How much do you pay monthly for gas and electricity?

[Crunchymum]

Leading on from the other thread I just wanted a quick straw poll.

I'm now paying £185pcm for a small 3 bed maisonette. It just feels so much?

£280 combined. 2 bed flat.

£150 pcm with octopus for gas and electric. Currently in credit by several hundred pounds, hopefully that will get me through most of winter without going in to debit. 3 teens/young adult and myself. Mid terrace, 2 stories, technically a 3 bedroom house. I’ve got double glazing, insulation in the ceiling (which is dodgy, I need to replace it with a better layer but it’s still doing something) and when the front internal walls needed replastering I put in a layer of wood fibre insulation. All windows have heavy wool lined curtains (all bought second hand from eBay). I don’t turn the heating on until after October, usually I get ti the second week of November. Although I’ll use the towel rack for an hour or so from September.

I have a fourth bedroom (basically the ‘second’ reception room) which is my eldest child’s room which he now only uses when he’s back from uni - it’s an ice box the previous owners added on. Apart from the double glazing and very heavy wool curtains my son has to use an electric heater as well as the radiator (new, large, good heat output). The rest of the house works well but that room upsets the heating balance.

The biggest help apart from insulation are some old solar panels the previous owners signed up to. It’s one of those awful rental agreements and I suspect they are very old technology however they ensure I barely spend any of the direct debit over the warmer months and can save for winter. I wish I could afford a battery to save even more.

We're with Outfox Energy. I'll have to phone them because you can't adjust on the website .

£90 a month by direct debit, 5 bed detached (but only 2 of us living here for most of the year). We're currently about £400 in credit, although that's partly left over from when the DD was £125. We do have solar panels and a battery which I think probably saves us about £1000 over the year.

We have the heating set to 19 degrees downstairs/16 degrees upstairs from about 7 am to 9 pm and then 16 degrees overnight throughout the year.

The house is about 60 years old but we added cavity wall insulation and the maximum loft insulation when we moved in.

Similar here. My bill rises to about £80 in winter, when i'm running heating a lot, especially if i've been working from home.

today i am £143 in credit
and i pay £115 per month
3 bedrooms,
its cold in the morning but no need for heating yet

5 bed here family of four our gas and elec combined is about 120 in the summer but closer to 200 in winter

£177/month, currently just over £100 in credit. 4 bedroom terraced house, quite new so very well insulated. We have an electric car but I don't often charge at home.

£92 a month in a large, draughty maisonette. Heating is off from about April and hasn’t been turned on yet. I WFH but don’t put the heating on during the day, I use a heated blanket and a plug in halogen heater which needs to be on for about 15 mins to warm up the room. This is cheaper than putting the heating on for one room even if the other radiators are off.

I got an email from BG saying they were changing my DD to £258 a month, there’s no way in hell I’m spending that. I only live in a small 2 bed. Luckily they said it’s a mistake but I pay £120 currently. It feels too high considering a few years ago i was paying £35 each

I provide monthly readings.

As per my previous post kids are at school, I WFH x3 days per week (heating the one room I work in, in winter).

We don't have a dishwasher or tumble dryer. 1 TV, 1 console. No electric car charging. One bath or shower per day per day on average as I don't bath the kids everyday.

Radiator in one bedroom is turned off as a bed is against it so it's never turned on.

I can't see how we're using to much energy but yes our usage does tally with what we are being charged and I always audit my annual statements.

£280 in winter for a 3 bed semi. It's an old, cold house. We set the thermostat for 15.5 degrees in winter during the day time, otherwise the heating would be on constantly 🥶. During Dec, Jan and Feb, we usually go over the £280, but the dd stays the same so we're back in credit a few months later.

How many units do you use?
I wfh and honestly, the cost of that is absolute minimal. I measured it with the smart plugs and set up works out basically in pennies rather than pounds a day. Laptop plugged in and monitor. Not heating, that's extra, but I have small 0.5kw heater under the table so it heats just my space not extra which is not needed. That adds, but never more than travel would cost.
I don't count that few kettles I run. Again, quite negligible.

