Holy moly my smart meter has hit 10 pounds

[Eyedropeyeflop]

I’ve never seen my smart meter hit 10 pounds in one day.

We are a family of 5 in a standard 3 bed house. The heating has been on today from 3-7pm (and not on full).

Couple of showers, 1 bath. I cooked sausages in the oven, veg on the hob. Nothing too extravagent.

Few cups of tea.

Looking forward we will cope, but we will not have hardly any surplus.

Anyone else want to share their smart meter readings today?

I have a stupid question… our heating and hot water is oil. Does it use electric too when we shower/bath?

Ours is too. Yes it uses electricity. You can’t use the oil in the event of a power cut.

Thank you @SockFluffInTheBath and @User76745333! I should have known that really due to recent power cuts!

Don't boil a full kettle each time you want a cup/mug of tea/coffee. Only boil the amount of water you actually need. It takes more energy to boil a full kettle than if you boil for 2 cups.

Mine was £3.86 last night and that was a day with 2 kettle boils. micro on for 5 mins and tv for 6 hours. The heating came on for 45 mins to bring the temp back up to 17 because it was too cold. So bare minimum usage.
In comparison, during December/Jan I had my heating set to come on automatically to keep the temp at 19 and my smart meter showed less than £4 a day and in budget.

Thats whats depressing. even being frugal you are looking at around £120 a month. for absolute basics and you will still be cold.
Pensioners are really going to suffer next winter. I was a child in the 70's and remember the stories of pensioners dying of hypothermia or being burnt by the old 3 bar electric fires. Its scandalous that we could be going back to that.

Our energy company are estimating we'll use £3.86 a day (that's a 74% increase). We don't have a smart meter, but I'm sure we'll have used more than the estimated £3.86 as we've got the heating on at the moment.

There's only two of us most of the time, I don't use hairdryers, tumble dryers, full washing loads if possible, all veggies in one saucepan and we're not high heating users, it's just on in the mornings now for no more than an hour.

Most of us are going to have around six months without the heating on, so that should make a large different over the summer months.

@Hadenoughofbloodycovid my smart meter has only half updated. I don't know in what way but the standing charge is more, but incorrect and the amounts at the end of the day are wrong. The only way I've been able to find out the correct cost is by looking at my online bulb account. Don't know if that helps.

Ours was about £11 yesterday and we didn't get home until 2pm!

That was a few hours of heating, a bath and a shower, roasting a chicken and one load of washing then a few hours of screens (Xbox and TV). Plus a few kettle boils and hair dryer/straighteners

I’m glad I’m not the only one keep going to look at my meter lol, I’ve never really took much notice of it before! Been averaging £5 a day since the 1st on electric. We would normally be £2.50-£3.50. Gas a nightmare £12 since the 1st 😩

We have used £3.14 gas and electric since 31 March. Heating has been on once, for an hour. Have always tried to maintain a frugal approach to power usage.

Mine’s not showing the price for gas for some reason. But we’re on 0.48 kWh so far today for electricity and nothing for gas. So far this month 8.51 kWh electricity (£3.99) and 18.88 kWh gas.

@TerraNovaTwo

We have used £3.14 gas and electric since 31 March. Heating has been on once, for an hour. Have always tried to maintain a frugal approach to power usage.

Edit: 3 bed semi, me and 2 older DC.

So far this month -

01/04 £3.53
02/04 £3.29
03/04 £3.40

Gas and electric.

3 bed terraced house with just myself and my 6 year old in it just now (husband works away).

We have solar panels so I've been trying to use most electricity when there's even a hint of sun and have been layering up before putting heating on. When DH comes home I expect our costs will go up significantly he has a much more laid back attitude to energy prices!

@deadlanguage

Mine’s not showing the price for gas for some reason. But we’re on 0.48 kWh so far today for electricity and nothing for gas. So far this month 8.51 kWh electricity (£3.99) and 18.88 kWh gas.

Just worked out that’s about £2.50 for the gas so far this month. I don’t understand how people are spending £10 a day!

Five bed detached house but just the three of us, two adults, DS 8. Since the new tarried kicked in we have been around £7.50-£8.00 a day. The gas is so expensive despite us hardly using the heating with the thermostat on 15 for a couple of hours then turned off completely, and we have a new condensing boiler. We were very frugal about energy use before the new tariff, now I’m becoming obsessed with checking the meter. We can cover the costs now, but not in October.

*tarriff

Our reading from yesterday, electricity £2.65, gas, £3.64. It’s the gas that’s the killer. We hardly use it! I’m dreading the winter. How are people on low incomes meant to manage?

I've started boiling a full kettle once in the morning and filling a thermos flask for all my teas and coffees.

Some of the variation here will be about single / dual fuel ovens. Gas cookers are cheaper than electric, because gas is cheaper per unit than electric. whether people have thermostats on radiators, temperature of heating etc. will all make a difference too.

We're finally getting a smart meter fitted next week, after our previous company said for years that they wouldn't be in the first roll-out of meters. I suspect DH will stalk around the house for days switching things off to see what impact no microwave has on the costs.

We are due to get new windows in a few weeks, at the moment I'm in a single glazed 4 bed Victorian house. Heating is brutal.

Not going to make that much difference, but I put veg and water in a casserole dish at the bottom of the oven when I cook. Saves running a hob aswell.

If the tap water is heated by the boiler, you could probably change the bath taps to one's with a shower attachment quite cheaply.

We're not doing too bad at the moment, we tend to only have one lamp on downstairs in the evenings and only have 1 TV, which stays switched off unless we're planning to watch something specific (maybe an hour a day at most). I've got timers on the plugs I use for my phone chargers etc because I tend to use them overnight, so it turns them off after two hours & avoids overcharging them. Working from home puts the power bills up because of running 2 monitors, but I make sure I only plug in my laptop when it needs charging instead of all the time.

Tbh most of our changes had been done already for environmental reasons - low energy use, small home, small car. Greta and XR are getting their way, just not how we thought it would happen and all at once.

Some of the variation here will be about single / dual fuel ovens. Gas cookers are cheaper than electric, because gas is cheaper per unit than electric. whether people have thermostats on radiators, temperature of heating etc. will all make a difference too.
We have an electric oven but cook mostly on the stovetop, radiators adjustable but just numbers to 4, heating mostly off as it's April and it's costing £2.50 a day (fixed above the cap). Don't know how people are using double digits!

@Hyperion100

I've started boiling a full kettle once in the morning and filling a thermos flask for all my teas and coffees.

What difference do you think that will make?

Not got a smart meter but dread to think what ours could be yesterday. Heating on from 5-12 midnight as it was freezing. Numerous lots of washing - 4 teenage kids, sports kits, work uniforms etc, cooked a roast dinner etc. We can afford it but mindful that millions can't.