Wow! First month's new energy bill

[JadeSeahorse]

Received our bill for the month of April - first one including huge price hike. (Octopus)

Have cut down where we can. Unplugging things at night, line drying washing much, much more, economy setting for washer, dishwasher etc. heating on 14 degrees so hardly ever on, (We are just using gas fire occasionally in the sitting room as house is really well insulated.). Never even bothered previously as the cost wasn't really an issue.

Last year the bill for the month was £102 in total for dual fuel when we weren't cutting back at all. This year - £183! Fortunately, we can easily afford the extra but, my God, how on earth are people on low incomes/tight budgets going to afford this sort of rise? This is seriously scary!

Anyone else had their first month's new bill as yet and how was it?

You can manually change the Octopus direct debit online. I do it from time to time. Sometimes increase and sometimes decrease it

My Dd went up from £120 to £172. My actual usage for April was about £96. FC on last year's full usage is £169 per month so close to dd so leaving it for now.

The standing charge annoys me. Private business fails after paying £££ dividends for years & it gets split out across everyone and standing charges double.

EDF put our direct debit up to nearly £500! That was a shock when I looked at our bank account. Thankfully It’s been sorted and we will now pay £250 per month.

38kwh ish per day

bill was £290 per month now £632

@Whiterose23 EDF have done similar to me. Are actually returning money where I have overpaid this year to date and basically doubling My dd from next month. We are on a fix until October. I think they are trying to get everyone into loads of credit over the summer which doesn't seem ethical to me.

I would be very wary of these DDs over £500-- I think it's unlikely unless you have a 3500 sq ft plus house anyone would hit these figures on actual bills and they are just trying to get great cash reserves. I used to work on money markets and they make great money on banking all this upfront cash on long term and overnight markets and some people are simply saying ok when being asked for ridiculous amounts- it's perfectly possible to say no unless you are vastly in minus

That can't be right!

Do we know what's happening with bulb yet ? I'm keeping a smallish credit with them.

Gas has gone from 50 a month to 110, we've barely had the heating on!!

For some reason the electric reading hasn't gone through yet, I'm dreading it!

With EDF if I'm in credit they refund it back / every time.

From never submitting readings even quarterly, I now read my meter weekly and have submitted my first of the monthly readings. Last month Gas was £120 and electricity £125. My dd is £285 so covered nicely. I am not sure why gas is so high though. April has been cold at times though and it was only after the first week I tweaked the clock and thermostat a bit.

I think the trouble is because they have increased the standing charge so much it is hard to make any savings anywhere. I haven't had a reading request yet but our dd will need to be increased as it hasn't been yet.

This is what happens when you don't actually submit readings until the end of March. 😐Is my gas usage Vs electric usual?

@Robin233 yes, I'm in credit. They are refunding the credit and simultaneously putting my direct debit up (more than doubled from this time last year and I'm not on standard rate yet).

Sad to hear Octopus coming in for some bad comments as they are the ONLY energy company to have set their bills to be £50 below the price cap and have doubled their emergency fund to help people who are struggling.

We're retired, so home all day. Our bills are currently an average of £230 a month - on a rate fixed last August. The rise is going to be terrifying, especially since our pensions aren't huge and unlikely to increase by anything like enough.

Any advice for high gas usage? We have a fan oven so I assume that’s electric and have a conduction hob. Tried really hard to use less of everything this month but our gas usage is massive! I’ve tried limiting our heating now as we don’t really need it on but we do have our water coming on twice a day that I need to stop as I assume we don’t need it that much?

We use our dishwasher once a day, sound ignorant but is that gas? I assumed it was electricity!

My duel fuel has gone from £84 - £206... no idea how this will pan out tbh

It's electric and cheaper than washing up by hand.

Dishwasher will be electricity
We have a gas hob and gas central heating
Have put the hot water to 1 hour each day. Heating is on thermostat and timer but I've turned the thermostat down to about 16⁰C just now

My bill was only 29 days as I submitted my reading a day early. For 29 days I used 376 gas and 137 electricity. Cost £78. According to Scottish Power I am below a low usage off gas household and below mid usage for electricity. My dd is sitting at £85 a month.

We are with octopus. Our bills were £183 but have gone up to £383 per month. Our actual usage this month was £260 & we have tried to be careful. We are going to call them in another month and ask for our rates to be lowered. It's disgusting they can hike the prices so much. We live in a standard 4 bed semi, it's not massive by any stretch. I do wfh but try to be sensible with energy use.

You dont need to call octopus to change a direct debit. You can do it online and change the amount yourself

That's right, I often change the DD on the app. Easy peasy.