Hideously high gas and electric bills

[TheSnowFairy]

OMG. Nearly £800 in total (for both together) Dec - March.

Family of 5, in SE England (so been cold, had heating on a lot, but low - so pipes didn't freeze).

AIBU to be ?

YANBU.

Ours is similar - 2 adults + 1 7 month old. 1930s detached house not insulated properly and windows need replacing. We only moved in last year and can't afford to fix any of it.

Also on Mat leave and pay is ending imminently. Definitely the worse winter I remember (cost and temperature wise). I want to be angry about the continued snow and cold but I'm not sure where to direct my anger. Grr

You're the SnowFairy - Maybe I should be cross with you

Bloody hell! We've been a bit profligate and I work from home! With a £90 / month DD we're still £300 in credit, the chart says we used £240 for the same time period - 3-bed Tudor cottage, wood sash windows and tiled floors. Must be the thick walls

Are they estimated bills or actual?

Mine was terrible last quarter

They want my readings now and i have the fear

Mine? Actual. I have been adding meter reading monthly, to see what our usage actually is - part of our retirement budgeting plan

I was watching the smart meter tick away this weekend - £13 a day for a 4 bed semi. I mean, seriously, how do people survive? Coz we are out at work today its sitting round the £4.50 mark, even so.

@wonderlime

@honeysucklejasmine actual. Sadly.

That’s crazy! We have a 4 bed detached, 1990’s house. 2 adults 2 DC. I’m a SAHM and DH works from home a lot, and our heating has been on since October. Our bills are really high at £132 a month, but I’ve submitted our readings and we’re £120 in credit.

Mine was 300 for jan to beginning of March I'm with British Gas now swiped over

I don't have gas but my electricity alone is around £100 per month and I'm also paying a further £100 to sort out debt from a billing error I pay around £40 per month on average for heating oil.

I'd love gas. Hot water on demand would be the stuff of luxury. It's heating water with the immersion heater that makes my electricity bill so high.

And that's for a modern, double glazed, insulated three bedroom house.

I know it's no help for this bill, but borrow a device for checking how much electricity everything in the house uses from your library. It's weirdly fascinating - as well as useful. DH and I worked out that the bastard towel rail was costing us a fortune.

No towel rail, 3 bed draughty house tho and DH works from home a lot too so heating been on all day (to be fair, he'd have frozen without it so can't complain at that).

Dishwasher, washing machine and electric shower in use a lot.

DH works for a big company which isn't giving bonuses this year either.

Bloody hell.

Have you tried switching providers? We got a £420 electric bill for a 3 month period (we’re in a flat with electric only so heating this place has been a nightmare!) and we switched over to Octopus who were about half the price!

Have a look on MSE website they’ve got an app where they find the company with the best deals for gas and electricity.

I periodically change my suppliers to whoever is offering the cheapest deals.

We have a 4 bed townhouse that only has electricity and we've been about £300 a month since December and that's without putting the heating on and using two small fan heaters
So we're cold and skint!

That's insane - We pay £30 a month and we're £15 in debt for the last quarter! We do have a wood burner though and have that on for the majority of the day.

Is that actually what you have used during that period though? Does your bill start and end with accurate reads?

Mine was £445 from nov to jan. I queried it and they blamed my old meter 'running slow' and this new one is running correctly (changed 2nd nov). I've barely had the heating on during the week as we both work...... Its bollocks. Oh and they changed my direct debit from £100 to £79 last year claiming I was paying too much. Now I have a £400 debt to my name. Twats

We have HIVE which doesnt save money in itself, but my DH is very competitive and so when he is in the house on his own he turns the heating down so he can have the satisfaction of seeing that our avge temperature is less then everyone else in the area!

He is a SAHD.. so if it werent for his competitive nature we could be facing really big bills!

Are you on a meter?

Do you have an immersion heater for your hot water? Those things are worse than towel rails.

Definitely switch supplier. I used mse and was skeptical at first but did then go on to save over a third in my first year! Switch every year for the best rates.

Just checked ours - we're on DD but usage from Dec to now is

electric £211
gas £557

So pretty much the same - we're in Scotland (southern), 3 bed period property, about 105 sqm.

So for a family of 5, presumably in a bigger house, it doesn't seem too mad to me. We pay £150 pcm year round on DD (should be a little less I think but I'm leaving it at that for now)

@remainoptimistic (appropriate name!) No immersion, we have pretty much constant hot water if the heating is on. No meter either.

Definitely checking MSE, we're with the same company for gas & electric and they proudly tell us we're on the best rate...my arse

I didn't mean your problem was necessarily a towel rail, more than you might be surprised at what is costing you most.