Anyone else’s gas and electricity bills gone up by EVEN more than expected??

[LadyCatStark]

I know it’s only an estimate, but our combined bill was due to rise by £90 this month which is crippling for us. But our direct debit is due to go out tomorrow and it’s going to be £103 more than usual. We’ve used farrrr less than usual. We’ve been fucking freezing all month and DS begged me to put the heating on on Sunday after we got soaked on a walk because that’s the only activity we can afford anymore. A few nights ago, I was so cold in bed that I couldn’t sleep and I had to wear fleecy pjs, my Oodie, bed socks and that was with my duvet and weighted blanket. I’ve turned everything off that I can and it’s impossible, we can’t afford to live! We both have good jobs and I have 2 jobs but every last penny is eaten up with bills. I don’t want to live if this is how it’s going to be.

Do you have a set direct debit or do you pay for what you use each month?

I submitted readings and in the last month we used £140 electricity and £80 gas. We are on the standard variable rate (4 bed detached in Scotland)

It's disgusting isn't it. I don't have any practical advice, I'm hopeful others will.. But I just want to say that you're certainly not alone.
We have a 1 year old and all my wages goes on childcare, so we're struggling on one set of wages for the next couple of years. We were already living month by month, no treats, no going out or doing anything, then the utility bill doubled and some... It's crippling.
Something will have to happen in government, because this will literally kill people in the winter.

@dementedpixie I’m not entirely sure we pay a set amount each month but DH says we have a smart meter so it sends readings directly to British Gas.

@SuziSecondLaw yes it will. I just can’t get over how cold we’ve been this month and it’s not even winter. I was expecting our actual bill to be less than the estimate due to cutting back so much but we won’t be able to have the heating on even in winter at all. The only things left to cut back on are cooking, washing and showering which should be basic human needs (as should being warm in my opinion).

Is it british gas that hasn't had the app working?
The direct debit may not match the usage if its a set amount each month. Can you access the account details to see if you're in debit or credit?

@dementedpixie DH can, I’ll get him to tomorrow once the football has finished 🙄. It’s too late to do anything about this month’s but perhaps we can for next month. Ironically, we keep getting little power cuts tonight, wonder if that’ll save us a few pence 😂.

firstly check if the amount owing is actually £103 or if british gas have just put your dd up for more than you owe. My supplier did that and so have loads of companies - they've put dd's up as a way for them to basically borrow money from their customers! It's really cheeky! See if you can go online or ring them and reduce it. Hopefully if you've paid this months the next 5 or so will be less anyway because you won't need much heating.

Then for next winter I would really recommend buying electric blankets and throws. They are so so cheap to use (literally pennies a day) and keep you really warm. I've WFH all winter and sit on one on my chair - have barely put the heating on other than half an hour in the morning and evening to keep the house getting damp because they keep you so warm. Hot water bottles are also cheap and very warming. There have been loads of really good tips on these boards over the last few months about keeping warm on the cheap.

Saying you 'don't want to live' because you've been a bit cold for the last month is a bit excessive and inconsiderate given the number of people who do actually die of cold every year. Millions of people would consider living, even without heating, in a fairly temperate country in a well insulated house absolute luxury.

I pay as I use it, no direct debits in place,

The thing is, without heating the house (well, our house at least) gets very cold, very quickly. That was my experience in April when I tried to cut back, and with small kids you can’t have them going cold, same if you have an elderly person in your household.

And given that was the experience in April, goodness knows what trying to make do on minimal heating would be like through the winter. It’s horrible to think of people going cold, it’s awful actually.

@latetothefisting the bill isn’t £103, it’s £103 more than usual. It’s £265.

And no, I don’t want to live in a world where I’m permanently cold and can’t afford to eat or put money in my car just to get me to work to earn money to pay for the bills. It was 12 degrees in my house last week and I have reynauds syndrome so it was physically painful. There’s no way I can sit in one chair all day, I’d go mad!

@vinoandbrie yes what really got me was DS begging me to put the heating on on Sunday. Plus if I didn’t our soaking wet shoes would never dry and they’d be ruined!

Did they tell you the direct debit would be that amount before they took it out your account? They can't just take any old amount out without notifying you first

Are you on the standard variable rate or a fixed rate? Do you know your price per kwh/standing charge?

@dementedpixie no they didn’t, they said it would be about £90 more but it’s more again. We’re on a standard rate tariff, the standing charge for electricity is 27.22p a day and kw/hr is 7.343p then for gas the standing charge is 42.424p per day then the kw/hr is cut off from the screen shot DH sent me but he’ll be able to check.

I think the 7.3p is gas. It's too.cheap for electric. We are paying 20p for electric and we are on an old fix

I’ve just said on a different thread, mine went from 75 to 145. I’m on benefits. Next winter will be no fun!

Sorry you are struggling OP, but something isn't right here, there has to be a lot more to this than the simple cost of your DD going up. If your illness is stopping you from sleeping during mild weather and enough bedding to camp outside in winter, is there anything your GP can do?

Plus your house shouldn't be getting that cold at the moment, where are you in the country, it's been quite mild recently, our heating is on a Hive thermostat and has barely been on for weeks.

