My gas & electric costs is crippling me.

[ColinRobinsonsfamiliar]

I know it’s the same for everyone.
Its gone from £180 per month for both to £490 per month.
3 bedroom semi.
This is more than our mortgage.

I’m planning on seeing how the bills are until January then will reassess the monthly payments.
We have stopped using the dryer, turned heating down, switching off switches, filling a bloody flask with hot water instead of boiling the kettle, only doing one laundry load every other day, drying on the radiators.
Trying to pick up extra shifts.

I don’t know how long we can keep our heads above water.

Is this it now? Is this life for ever?

If your radiators are on already- and you aren’t north of Manchester- than that’s why!!!!!

Wow you have a cheap mortgage

Is that what they've set your direct debit as or what you are actually using?
Bulb wanted our direct debit set at £380 a month. I declined and now only pay them for our actually usage, which is about £160 a month!

You can't change a direct debit amount via your bank, only cancel it.

Do you know your actual usage of gas and electricity in KWH?

That's the only way you can see if your DD is reasonable.

Try and look at what your readings a year ago - and take a reading now.

Post them on here and people can help you with what your annual cost should be for the next year - and you should get a discount off your bill.

I can change my direct debit via the app for my energy company. You can't change it via the bank

I’d definitely check your usage and change the dd. I checked my electric the other day at the new rates and in a week with standing charge it will be just under £20 which is actually less than our old house last year and the only changes are no dryer and our shower isn’t electric but our hob is now electric.

Our dd is £150 and they wanted to change it to £260 so I gave them £160. By the time the govt adds on their £60 that’s £220 so I reckon should be plenty.

I know it’s the same for everyone

It's really not - your monthly bill is higher than our quarterly bill (ours just arrived today and the actual usage is 109 pounds for three months (electricity only). Our gas will be low.

Where are you? Are you walking around in tee shirt and shorts? Or are you layering up - can you reduce the hours the heating is on (we haven't had ours on yet at all, but it's London, perhaps where you are it's a lot cooler)

Also a three bed, but a terrace.

PLEASE read your meter !

I posted a thread when I got the same increase and hugely panicked. They are giving you an increase under THEIR average usage guide NOT always on what you are using.
I have just posted an update to this and the outcome.

I dont care if you have a smart meter or a normal one. Read it ! read it daily, weekly and monthly!

Get a good idea of how much you ARE using. You can very quickly find out if THEY are over estimating OR YOU are using more than you can afford

Hope you can work it out to something manageable.

Take care x eldersis x

Depending on the size of your property and your usage, £260 isn’t much at all the be in credit with this time of year. You SHOULD be going into the winter with credit on your account, it’s how the direct debit system works. If you just pay for what you use, as some are advocating, you face massive bills in the winter months.

That is a crazy increase in DD.
Are you in credit or debt on the account?
Do you know what your actual usage was over the past 12 months?
If you can do the maths, check what they are asking for is realistic. If you aren't comfortable with the maths, either put the numbers for last year up here, or join the Facebook group I've hopefully linked to below, and they will answer any questions you have.

facebook.com/groups/966754150512356/

You don’t have to pay the direct debit they ‘suggest’. They are often much higher than they need to be. Even last year, Octopus (who I think are less grabby than others) insisted I needed a DD of £99. Over the year, I clawed £350 of that back, because it need only have been £80 (which I told them at the time, and they wouldn’t have it. I was really looking forward to making them reduce that. Harrumph!). They wanted to put mine up to some absurd figure (£350, I think) and I flatly refused. It’s still £99. I still built credit over the summer (almost £200) by being careful with usage. I will use every penny, the government credit and likely a little bit more over the winter, but I will pay the difference as it comes up. I’m hoping my credit will last until Christmas, though. We are breaking even now

I think you get better rates if you keep the DD, but you can still pay off the balance ad hoc if you use over DD/credit, if you keep it low. According to the smart meter, we are using all of our DD now, but not eating into credit yet. Check your actual useage, and then go from there.

We’ve not put our heating on at all yet, live in London, and our quite big house is still happily sitting at over twenty degrees in every room.

We’ve sash windows, so it’s not the best insulated of houses, and at 400m^2 our own body heat doesn’t really add much, so I do wonder why you are using so much energy.

Op , lights with led lights are still super cheap. Even stuff left plugged in was cheap.other things have huge costs.so I wouldn't blindly turn everything off..

Electric blankets are great investment.
Heating on for certain hours..

IMO the people who are getting these astronomical bills are using a lot more energy than they realise.

I remember seeing posts at the beginning of all this from posters saying things like “I don’t know how we will cope, our bill is already £3000 a year,” and wondering wtf they were actually using to bring about those bills.

Yes most bills have gone up, but the increases haven’t been anywhere near what was feared.

So either the OP is panicking about an estimate she received before the price cap was fixed, or she is a high energy user already.

My bill has gone up by about £40 a month which while not ideal is doable, and if I keep my heating down and don’t use the drier it should come down again by the summer.

Some people do have to put on heating at the moment. I'm in northern Scotland and my house is sitting at 14 in two rooms and 15 in the rest without heating.
So pp may live quite far up north too. X

Yes, absolutely, it’ll be massively different dependent on location. Hopefully the OP will say where they are.

We stayed with a friend in a stone-built townhouse in Edinburgh for Hogmanay once, and he refused to put the heating on because it cost so much. I don’t think I’ve ever been as cold in my life.

I’m 5 bed semi and we are big family. 2 adults 2 teenager and 2 children. Husband works from home in computer all the time. There are two telly in my house that on all day only off at night time. We use electricity a lot. We cook alot aswell. And my electricity usage £150. My direct debut £255. I live in cambridge.

you cant be right OP. Thats must be your direct debit. Because my energy company also offering me a price of £550 flat rate. I reject it.

That does sound very high for a 3 bed semi? Considering you are being conscientious?

That seems insane to me and I'd say you're certainly being overcharged.

We used to pay £80 a month by direct debit (small 2 bed) this time last year and when we moved house (just to a small 3 bed) they quoted us £490 a month. I knew prices had gone up and I expected up to £200-ish but that sort of amount we could never afford.

I moved over to Octopus and don't pay by direct debit, just read my meters once a month and submit readings and my account changes to -£XX.XX and then I pay it off. Usually by cashback credit card and then pay that off straight away. Least I get around 1.5% back then!

September our real cost was £95 and we have had the heating on every day since 9th September as it's freezing. I do expect this to go up a bit further as we have the heating on more and the energy costs rise again. But it'll certainly be nowhere near £490 a month.

Hot tub you say?!!! Oh lord absolutely not! We don’t own anything fancy in this house!
slow cooker in use
air fryer instead of oven
one laundry load 4 times a week.
no dryer used
heating on low
all switches off
solid fire doors keeping heat in
smart meter tracking and nowhere near that cost.

I’ve just reduced monthly payments on line but the message was that it will not allow me to reduce beyond their predicted usage and this month the £490 will be taken as planned.
Im with Bulb.

Devilledmeg · Yesterday 20:02
Wow you have a cheap mortgage

We do, so lucky, bought over 20 years ago.
Its a teeny tiny 3 bed semi in the north west of England.

I am £350 in credit at this very minute!

I am reading my meter daily, it correlates with my actual meter.
I think I am just being overcharged massively.

My concern is the website NOT allowing me to adjust my DD how I see fit. I also cannot work out how to transfer the credit back to my bank account. So if by Feb next year, I am in a large amount of credit, I want it back. I need to research how to do this with Bulb.

Cancel the direct debit,submit monthly reading and pay for what you use!