Spending £100 a month on electricity

[teapotter1]

I have no idea how I'm spending so much on electricity. I notice it as I got a £50 loyalty card from the gas company I'm with and it was gone in two weeks

I'm so mad at how much I'm spending on electricity, does anyone else have this problem and knows how to solve it?

I only have a two bedroom house with a toddler and baby

Thanks in advance

How much are you spending on gas and what’s your heating system?

Wow that's ridiculously high, what is your gas spend?

Are you leaving lights or the TV on all day and overnight possibly? I would be looking to see if there was a fault with the meter readings or contacting your provider to see why your bills are so high.

Tumble dryer?

Do you just use electricity?

We have both gas and electric and particularly during the winter months we use £100+ a month.
As the weather warms up this drops considerably.

It's little things like turning the lights off and not leaving things on standby, tho I'm sure you know that already.

Is it just electricity or electricity and gas? We pay £99 on DD for the two per month - we live in a terrace with double glazing but there's someone at home all day 4x days a week.

Whoops didn't read your post correctly. Ignore my first question.

And second the comment about Tumblr dryer! They use alot.

My electricity is £130 a month. I wish I could get it down but I run two tumble driers and have tortoises that have a heat lamp.......and 4 kids that like to turn on every single light in the house.

If it’s your only source of fuel then that’s not unreasonable. I have a one bedroom, mid-terrace house and my electricity can easily be £80/90 a month in the depths of winter, and that’s with the heating only on in the evenings.

Do you have the immersion heater switched on in the airing cupboard all the time? If you have one, turn it off, and just switch it on 45 mins before you need a bath.

Otherwise you could get an OWL monitor, you clip part of it around the cable next to the meter, then it has a display unit that you have in the kitchen/living area. You can have hours minutes of fun going round switching things off seeing which things are the big energy drains. In general things that heat up will have the biggest draw... tumble dryer, electric heater, iron, oven etc.

I'm on a pre pay meter at the moment and am spending over £100 a month on electricity.

Moving house at the end of the month and will soon be paying £111 a month for gas and electricity by direct debit. I'm hoping this will be a high estimate and we'll end up in credit.

I notice it as I got a £50 loyalty card from the gas company I'm with and it was gone in two weeks

That suggests to me that you're on pre-pay and using electricity for heating. Pre-pay is more expensive, so you could see about switching to a credit meter. You don't need your landlord's permission to do this, whatever they tell you.

If you're using electricity for heating, that's also expensive, does that mean you don't have gas? £100 pm, especially in winter, isn't bad really, probably below average, especially if you're on an expensive tariff and using an expensive way of heating. Utilities cost a lot these days unfortunately.

We pay £85 for gas and electricity for a two-bed house with 2 adults in it. We need new windows, so it's not cheap to keep it warm. Heating and hot water are both by gas (combi boiler). I'm part-time, so am home 2 all day on 2 weekdays and by 3 every afternoon and I can't bear being cold.

I'm a bit obsessive about wasting energy and get really cross with DP for boiling a kettleful of water to make a cup of coffee. We have a double oven and the big one only gets used when I cook a roast. We don't have a tumble dryer. I hang washing from the picture rails upstairs, it dries quite quickly. I never put the machine on unless there is a full load.

In the last year or two we've had to replace the fridge, freezer and diswasher, and have gone for ones that are A++ enery rated.

Do you use a prepayment (card or key) meter? I've had clients move in to properties where the previous tenant had energy arrears that were being collected through the meter, so that every week they lost £5 or more of the money they put on, because they were paying the previous occupier's arrears. Worth checking that that's not happening.

Although prepayment energy isn't the rip-off it used to be, it does limit how much you can save as a lot of the cheapest energy suppliers don't do prepayment accounts. If you can switch to a credit meter and pay by DD, you can shop around for the best deals and spread the cost of what you use over a full year. That way, you're not shelling out shedloads in the winter.

Check your house for draughts (walk round the house with a lit candle, the flame will show you where the draughts are). Just putting a draught excluder strip round the back door made a big difference in our house. Thermal blinds are a cheap way of reducing heat loss through windows, especially if you put them down when it starts to get dark.

New builds are often surprisingly inefficiently insulated (a whole estate of new HA houses in my area has been found not to meet the prescribed standards and the builders are having to do a lot of work to put it right) and this explains why

www.theguardian.com/money/2019/feb/02/new-build-homes-why-some-owners-are-left-feeling-the-cold .

Prepayment isn't more expensive than paying your bill when it comes in (work for an energy company, these are the rules now)

I would suggest
Checking you're not paying a debt on the meter

Asking your supplier for a smart meter so you can track your usage as PP has said above. You'll be surprised how much the iron etc uses!

If you can, swap to a credit meter and pay by Direct Debit (this is where you can save money as most suppliers will give you a DD discount)

Check your heating timers if you're elec only

If you're on an economy 7 (2 rate) meter but don't have storage heaters, you can ask your supplier to bill you as a single rate. These meters have a v cheap night but an expensive day rate. With tumble dryers in the mix this will add up!

Do you have gas as well? £100 per month at this time of year isn't too bad if that's for everything

Exactly how many lamps are you running for your cannabis farm?

I'm joking of course, but that does seem high unless it also includes your heating, or you have the tumble drier on every day.

Also make sure you are on the cheapest rate/best value offer and shop around. If my electricity provider was sending me £50 loyalty cards I’d be wondering how much they were making out of me!

Leaky seal on the fridge / freezer?

Bitter experience with this.

I don't think it seems particularly high. We use about that in a 2 bed bungalow and our heating is oil fired. We have a tumble dryer and a dishwasher, electric cooker and three big TVs as well as the usual lights, consoles, chargers etc.

Thank you all for the replies!

Yeah it's pay as you go one, it's a rented property and that's just what it came with I don't know if I'm allowed to change it, but I'll look into it

How would I know if I'm paying a debt?

Never thought about that with the loyalty card, it was £50 free for a year with the company 🧐

Do you have gas or just electric?

I don't have a tumble dryer, or dish washer. I do a lot of washing since I have a 7 month old baby and a toddler. We keep the hall room light on for my toddler too but apart from that it's all normal usage. I pay about the same in gas too with the same company. I'm fine with that since it's winter and I have young children to keep warm.

The big thing with PAYG is to make sure it's registered in your name and they know the date you moved in. If they don't know you aren't the previous tenant they might well be taking their arrears from your top ups.

Even better would be to get off the prepay meter and pay direct debit if you can - it is a LOT cheaper. I pay less than you for my 3 bed flat and that includes running storage and water heaters as we don't have a gas supply.

The company is "E gas" I'd never heard of it before but what the employee told me about it and how many people had switched I got it. Have I been conned?

£180 a month for gas/electricity in our draughty old terrace. We are both at work but husband has heart condition so likes it warm - 21 degrees - evenings at weekends.

I think you should check how much you are being charged per unit of electric & how many units you use & use a price comparison website. I have a smart meter & a big house with 5 TVs, 5 I phone chargers being left plugged in all the time (this is very annoying). Oven is electric, hob is gas, central heating & water are gas. The oven can be used by 4 people cooking separate meals in one day, full size dishwasher sometimes on 3 times a day. Basically not an energy efficient household, my electric is under £50 a month in summer & under £60 in winter. All appliances are new though so all A rated for energy use, & we do not use a tumble dryer.