Fuck me, my energy bill has doubled to £150 a month!!

[notwhatineednow]

It's doubled.

I can't tell how much of it is the energy prices going up, and how much of it is because I haven't done a meter reading for ages and so maybe I'm paying off debt? I can't tell, it's not at all obvious (I'm with Bulb).

Is this the kind of rise the rest of you are getting on normal bills?

Does anyone know if I can find out from the Bulb website if it includes debt? If it's there I'm missing it.

I’m also with bulb.

Have you got the app? If you go into the app, you can see your statement which will tell you how much electricity and gas you actually used last month in units. Then multiply that by the new unit price to get an estimate of what your bills are going to be next month.

Bulb are horrendous for hiking up your direct debit - I used to pay £159, I do my meter readings every single month. Then they tried to put me up to £522 despite my account being £49 in credit after a meter reading. At the new unit price, my bill will be £320ish (still a huge hike) so I called them and challenged it and they lowered my direct debit down to £330.

Do the maths yourself before you call them!

I hear you, it’s horrendous. Although taken in isolation £150 sounds like a dream to me, ours is over £400 a month now (although that’s elec and gas combined).

@BarbaraofSeville

How does the price cap work though? Are you saying that people were using far more energy than they paid for but due to the cap they couldn't be charged for it?

Im in a 3 bed terraced newish build so good insulation
We normally pay £110 electric and about £45 gas a month
Been advised on current usage our electric will go up £62.50 a month and gas £23
Dh and I luckily have both had small payrises which will just about cover the gas/ electric
But not the rent, water rates , c tax and petrol rises so yet again worse of despite being one of the lucky ones to get a small annual percentage rise

@notwhatineednow. Believe me, I'm furious at the money/contracts awarded to mates of the Tories.

I was saying to DH yesterday that it's as though the government are gaslighting the population. The cost of living is rising bit by bit, but we keep accepting it. And we're fobbed off with "Covid" and "War in Ukraine". I know those have an impact, but what has far more of an impact is Brexit and prioritising shareholders over people.

We should all be protesting over this, but we don't. Many people have been so ground down by this that they have no energy left (no pun intended).

@ToothGrinder for the many of us on prepayment meters we do not have this choice we have to pay before we even use it and at a higher rate
Totally wrong and its mostly those in rented and lower incomes in this position
No money to put on meter then we sit in the dark and cold

I know a couple of people who have called and re negotiated.

No. The price cap is the amount it costs for a standard amount of energy.

Which then implies a certain unit rate so A x B = C where A is the unit rate, B is the standard usage and C is the total.

If your energy use is B, you pay C. If you use half B, you pay half C, if you use 2B you pay 2C etc etc.

You need to send in meter readings ASAP and find out! I'm with Bulb and do monthly readings so I know exactly what I've used.

Gas aside, it seems to me that a lot of people need to look at their electricity usage first and foremost. The average household uses 8.5kwh a day of electricity. That's £2.46 a day at 29p/kWh, the new rate. Or £74 a month.

My new rates are 44.75p standing charge and 27.627p unit rate. The past three days we’ve averaged £10 a day.

This means we are looking at £300 a month just for electricity. We were previously paying £140.

There are various factors which mean our electricity use has been a bit higher than normal recently (had workmen here Friday and Saturday) but that won’t have made a massive difference.

That was for @twinsetandpearl

On the matter of prepayment meters, you can sometimes change. It's not a given that you have to use them. As always, advice on Moneysavingexpert.

Added advantage that as well as it being cheaper, you can smooth the cost all year round. So instead of paying £300 pm in winter and £50 pm in summer, you can pay £150 pm (or whatever, CBA working out the average cost) every month.

Mine had doubled before the increase. I'm paying more for electricity in a two bed apartment than I did for electricity and gas in a three bed house.

@prettyLittlefool we use way more electric than that as two of us also work from home and with washing machine on as 4 of us here and 2 ds who do sport and also work in place where a clean uniform is needed every single day .
I don't know where they get that average from as I know no one that only spends that
I mean you wash your hands it costs in electric as my combi boiler heats so i use both gas and electric

Government is announcing its plans for energy this week I believe. To be fair all the government does is distributes taxpayers money and so if they subsidise energy then we end up paying for this through tax anyway. The most sensible thing would be for them to follow France and introduce rules for the energy companies pricing structures but this is far more difficult to do here than it is in France.

@prettyLittlefool my first rate for electric is £0.54 pence and then £0.35 pence so Im not sure where your getting your 29 p from

If you take regular meter readings then you know how much you are using per month.

@Fedupperiod Im on utilta pre payment and we are still worse on than those on dd as generally a higher rate
Utilita emailed me to tell me what they expected mine to go to on current usage
£28 is a low usage amount a month

[quote worriedatthistime]@prettyLittlefool my first rate for electric is £0.54 pence and then £0.35 pence so Im not sure where your getting your 29 p from [/quote]
Is that first rate your standing charge? If not it’s very high

I've been paying that amount for a year. I'm in a 3 bedroomed semi.

To clarify again because I’m not sure every single person understands this (apologies if you do) .
A fixed rate does not mean it’s fixed amount per month and you use as much as you like. It’s a fixed cost per KWH.
Many people don’t give regular readings and have been merrily carrying on not realising they are getting into debt.
Now prices have gone up and the debt has to be cleared which is why there’s such a hike.
Also the companies will take the chance to get you to pay more than you need to .
So work out how much you used last year, times it by the cost per Kwh, add on standing charge for the year and divide it all by 12. That should give you a rough direct debit amount for use going forward.
If you’ve got debts to clear it will be more.
Take readings every single month.

We submitted our readings and they said they were on the low side,we took pictures,still £175 for the month even tho we didn’t have the heating on!one tv,fridge/freezer ,washing machine on cold wash 3xs a week…it’s making me miserable and depressed!

We are on a fix until the end of June. When we slip onto the price cap in July, our bill will increase by 72%. It will then rise a further 54% (current prediction) in October. We spent £12.08 on gas and electric last week. This will be £20.77 in July and about £32 by October. A 166% increase in 4 months.

Many people don’t give regular readings and have been merrily carrying on not realising they are getting into debt.
Now prices have gone up and the debt has to be cleared which is why there’s such a hike.

I do think this is the crux of it. The OP herself said she hadn't done a meter reading in ages and could most likely be paying off debt - especially as we are coming out of winter and peak energy usage times

Also if OP was "only" paying £75 a month before this seems far far to cheap and actually £150 is much more realistic unless she lives on her own in a studio flat?

@User76745333 no its for the first 2kwh used per day then it goes to the £0.35 pence after
They don't so standing charge so build it into this I think
But I don't really know what 2kwh amounts to as was trying to work out if we just do all washing 2 days a week as cheaper on second usage or if 2kwh is used easily anyway so it makes no difference

My supplier are really good at increasing my direct debit to what they think I will use, usually basing it on only the last few months so try and increase it at the end of winter and reduce it to almost nothing at the end of summer so don't take the projections from them as accurate.

The price cap for electric is going up to 28.34p, for gas it's 7.37p per KWH. Standing charge cap is 45.34p for electric and 27.22p for gas. Use these figures and your annual usage for the last year to calculate your annual bill before you agree to any of the higher direct debits.

My provider have said it will go up to £282 when my fixed rate ends, presumably as they are using mainly winter usage to calculate it, but my usage suggests £2268 for the year so they will be getting no more than £200.