What the fuck do I do about my gas/elect tariff expiring?

[AntiMaskersAreTwats]

Our gas/elec tariff expires tomorrow with EDF. If we drop onto the standard variable tariff it goes up from £100 a month to £161 a month. The only other deal EDF offers at the moment is a long term fix until 2024 at £306 a month!! We can’t afford that! I can’t find any other deals with other companies that we can afford as every penny per month is accounted for. What the fuck do we do?

Standatd variable tariff for now and use less energy. We had no hot water in the tap for a number of years and just boiled a kettle for washing up, with the electric shower for washing (3 min each). That saved a fair bit.

I’m with bulb and they’ve just put mine up from £115 a month to £160 per month even though I’m over £300 in credit. I literally have no idea how they’ve worked out the new prices.

If you do any of these things, stop:

• use tumble drier, at all
• use washing machine daily, cut down
• use dishwasher. Wash by hand
• Bath. Use shower
• use any form of electric heater, air con or dehumidifier - stop
• overfill the kettle when making a cuppa. Boil just the water you need.
• leave straighteners, heated rollers on when you're not using them. Stop
• leave items on standby, or on charge when they are fully charged. Unplug them.

I could probably think of more things, but this is a good start. You'd be amazed at how much difference it makes!

When it is cold and hurling down outside it is very difficult to get clothes dry without some kind of help either from a heated airer, dehumiidifier or tumble dryer. It rains a lot where I live.

BTW you do seem to be spending a lot on electric. For our 5 bed, 4 adult house it's about £60 per month.
Our smart meter shows an average of about £1.50 per day atm. So that's about £45 per month. We don't have our heating on yet though.

Dishwasher is more efficient and uses less energy and water than handwashing
If I stopped using my washing machine daily I'd need to use it more often on the other days!

@RampantIvy

When it is cold and hurling down outside it is very difficult to get clothes dry without some kind of help either from a heated airer, dehumiidifier or tumble dryer. It rains a lot where I live.

I don't do my washing if it's damp or wet if I can possibly help it.
I try and get it out on the line at least for a while, even if it doesn't get completely dry outside.

My fixed price is coming to an end too and I just wasn’t in the place to think about it at the beginning of last week when Pure Planet were offering me £1200 dual fuel for the year. When I checked last Friday it had gone up to £1800 which is an entire THOUSAND POUNDS MORE than I paid this year!

I used price comparison sites and MSE and both came out with E.ON Next so rather than go on to the variable I just switched.

How many times do you wear your clothes/change the bed/change your towels?
Even when our kids were small I only did washing at weekends.

I line dry wherever possible, but when we no longer get sun on our garden in winter and it is damp the washing just doesn't dry. It is damp where we live.

We spend about £80 on electric per month and about £25 on gas (at the moment as we haven't had the heating on much yet). Fixed until January so who knows what prices will be when the deal ends

- use dishwasher. Wash by hand why? The eco mode on my dishwasher is more efficient than running bowls of hot water to do by hand.
- Bath. Use shower unless you're DSD2 who spends ageeeees in the shower no matter how many times she is told so we insist she has a bath now.
- use any form of electric heater, air con or dehumidifier - stop have to use a dehumidifier or we get mould as we do not have a tumble dryer

I’m going for using everything less but somethings such as the dishwasher are more efficient with both water and heat than washing up. Turn the temp down on the washer to 20 degrees. If you turn the heating off until the end of October and just put it on boost on very cold evenings
Microwaves use a lot of power.
I’ve bought a fleece onesie and will return to wearing an over cardigan round the house.
It is fairly miserable being constantly cold.
Look at some of the ww2 stuff for energy saving tips.

@MrsFin

How many times do you wear your clothes/change the bed/change your towels? Even when our kids were small I only did washing at weekends.

I have a child that is at rugby 4 days a week, my dh plays football twice and goes to the gym most days. I also go to the gym 4 days. I need to wash clothes every day just to keep up with exercise clothes never mind schoolwear and normal clothing

The legal cap jumps up on October 1 so everyone is in the same boat. I did a comparison thing and the cheapest switch was £300/yr more rather than less. Prices are leaping up and there is no escaping them yet.

Microwaves use a lot of power.

For very short periods. Overall they are hugely more efficient than a cooker for anything.

If you get the bus some of the buses have fancy phone charging points now so that's a bit of free energy.

Lids on saucepans

use any form of electric heater, air con or dehumidifier - stop

Unless you’ve got a damp house… stopping the dehumidifier then could cause massive costs down the line. And pretty poor health, if there’s mould involved.

Turning off the lights will make a negligible difference with modern light bulbs. Literally pennies per year. Ditto turning things off at the wall - modern appliances drain scarcely any power when not in use. Some of these tips are from the 1950s.

@dementedpixie get them to shower at Rugby/the gym, that should save you a fair bit to negate the extra machine power!
I think I used your Octopus link ages ago, I have been pleased with them and the £50 started me off on the right foot so thanks for that!!

And charging your phone costs about £1 a year so charging it on the bus won’t save much!

I see someone else has already reported daytripper28's posts.

The Octopus deal is that the referrer and the new customer each get £50 credit, so if you'd used daytripper28's link she/he would have got £50 as well as you. If you have a friend or family member who is an Octopus customer, get a link from them instead.

[quote SandysMam]@dementedpixie get them to shower at Rugby/the gym, that should save you a fair bit to negate the extra machine power!
I think I used your Octopus link ages ago, I have been pleased with them and the £50 started me off on the right foot so thanks for that!![/quote]
Showers aren't open at rugby. Dh does shower at the gym most mornings. I come home to shower. Showers have only just opened back up in the sports centre due to covid

I’ve fixed with BG , dual fuel , I’ve never been on a fixed deal before but my sister said to do it . I’m fixed until NOV 23 and apparently it’s costing me £10 more per month .