Rising energy prices - I'm about to start paying £278 a month, should I fix?

[ByHook0rByCrook]

It's the cheapest deal I can find - currently on flex.

Yes, it's jaw-droppingly high. Feel a bit sick tbh.

prices must drop a bit....surely....??...we only get a minor amount of gas from russia so cant see how that affects prices...my friends in spain already pay a lot more than us for electric, [their gas comes from algeria],...it goes up constantly over there and also very confusing time tariffs.....

Because while we don't get much gas from Russia, lots of countries do. If Russia turns off the taps in retaliation for sanctions it will create pressure and scarcity. The cost of gas might go up to as much as £10 a therm, for comparison - this shit show we are currently in is because prices got as hight as £4.50 a therm in December.

Nearly three grand a YEAR?

Fuck me I hope OURS doesn't go up that much! It's only £850 a year at the moment.

If you're on a fix @BearOfEasttown, it's likely that you'll be paying at least double when it ends, possibly slightly more.

That's the reality at the moment unfortunately.

We've gone from about £1100 per year to expecting it to be around £2300 come April.

I managed to get a fixed deal with Scottish power 3 weeks ago, 19.30-12.30 22.83p per kWh and 29.39 the rest of the time, standing charge 24.11p Gas is 6.9p and 26.11 standing.
The standing charge is only .1p higher than I paid before. I have just looked and they have put the prices up, so hopefully I've got a good deal. If the SVR from April is 28p for electric and 7p for gas, it should work out cheaper.

I put the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble drier on during the cheaper tariff, I've also bought an air fryer, hopefully that will work out cheaper than using the oven, it's only 30.00 each to change tariff, so if it doesn't work I'll change to SVR.

@BarbaraofSeville

I'd be astonished if any normal person spends more than £329 per year boiling their kettle, let alone able to save that amount.

Plus the water won't be hot enough for tea once it has been in the flask for more than a very short period.

Yes, using my kettle and electricity tariff I'd need to boil water for 76 mugs of tea a day over the year to spend £329.

Based on that I'm probably spending around £35 a year boiling the kettle.

We have fixed as we are high users. More heating on than most a have elderly MIL living with us who feels the cold.

I think the advise was if you have average usage it was probably not worth fixing but for some high users it could be worth it. Ours was £220 pcm now £270 for a 4 bed semi.

@Whymustyoubringinthebirds

Martin Lewis is still advising sticking with standard tariff at the moment, is there any ways you could cut down your usage a bit?

Martin Lewis was also encouraging people to switch to the cheapest supplier for years, without any care for the financial strength of the supplier. When the flakiest then went pop, after selling electricity and gas a fixed rates while buying it at variable rates, those customers who thought they had a good fix got shifted to a capped rate somewhere, and if they were lucky were able to arrange a new fix.

But many, who might have fixed for 2 or 3 years in late summer/early autumn at nice cheap rates found themselves unceremoniously dumped and now paying much more than if they’d originally signed up with a more robust supplier which in many cases was fractions of a penny more than the cheapest, but flakey one. Martin doesn’t mind; he’s made his money from the churn ;)

But, capped is cheaper than fixed at the moment, although the cap is almost certainly going up again in 6 months. So do you think the cap in 6 months will be more or less than the current fixes on offer, taking into account the next 5 or 6 months usage? And does certainty of cost matter? Not an easy call at the moment :(

@rambleonplease

We have fixed as we are high users. More heating on than most a have elderly MIL living with us who feels the cold.

I think the advise was if you have average usage it was probably not worth fixing but for some high users it could be worth it. Ours was £220 pcm now £270 for a 4 bed semi.

I don't think that is the advice, the fixing decision isn't based on how much you use as the per kWh price is the same foe every unit used o have you got a tariff that gets cheaper the more you use. Is there such a thing?

You do know that your monthly direct debit isn't a fixed price?

@rambleonplease

We have fixed as we are high users. More heating on than most a have elderly MIL living with us who feels the cold.

I think the advise was if you have average usage it was probably not worth fixing but for some high users it could be worth it. Ours was £220 pcm now £270 for a 4 bed semi.

Think you've got confused. It's the price per kWh that's fixed not the monthly payment. If you use more you pay more.

I have fixed this month. My fix is mostly in line with the SVR from April, slightly lower on unit price for gas, slightly higher on standing charges. Electricity unit price pretty much bang on. I fixed based on the fact that the SVR would save me literally £6 a month or so, for 6 months, and the cap will rise again in October, when usage goes up, so it will benefit us in the long run. We also have solar panels, so as the weather eases into spring and summer we will benefit there too.

We have also ditched the tumble dryer (mostly) and the hot tub entirely. Russia and the next price rise are reasons to fix in line with the April SVR, IMO.

Some providers were offering loyalty tariffs to high use customers that with reasonable unit rates - given the expected rises in April back in January when the cap was unknown.

Yes I know the monthly price isn't fixed and you pay for usage. But this was based on a fixed KwH with our current usage. The current DD keeps us level with our usage.

Pretty certain a lot of advice I read and watched was you may be better off on fixed deal if you are an above average user. We deliberated a lot about it and read up a lot before deciding that we should fix for 12 months.

Offgem have said that the losses and shortfall of the levy designed to protect customers exceed £200million which the companies taking over customers of the failed companies have to top up. The CEO of Centrica estimates the cost of this will cost each customer £200. If you're unaware of the breakdown of the cap the standing charge is set to rise to £265. The cap has increased by 54% and in the last year bills have nearly doubled. VAT has remained at 5% so the Treasury has benefitted by this. We're being given a credit of £200 this year which we will have to pay back. BUT the energy market was privatised and all of us are paying for the failure of nearly 30 companies which I think is morally and should be legally wrong This £200 should be funded from the extra VAT revenue. Who privatised the energy companies - the Tory government.

Sunak has taken back the £20 uplift to UC and increased benefits by 3.1% at a time when energy costs are rising by 54%.

@bellabasset good old privatisation! The French government have been able to protect everyone from a huge price hike as still nationalised.

[quote rambleonplease]@bellabasset good old privatisation! The French government have been able to protect everyone from a huge price hike as still nationalised. [/quote]
It’s not just that they’re nationalised, but mainly because 70odd percent of their power is generated from nuclear stations and so not dependent on rapidly rising oil/gas prices!