I know bills have gone up, but if you're in a position where every last penny goes on bills when you have good jobs, do you have debts? If so and debt repayments are taking up so much that you can't afford the basics and you certainly can't afford for your DH to go to the football if that costs money that could be a trigger for getting advice on resolving the situation. Do you own or rent and what's your heating and insulation like?

But on the matter of the cost of heating, paying by direct debit means that you shouldn't expect to pay less at this time of year because you pay an average amount all the year round, so your actual bill might be something like £80 for April, but £400 in December, but you also need to check if the £265 is the right amount. It could well be depending on your circumstances, many people will now need to be paying quite a bit more than that, in larger houses, lots of electric showers, tumble dryer use, poor insulation etc.

But you need to check by taking your annual consumption which should be on your bills, or look back over previous bills to find out, and multiply by your tariff (it looks like you're on the SVR which is good as there have been some fixes on offer recently that have been far more expensive than that). Also take into account any debt on your account.

Use all that info to check whether the £265 is reasonable to pay for your average usage, pay off any debt, and possibly get a little ahead going into winter, because what you don't want to do is underpay and end up building a bigger debt next winter and face even bigger bills. But if the £265 is too much, see if you can reduce it in your online account, or give BG a call, because some companies have been hiking DDs to more than needed for the customer usage.

But it sounds like you might want to look at your wider financial picture because you shouldn't be struggling as much as your OP implies.

Have a look at the Moneysaving Expert money makeover to go through all your bills and spending, to see if you can reduce the cost of any essentials, identify any ways that money is leaking away unexpectedly and get signposting to further help if you are in debt.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

Good luck

I am with Octopus. I do weekly readings online and pay weekly via the ap. I have a 4 bed town house with 2 adults and 2 kids and prior to the rise i paid duel not fixed approximately £75 a month. Since the rise i have stopped using my tumble dryer and everything is off at the plug that can be and my new monthly usage is approximately £80 per month. I bought a 1 cup kettle as it's cheaper to boil and i use air ovens to cook everything. I guess changing small things helps but it's going to get tougher.

I don't understand why people are cold in bed. Get yourself an electric underblanket. They cost pennies to run and you're toasty. Put a couple on the settee and you don't need the heating on.

Yes, also look if you can reduce your usage, concentrating on things that produce heat or get used for a long time, eg:

If you have an electric shower, lots of long showers can be very expensive.
Dry washing outside or on an airer if you can, rather than tumble drying, use the eco cycles rather than the quick washes and don't wash clothes and towels after one use.
Can you use an air fryer and slow cooker instead of the oven?
Don't leave lights on and swap to lower energy bulbs from halogen if you have them.
If anyone has gaming PCs, make sure they're not left on, some have quite a powerful fan.

Is your house very old and cold? You poor thing I’m sorry to read that you are so cold, I hope things improve for you.

We do meter readings every month,March for both was £75,this month £160!No heating on at all,freezing our butts off!only thing permanently plugged in is the fridge,it’s actually making me depressed!

Haven’t used the oven either just an air fryer,don’t use the electric shower,washing machine twice a week but weather dependent,every bulb is led but we have been using candles at night downstairs,grim!

Our house has been down to as low as 12 degrees recently too (Yorkshire) and is hovering around 14-15 degrees as standard. We have a 10wk old and a 2yr old so can't just leave the heating off and use a couple of heated blankets.
We usually only heat the rooms we're using but we're on LPG so it costs a fortune. This time last year we'd already had our delivery that lasts us all summer - this year we're flying through that tank and will need another delivery in the middle of summer. Our gas delivery a few weeks ago cost over £600.
We're renovating (very slowly so will take years) so we don't even have heating in some of the rooms. Dread to think how much the heating will cost when the kids are in their own rooms and all the rooms in the house are in use.

Thanks for the support everyone.

to answer so questions:

We’re in the far north of England, across from @PissedOffNeighbour22. Our house is a new build and well insulated, it’s just bloody cold out! Once it gets up to temperature, it holds it but it hasn’t had chance this month! it’s really not mild here, someone on TV mentioned that it’s going to get up to 20 degrees by the end of the week so I excitedly checked the met office website… nope 11-12 degrees for us. It’s May!

It’s very rare we can dry the washing outside but only use the tumble dryer if absolutely necessary (ie DS has left all his underwear all over the floor yet again 🙄).

We do have debt that we can’t get rid of. We’ve been able to manage it up til now but we certainly need to try and do something about this. @BarbaraofSeville, you’re right, we
can’t do much about the cost of energy, petrol and food so we need to do what we can about anything else.

DH wasn’t at the football, he was watching it on TV at a friends. The football was in Spain, so if he was at least he wouldn’t have been cold 😂.

We do have an air fryer, it’s the best thing ever! And we don’t have an electric shower or gaming PCs.

Health wise, I’ve always been a ‘cold’ person but I think it might be my thyroid. Trying to get an appointment is impossible. I had a phone call appointment and the dr prescribed antidepressants but I do think there’s more going on.