How much credit with energy company?

[Isyesterdaytomorrowtoday]

How much credit would you say is sensible to have with your energy company at this point in the year?

we have quite a bit and my DH is keen to have them refund some but I’m nervous about rises etc- we aren’t on a fixed tariff. also trying to work out if we can’t get them to reduce DD.

how conservative should we be? Or just leave it til March and get it then?

This poster is my 'utilities twin' - exactly the same for me.

If you follow Martin Lewis, his advice was roughly 2 months usage of credit

£200 but we’re moving out soon so have stopped our DD in order to use this amount up!

I've been paying full whack since April when the prices started to go up, but haven't had the heating on at all since then so have built a lot of credit - about £1000. That seems slightly excessive, now I know that prices are capped for this winter, but it will cushion us going forward when they rise again in the spring.

I have just changed to variable payments based upon what I actually use. I have £500 in credit and understand that this will be used up first before I have to pay any more money in.

Last months bill ( September 20th to October 20th) £122 ( actual usage)...less the £66 so under £60
We are £800 in credit.
Quite happy to leave that for when the heating goes on next month.
Our dd is £175.

I've got about £330 credit, usage so far in Oct about £150, direct debit has just been increased from £270 to £350ish (but they are directly refunding me the £67 so only costing me £285ish). I'm happy with that for now, I'll see how the winter goes and if the measures we've taken to reduce our usage keep being effective then I'll ask for some back if I find I need the cash.

About £1000 and leaving it there. On an older fix still but prices will increase dramatically next October for us. Have a smart meter that until recently wasn’t working properly so have sent monthly meter readings in so I always know exactly where I am with what I owe.

Around £400, I'm going to up my DD to up it a little bit.

This issue has been on the local radio NI for the last few days, Nolan the readio presenter is beside himself with rage that companies ,SSE is holding on to your money.

I have about £50. We only have electricity. Use about £90 a month. I change my DD in the summer to be a bit less, and have recently increased to cover the full £90. Once we get to spring I'll reduce it again. (I like octopus as they let me change it easily)

I don't understand why you'd want to have £1000 kept by someone else? Why not in your own bank account?
What's the point in letting them invest all your money?

About £430 credit with a £160 DD. Our last bill was £143, but the heating kicked in a few times in the last month before we'd woken up, so that probably didn't help. We didn't have to increase our DD according to Bulb which is a win.

If we can sustain the £160 DD through the winter with the help of the government payments and the credit we have, that will do me.

Thank you all, really interesting. I have heard that some companies pay interest on credit balances but ours doesn’t seem to. We currently have about 4x the DD in credit so I think I’ll see what next months usage looks like as weather gets colder then keep maybe 2x that.

400 credit with 3k energy bill wiped off due to EDF fucking up by allowing cunty ex to put 4K energy debt in my name. Thank God for backbilling rules and the Energy Ombudsman, who saw the dishonorable behaviour of EDF. I also get 30 quid credit as an apology. I do not expect to pay any energy bills until Feb.

Is there a reason I am missing here that it is a good idea to give the energy companies hundreds of pounds? Surely it is better in your own account earning interest for you rather then for them to invest?

£787 on a direct debit of £154. Feels like it will last us through the winter or at least until the government support runs out.

There weas a thread on here recently of some people having trouble getting their money back immediately when they wanted it.

We’ve got £1400 credit, £400 per month DD. Part of me thinks I should withdraw it & keep it in my account, earn a bit of interest, part is happy to leave it there & know that we shouldn’t have any nasty surprises this winter.

Often it's not easy to withdraw or if you do you are shunted off the best deals.

Depends on your bills I'd say. I have just over £200 with £90 dd (£23 for six months because of the £400 extra). I recently had some refunded and just over £200 was what Octopus allowed me to drop it to, what they think it should be. So maybe just over double your dd?

Mine should be up another £30 after October's dd and bill as no heating yet.

£520 in credit monthly payments reduced to £77 (by bulb not me) currently on £150 for the month so is on par to doubling on what we were paying as we expected it would. With the grant I imagine my bill will be £100 this month so will start to eat into the credit

This is very similar to us. Can't believe how much credit we have yet they've put our monthly dd up by £200! Dh says to just leave it as don't know how much we will use this winter.

Have you moved house? If not, just look at last winter's usage? Octopus have a prediction tool of what they think I'll use.

No credit balance here. I’d rather keep the money in my own bank account.
I pay the exact bill monthly by variable DD. No credit or debit balances . Nice and simple.