My gas and electricity bill is £200 a month for a one bed flat

[evelynn03]

Any tips on how I can lower it?
Right now I shower once a day for 5 or 10 minutes
I use my air fryer for 20 minutes everyday
Washing machine once a week
I use my heating once or twice a week for an hour each time
I use a heated blanket for an hour before bed everyday
I use my toaster once in the morning for 5 minutes
I boil the kettle once in the morning and too everyday
I use my phone charger pretty much all the time

How do I lower my bills? I'm with SSE
Started a new job and have to pay off a few loans so I really can't afford to pay £200 a month anymore and am worried I'll be disconnected

Oh and ofc the fridge is always on and I use the microwave for oatmeal for about 2 minutes once a day

Are you paying for your usage? Or some random dd amount?
what price are you paying for gas and electric per unit and how many units are you using a day?

Is that your usage or the monthly direct debit amount and do they tally up?
What sort of heating system is it? Do you have an immersion heater/hot water cylinder? Is the shower electric?

I input my readings yesterday and has used £140 of electricity and £50 gas last month - 4 bed house in Scotland with 2 adults and 2 teenagers with gas central heating and electric oven, electric shower and lots of devices

That’s crazy, I have a four bedroom house, electric car, 2 people WFH, 2 retired people and mine is £200.
What rate are you on? How much do you pay per unit? My electric is around 20p.
is the electric blanket expensive, could you half that?

I just looked up electric blankets, they are about 20p an hour depending on your rate.

You must still be on a cheap fixed rate if your electricity is 20p/kwh. I'm on the SVR and mine is 27.84p/kwh

I think this isn't correct as they usually use very little electricity to heat up

You must still be on a cheap fixed rate if your electricity is 20p/kwh. I'm on the SVR and mine is 27.84p/kwh
yes I fixed until Sept 24.

i googled electric blankets.

You're paying quite a bit more than you're using, which will build up as credit on your account. I would ask the supplier to reduce the monthly payment for now.

I would make sure you're reading your meters and submitting the readings regularly. Our combined bill us £91 pm (electric is 19.67p/kWh and standing charge 24.03p/day, gas is 3.31p/kWh and standing charge 26.59p/day). We are 2a + 2 preteens in a 4 bed 60s terrace with both of us wfh and are still below average users (even got a refund last month as we were so in credit) so even with the diff in tariff, you must be using more electricity than you think if you are paying for actual usage not just the random company set DD amount.

utilities suppliers seem to be using this opportunity to ramp up everbodys direct debits far exceeding what they are actually using.

for reference we have a three bed plus my parents annex plus a load of other draws and we spent £156 on electricity last month. If i was on the standard variable rate that would equate to £209 and we are a very high user.

I would take a meter reading now and in a weeks time and see how much you’re actually using. Do you have any old meter readings?

I know it varies based on rate but what would you estimate my bill should be monthly based on my current usage? I will try calling SSE its hard to get through to them sometimes though and I can't always understand what they're saying

But in that picture they said 7 hours uses 0.7kwh so it should say in the next paragraph that 7 hours use = 19.6p rather than 1 hours use. 1 hours use would then be 19.6/7 = 2.8p

How long is a piece of string?
What is your actual usage in kwh and what is your tariff

On octopus now OH gets told what he uses daily. A shower is around 4p we're using between£3 and £4 a day. We use oven, hob as well as everything else three freezers two fridges. The heating is off though just hot water. Washing four loads a week. It's going to increase when D'S comes home from university.

Follow this up OP

Do you have a smart meter? This will tell you how much you are using.
you can adjust your direct debit.
eg sse wanted me to pay £60 per month electric on DD- I was always in a lot of credit so I reduced the dd to £40- still in credit by not as much.

Yes, one hour a day is ~20p a week

We have a four bed house with an adult and a toddler, my husband comes home once a week. We paid £79 last month for gas and electric, on a variable tariff with Shell and a smart meter. Something is definitely wrong!

What is your yearly usage in kwh?

Do you have an online account, if so could you look at your rate and usage etc and we could help? Or screenshot a bill?
It can be overwhelming when you phone up and they start talking about units etc.

But if you know how much you use and your rates per unit you can see if it’s right or not?
we can all guess but you could be on 7p or 28p per kWh for elec and that will make a massive difference

Do you send meter readings in every month?
Are you in a lot of energy debt after winter?

That's a DD not actual use. Get hold of them and tell them to reduce the DD.