What's your average monthly use in kwh?

How? Surely the standing charge is that alone.

What's the split between gas and electricity?

Have you compared the unit usage to "average" amounts to see if one or both is the outlier

I wouldnt bother with what anyone else pays, if you think your usage is too high, and it does appear to be, make it your mission to find out why.

I would switch suppliers and look at anything you can add in terms of insulation. I fixed with octopus a couple of months ago. I’ve been with them for around 6 years now, they always seem to be the best option, whether I fix or not, and the app is very easy to use. I log my readings once a month. Once I start using the heating I go a bit crazy - hate a cold house. I have it set to come on if the temperature drops below a certain level and aside from that a couple of hours AM and PM, in the living room and all bedrooms. I have under floor heating in the kitchen which is set to stay at a certain temperature. I think I have a warm house in terms of brick work (helps that it’s a mid terrace) but I’ve insulated as much as a could and use heavy curtains, door noodles for the front and back doors, rugs where I don’t have carpeting etc.

edited to add: prices are awful though, whatever you do.

Two bed semi, family of 4, £132 a month and £200+ credit as barely use £80 a month over the summer.

I'm with Octopus and fixed in February 2025 for 16 months.

I paid £165pcm up to January 2025. I paid £250 in February (including a fee to fix the tariff). I then had x4 months at £153pcm and in July they put it up to £180pcm.

I'd fixed the standing charge and unit price but apparently my (summer?) usage means I wasn't paying enough so they put it up by £30pcm. How can this be correct?

Although as I say I provide readings every month and my annual statements always tally.

£80 per month. I was paying £100 but I was well in credit so reduced it.
2 bed terrace. 1 adult and a child.

I avoid WFH when I can. Heating isn’t on yet but when it is I have it on a timer.

No two houses/families are going to be the same as there are too many variables.
Many still don't submit meter readings or have SM and therefore have no way of knowing their bills are accurate or represent actual usage.

Two of us (most of the time, occasionally more) in a modern (well insulated) four-bed detached. Although we have a SM we also submit monthly meter readings. We heat, wash, dry, bake, shower, bathe, iron etc as required.
Pay a DD of £80/M and are in credit by £500 or so. Actual usage over the summer has been about £65/M and last winter it never exceeded £130/M.

£100 a month, 2 bed new build house one teen dd.

Id like it to be less tbh but it went up a couple of years ago when prices increased and didn’t seem to come back down.

@Crunchymum Octopus have changed my direct debit several times over the years, with or without it being fixed, usually putting it up at different times during the (seemingly never ending) energy crisis. Once I have credit again they try and reduce my monthly payments. I usually alter it to continue paying more as I panic if I don’t have credit going in to winter. They can only estimate, it’s not a guarantee that the estimate is going to be enough. And don’t forget a fix doesn’t affect the usage.

I think your biggest issue is most likely your house. I have been extremely lucky - this is the warmest house (coolest in summer) I have ever lived in. I don’t have a clothes dryer but I use the dishwasher every day, I use the washing machine most days, I have a large fridge etc. although I’ve checked their output and everything is energy efficient.
Heat loss costs a lot, if you’ve checked everything else then it comes down to having a house that sucks up the energy because it loses too much heat. Unless you want to move have a look at any ways that you can mitigate heat loss.

£165 pm duel fuel. 4 bed terrace. 2 adults home most days (PCs & screens on), I go out to work. That amount over the summer puts us in credit for the winter. I’m sure being terraced helps.

If £153 x12 won't cover the annual cost of your energy, then they were quite correct in raising the DD amount.

I pay £147 for a 2 bed semi, with 2 adults. Currently in credit but that will be used over winter. I don’t skimp on heating or electric, have a dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer and wfh.

I’m just about to fix for another 12 months
for not much more than that.