Monthly direct debit for gas and electricity

[ANEC]

I’ve received an email from Octopus Energy saying my new monthly d/d will be £283, up by about £20 a month. Apparently this is to keep on track for the winter months. I’m already £430 in credit.

As I’ve no idea when I set up the latest tariff I looked to see what they’re offering. 3 tariffs with a difference of about £28 between them. The scariest thing was they think I’ll use between £3100-£3450 worth of gas and electricity over the next 12 months!!
I’m absolutely gob-smacked. I live in a 3 bed bungalow with my hubby, who works away and only comes home every 3 weeks for a week. So for the majority of the year it’s me, myself and I. Only 1 bedroom is used, the other 2 are in the attic and due to the insulation we’ve never had the heating on, ever. I hate lights and switches being left on. I’m quite happy sitting with a night light on. I do regular meter readings. 1 load of washing a week.

I’ve spoken to clients and friends and they seem to be paying less a month than me with bigger houses and more people.

Can I ask what your monthly direct debits are? Am I being taken for a patsy?

4 bed detached , 3 adults , no skimping on heating , 7/8 fans going all summer , tumble dryer used all year round and I pay £150 combined with BG and we are in credit . I’ve upped the dd from what they suggested which was about £130 .

See how much it would be with Fuse. I have moved house recently, it is a small 2 bedroom house. I live alone. It varies month by month. Maximum it has ever been is 90 pound. This month 55. In my previous house it was 130.

I’ve had the same for octopus . I’ve only been with them 2 months before they wanted the DDR increased .

@ANECi have had a similar email from Octopus putting my direct debit up to £272 a month from £200! I am £450 in credit.
I live in a four bedroom house with my DH (adult kids or friends stay over one night on average fortnightly). We work part time a total of two days at home and one in the office weekly. We only take showers as we don’t like our bathroom currently. I’m at a loss as why Octopus have done this and also why my bills are potentially so high, especially reading what others say on here.

I have a 2 bed end of terrace. I work from home, but the baseline is my heating is set to 17 morning and evening and does whatever in between. At the weekend it goes up to 18/19. However, if I notice I am cold I switch it to higher and if I have guests I put it up to 19/20.

I use 3,750kWh of gas and 1750kWh of electricity. Do that's about £900-£950 of gas and electric over the year.

Those with octopus paying too much or if they ask you to pay more , you can refuse and on their app you can control what you pay as well.

PS Octopus told me to up my payment but I changed it to something else myself and just keep a bit of an eye to make sure I don't get too low on credit. (I don't have a prepayment meter but obviously want them to owe me money in the summer so that I am alright for winter.)

I often wonder if these companies profit from from over estimating then banking our
excessive monthly payments and keeping the
extra interest

I have had this exact conversation with Eon Next, they wanted to increase my payments for winter, whilst I was £500 in credit, they were adamant that they don't benefit from the money which is in credit. Not sure I believed them mainly because they wouldn't tell me what they actually do with it.

@ANEC before you ring Octopus, grab your latest bill, look at if the readings are estimated or actual.
Then take the bill to the meters, and check the meter numbers match up, snd the readings are about right.

Are you sure about " weve never had the heating on". That sounds unusual to me. I can get with only an hour or 2 a day in winter, but never is unlikely.

Heating or no, your bills sounds high.

I had the same sort of conversation with Octopus yesterday - I am nearly £500 in credit so queried why they were increasing my direct debit by £24.
I agreed to the increase (for now) but asked for a refund of half my credit balance, and will keep a strict eye on it over the next few months. I want to stay in credit, but want the use of my own surplus credit rather than leaving it with them.

Go on their website and reduce your DD yourself. It’s easy. They have a graph that shows you when they expect your balance to turn negative. Ours was next March so I reduced our bill by £90 a month.

We are with Ovo. 3 adults (one our dc) in a 3 bed house.

I wfh 3-4 days a week, dw at home most of the time and dc here evenings and weekends. We had a new combi boiler fitted last year.

We have a prepay tariff and top up between £50-£70 every month for electricity and £50 every couple of months on gas during the summer, and about £50 a month during winter.

When its cold we tend to layer up before putting the heating on, but we do use the gas fire in the living room as its cheaper than the central heating.

