How much credit do you have in your energy account?

[Gwdihooooo]

I just want to gauge whether mine is right as we seem to have a lot of credit!

We have £900cr and pay £180 a month. We’re using approx £200 of energy (gas/elec combined) each statement.

The Oct/Nov usage hasn’t appeared yet.

How much credit are you in? x

If I dipped into your bank account and took out £2738, you'd call the police. Why won't they refund YOUR money ?

It’s one less thing to worry about

One less thing to worry about, OP?! I would be seriously bloody worried if my utility company was pocketing my hard earned cash for electricity I hadn’t even used yet!
Surely you have a better use for your money than loaning it interest free to a greedy company?

Wtf! They are taking the piss.

I’m with @Babdoc Surely you have a better use for your money than loaning it interest free to a greedy company?

@Gwdihooooo So you can pay a fixed dd but have a variable bill depending on the time of year. It makes total sense it REALLY doesn’t. Put the dd into your own savings account and pay the bill aszz xxxx and when it comes.

Wow, just think about how much interest these companies are earning on all our money! Some people on here (I appreciate some of them have been trying to get refunds) have WAY too much credit in their accounts. Just have a savings account for it instead. - get the benefit yourself and still have the safety net. I'm planning to change to a variable direct debit and putting a set amount a month into my savings to cover the ups and downs.

Completely shocked by the huge amounts people have in credit! Unless you’re earning interest through them (like one PP mentioned about Ovo) then why on Earth would you not keep this in your own savings account and earn the interest for yourself rather than let them profit from it?

I'd rather they kept my money for when my fix ends and I change to universal credit. I ended last winter in credit and want to try that again next year, if it'll stop raining.

Yes, I'm low income with no debt. I prefer the payments to be the same through the year, though I get any excess credit refunded that the app allows me to and frequently check the dd is my annual usage divided by 12 so I am not overpaying over the year. I could keep the money aside myself but it would earn me next to nothing.

@Athenen0ctua interest rates on a savings account never look particularly impressive but I’m amazed if you’re on a low income that you don’t want to keep that money rather than blowing it on what for you is basically an admin exercise. If your savings account attracts 1.5% interest a very rough estimate would be £1.50 for every hundred pounds they hold for you. So posters with £500 stashed in their energy companies are giving them £7.50 a year, and the generous person squirrelling away £3000 with them is happily donating £45 to them. I’m not on a low income but I wouldn’t dream of leaking cash like that.

As I said up thread if you genuinely need not to have it in savings then paying your council tax ahead would seem more prudent as councils are having to cut services because of shortfalls. I’d rather my money was used for my family or for our community than held by an energy company already making profit.

Maybe £50. I don’t understand why you’d want to be in credit. I’d rather have money in a savings account gaining interest!

£600 in credit. Paying £256pm and currently at £180 to date in November so expect it to be over £200 by end of month. Earlier months

...earlier months are £150 though.

And thanks to this thread I've discovered I'm earning interest on my Ovo balance. Most pay more attention!

@Itisbetter mine has always been less than £300 in credit, and will reach close to zero at the end of April so that is not over the whole year. So averaging less than £150.

So the energy company you buy from has always owed you less than £300 and on average less than £150 but have never been in a position of being evens or you owing them money? This is mismanagement. Do you have other people you buy services or goods from who you consistently overpay?

Typically energy bills are paid in arrears. You use the energy for a month or a quarter and then send in a meter reading and are billed for the energy you used.

Think it's about £400 but they paid the £66 credit back into my bank account I'd have preferred to leave I there against the bills.

Last week or so heating been on for about a gd 6-7hrs a day I dread to see this months bill!

We pay £200 per month just now.

I thought they charged more for quarterly billing? Or a discount for dd?

Are there savings accounts for a variable sum of £0 to £300 (overestimate) through the year that earns me enough interest to be worth the time setting it up?

So you can pay a fixed dd but have a variable bill depending on the time of year. It makes total sense

Not to me, in June my energy was £55 and I paid for my car insurance in full saving me the fee for paying in instalments, May and July low energy and made payments against my holiday, August low energy and went on holiday, paid for holiday clubs and bought new school uniform, September low energy and paid up for school residential, October still low and time to service the car pre winter. The rest of life is rarely averaged out like that. For me December/ Jan/ Feb are highest usage, with those bills coming out at beginning of Jan/ Feb and March my three cheapest months for other things cropping up.

Nothing. I don't want them holding onto a penny of my money!

@Itisbetter The money saving expert website says it costs about 6% more for quarterly billing, that's over £60 for us, much more than I'd make in interest.

If you'd rather leave yours there then do that, it sounds like you rarely have problems getting your credit back when you want it, but you only have to look around this forum and on this thread to know that putting your hand out and saying "please" for your own fucking money back is often answered with "soz, can't" by these fat utility companies and people are having their DDs increased against their will in some cases too when they are already in credit.

So in general it's not bad advice to stop doing this, just because you are used to something and you've never questioned it before doesn't mean it's a good thing for ever. There is middle ground and paying a variable DD whilst debiting the rest to another account in the lower usage months if winter worries you is good middle ground.

£1500 in credit. Seems ridiculous, but good to have a buffer especially given prices will go up again in April

334 in credit, so far
Might last till the new year ..

@itwasntmetho Yes, I have read that some billing companies are being unreasonable. I am with Octopus and they have let me withdraw some of my credit balance in the past, the system let me take it down to just over £200 at the beginning of winter. I've just reduced my dd from £23 to £10 (lowest it would allow, then the £67 is credited to my account too). I can put it back up or just pay the extra as needed when my credit runs out. I can do this all online.