lot - both myself and ds are disabled and there is a lot of washing related to this.

(We have gas central heating, £60 a month for gas).

I’ve switched to the cheapest tariff I can find. It still seems very high.

Just wondered what others were spending?

Our is £40-£45 a month (family of 4, 3 bed house).

Usual culprits for high electricity bills are hot tubs (LazySpa etc) and immersion tanks that are left on all the time rather than using a timer. Our oven uses a lot too but I tend not to have it on for more than 30-40 mins a day.

Do you have a smart meter? If not, get one and then spend a day turning things off and on one by one to see how they affect usage.

I live in a big, poorly insulated, very old property with leaky windows and draughts blowing through the walls. Everything is electric - no gas or oil - and heating is mostly by 40 year old storage heaters (which are actually more effective than the one modern one). I also run supplementary fan/convector/oil filled heaters in the coldest months. I pay £150 per month. Your bill seems very high to me.
(My Economy 7 tariff allows me to heat water and run appliances at the cheaper rate, but it’s a small saving.)

Just saw your comment about the tumble drier. That'll be it.
Why are you doing 2-3 loads a day for a family of 4? You need to look at this. It's not necessary to change all clothes after a single use. Teach your children to hang up clothes after they've been worn if they can be used again. I bet they're often just putting them in the wash as they've been scrunched up on other floor rather than being truly dirty. Bedding and towels can usually be used more than once too.
I typically do 5 loads a week of clothes (also a family of 4). I wash bedding weekly (2 loads for 3 beds) and towels are also washed weekly (we are clean when we use them and hang them up to dry between uses). Add another wash or two for miscellaneous (swimming things, pet bedding etc.).

3 bed, 2 adults, 2 dcs. Dh out at work all day. Usual appliances, tumble dryer used daily as is washing machine. Electric has just gone up to £70, gas to £48 I think? I have recently upgraded tumbke dryer to a more energy efficient one, am sure old ine was eating electricity, seemed to be on hours for one load.

Blimey, some of these! We are 2 adults, 2 older teens. Standard 3 bed semi paying £85pm for gas and electricity. As we are coming out of winter we are just under 1 month in credit which seems about spot on.

Sorry, meant to say, we have dishwasher, dryer etc too

2 bed house, (me + DH + DD) we’re in all the time at the moment. Dishwasher but no tumble drier, our bills with Bulb (Gas and Electric combined) are about £100 in the depth of winter and £50 in the height of summer so we pay £75 a month which evens up across the year.

£210 per month.

Electric only, storage heaters on Economy 10. 4 bed end terrace.

The OP says in her first post that she and one of her children are disabled stuckinarutatwork and that is the cause of the extra washing. These things are not always a choice and sometimes it is necessary to change clothes after a single use.

Ours is the same £210 combined but not sure of the breakdown. Six bed and I have the heating on 6am to 8pm except in the summer. Use the dryer and washing machine three times a day.

Look at hanging washing outside wherever you can. Consider a heated drying rack or even a fan pointed at your washing on an airer to cut the drying bill. Is it an old tumble dryer? That could be the issue, modern ones are a lot cheaper to use.
Consider solar to heat your hot water / supplement heating your hot water.

Well we moved into a new flat in September and for some reason Octopus haven’t been taking many payments (£200 over 6 months) and now they’re asking us for £950. So yeah. We spent £200 a month for 79 sq/m flat.

£143 for gas and electric. Dh, me, 2 x teen ds's.

Im not prepared to sit in a cold house.

Two adults in a semi-detached here. We're with bulb, and our combined bill each month is about £65.

Thank you all for the replies.

As someone has pointed out we can’t really reduce the amount of washing we have - ds and I both have disabilities that cause a lot of washing and we can’t dry outside due to neighbours frequently smoking / bonfires etc. I do dry a lot of things by hanging stuff around the house but I’m mindful that this creates a lot of damp / condensation in a house where this is already a massive issue! (So I’d end up having heating on even more to compensate)! I do quite like the idea of the heated airer so will look into this, thank you.

On an average day we do 2/3 loads of washing, 2 tumble loads and the dishwasher goes about 3 times! Maybe we are just very high users after reading what others do. Our tumble dryer was purchased in 2018 and is a Bosch series 4, energy rated B.

I think I’m just going to try and hang things around indoors as much as I can with some sort of heated airer thing. I’m sure that’s probably what’s making the huge bills.

(Ds has autism and learning disabilities and frequently soils himself and the bed so everyday I’m washing a change of bedding and lots of changes of clothes. I also have continence issues relating to kidney issues and lupus... bit embarrassed by that but it is what it is).

I appreciate all the advice and replies.

If your neighbour is having more than very occasional bonfires, (eg a handful of times a year) then you should complain. You should be able to put your washing out. Them smoking shouldn't affect your washing unless they are literally standing in your garden to do it.

Three times a day for the dishwasher is very high too. I would have thought once a day was enough for most families, except occasions like Christmas. Why does it go on so often? If it's because you run out of plates, it's probably cheaper to make sure you have a full day's worth of plates rather than run a dishwasher nearly empty three times a day.

Are people taking long showers? Someone posted some numbers not long ago that illustrated that running a shower could be £30/40 a month by itself if people were having multiple long showers a day.

£250 combined gas and electricity

But we have a large fish pond, a hot tub, use the dryer daily and don't really care too much

There is only me and DH

On an average day we do 2/3 loads of washing, 2 tumble loads and the dishwasher goes about 3 times! Maybe we are just very high users after reading what others do.

Yup, that’s masses. I reckon I do 3 loads of washing a week for the 5 of us, only use the tumble dryer in the depths of winter and the dishwasher probably 3 times a week. I appreciate you can’t change the washing, but would definitely aim for drying outside (they can’t have the bonfire going 24/7) and reducing dishwasher use.

I'm paying variable monthly for electricity after they wanted £150 pm direct debit which is higher than our highest winter bill this year.

We average out at about £100 per month, family of 4 in all-electric 3 bed flat.

Try a dehumidifier as well or instead of a heated airer, we use ours over night when it is cold to prevent condensation and use it to dry washing, it literally sucks the moisture of the the wet washing.

If you think you might be over paying (or anyone else) join the Money Saving Expert energy club, you out in your usage and it compares all the suppliers/tariffs/deals etc to help you find the best deal. They also have exclusive deals some times which can be cheaper