So less than £200 per month and we build up credit on the gas during summer to cover extra use in the winter, but we do that at our own pace. We top up using their app and its so much better and easier.

I’ve been with octopus for years but reading these comments has made me think it could be time to shop around for a new provider.

We pay £333 month and build up credit so we don’t scrimp in the winter when our actual usage cost goes up to 600-700 month. I prefer to have a fixed monthly payment for budgeting.

We have a crafty, 6 bed Victorian semi with original single glazed windows. 4 people, lots of showers and laundry! We close off and don’t heat the empty/unused rooms and the heating is off overnight.

I wonder if another provider would be cheaper.

The thing is, what other people pay isn’t that useful.
I am always shocked by how little other people pay but I know from constant conversations on here over every winter that I have my gas central heating on for much longer and at a much higher temperature than a lot of people.
The kWh cost does vary but not hugely.
It is always worth looking at usage.
You should be able to see on your bill how many kWh you used over the last year and compare it with what they are suggesting.

Your house sounds similar to mine OP, three bed, semi detached bungalow, two mostly unused bedrooms in roof. Im with BG and pay £80 for both gas and electricity with British gas and im £160 in credit. I do live alone and im out all day. I do consciously watch my power consumption, short showers (electric) etc.
Im feeling very lucky reading this thread. I would definitely shop around OP

Good point.

The fixed daily charges are probably worth looking at when I shop around too.

Had a similar email from Octopus yesterday. We are 650 in credit paying 175 a month and they want to increase by 34 a month. We have a small 4 bed chalet bungalow.

I may just switch to a variable direct debit and get my 650 back. How much cash are they sitting on with customers being in credit..

Just to add, I do pay by variable DD but that does mean our winter bills are very big.
We are retired using a drawdown pension so don’t have a monthly income as such, so that works for us.
If you are on a fixed monthly income and like your heating on I would think carefully, that is why building credit is useful for most rather than being hit by your biggest monthly bill in January when a lot of us have just spent a fair amount over Christmas.

FYI British Gas won’t allow you to decrease a direct debit payment online. Not sure about octopus.
£90 p.m gas and electric, single, 2 bed terrace, TV, washing machine, dish washer and heating (winter) on every day.

OP, regardless of who you are with, take a metre reading 1st of every month & upload it to their site. Avoid estimates.

check the meter reading on your current bill against your meter.

I have 4 bed cottage, 2 adults and. pay £134 per month.

Op, you need to look at your actual usage of gas and electricity to compare with others. Not the direct debit amounts. For example, our:
Annual electric usage is 3,141.3 kWh
Annual gas usage is 23,803 kWh (that's not a typo)

Our monthly direct debit for energy with E.on is about £220. Which allows us to build credit during the summer.

We are high users of gas heating and hot water. Heating is on all day in a poorly insulated 2-bed semi. 2 adults, both work from home. Daily showers water heated from combi boiler. Cooking is with an electric fan oven and an induction hob. Washing machine and dishwasher on every day.

I'm just coming off a decent fix so my direct debit is going to go up sadly. I use 1500kwh electric and 3700kwh gas and I'm paying £90 in a 4 bed house.

@twointhemorning if it makes you feel any better I just checked my gas kWh for last year and it was 27,086 (also sadly not a typo) heating also on all day when it’s cold.

Interesting to know what they say, OP. If that doesn't make sense, do you have an online account with them? If so, you'll know they encourage monthly meter readings. If you then look at your meter reading from this time last year compared to today, you can then calculate the cost of what it says you've used. If you go further back, you can work out if your annual usage and gone or up down over the last year or two - ours has gone down - I think due to milder winters in the south.

We live in a converted two bedroom bungalow, so have extended lounge and then two bedrooms in loft and bathroom, so two doubles, two singles. We're both retired, so around a lot. We pay £100pm and have a credit of £485 - I prefer to overpay in case we have a bad month or two - a security kind of thing in my case. I reckon we used about £78 per month - washing machine on 2/3x a week, no dishwasher, no tumble dryer, we don't like the heating on high so usually 18/18.5c, we have electric fire that sometimes goes on, use shower - it's all variable in every home, but like you say it does seem a lot, ie 3x more than us.