Gas and electric gone from £134 to £488

[MrsMingech]

I knew it was going to increase a lot. But for it to be 3.5X more seems impossible?

We don't actually have the money to pay that each month.

Is that usual? Is that truly how much everyone's has gone up by?

Ours has gone from £122 to £433, so I believe the OP.
We weren't underpaying before (as backed up by the balance when the new company took over in September), but the prices they seem to have been charging for the last 6 months are ridiculous. I thought the prices were supposed to be going up from 1st April.

Are the high rates people are now paying based on actual usage or are they just the direct debit amounts the energy company wants you to pay?

Do you have a hot tub op? The two people I know who have had enormous increases similar to yours have hot tubs running constantly

This is happening because our Tory government is allowing rich energy shareholders to profiteer on the back of the misery and breakdown of normal life for ordinary families.

They are letting these greedy companies rake in the profits, using the war in Ukraine as their excuse. Why are they doing this? Why allow these companies free rein to steal our money and everything we’ve worked hard for using made up Micky mouse prices?

I personally think there will be members of our government who probably own shares in some of these energy firms and therefore stand to benefit from these price increases. Maybe it’s also a way for them to force us all to cut down on gas and electric consumption.

I’m just shocked that they are allowing this to happen.

Life is becoming really hard for a lot of people. Where I live many homes are being bought up by rich people who have moved here from London during lockdown Homes in a nearby village are now mostly holiday homes. Locals are being priced out of both the rental and property market. There is going to be a divide between those who are wealthy and those who are living in extreme hardship.

I find it really depressing to be honest and don’t really see much of a future to look forward to. I’m really worried about what life is going to be like for my children and ultimately if we end up losing our home.

I have cancelled mu DD and moved to payment on bill. I submit a meter reading every month and only pay for what I use.
it makes much more sense and I'd suggest people do this.
Energy companies are taking the piss with DD payments.

I’m not shocked at all that the government are doing nothing. People who thought the Tory party actually cared about them were very naive.

@tomatorich112

I have cancelled mu DD and moved to payment on bill. I submit a meter reading every month and only pay for what I use. it makes much more sense and I'd suggest people do this. Energy companies are taking the piss with DD payments.

But you still pay the same amount overall, or possibly more because sometimes there's a DD discount.

You're also giving up the facility to smooth the winter peak over a few months. It might suit now, but early next year your bills will be enormous.

Does anyone know if it saves on gas / electric if you switch off the boiler if you dont need the hot water element . Used to have the standard boiler and only heated the water morning / evening for showers .

I've cancelled my direct debit now they've increased it by more than double. I'm just going to pay for the energy I use monthly. I know that during the next few months of summer/autumn it will be okay, and I'm hoping that by winter something will happen to sort all this out. Ever the optimist!

@MrsMingech is that for a fixed rate rather than the standard variable rate? What are the prices per kWh?

@tomatorich112

I have cancelled mu DD and moved to payment on bill. I submit a meter reading every month and only pay for what I use. it makes much more sense and I'd suggest people do this. Energy companies are taking the piss with DD payments.

I've done this too. I'm losing out on a discount worth approximately £40 a year and the ability to 'spread' my payments, but my method is to put the winter bill amount extra in a seperate account through the summer months so I'm still budgeting for that money come winter time and there's a buffer should it be needed. Crucially I'm 100% in control of what comes out of my account and it's based on fact (meter readings) rather than algorithms.

Mine are monthly pay on receipt which makes it more manageable.

@BarbaraofSeville

My usage is constant all year, I have an aga, and wood burners. It never changes.
I can still over pay, if I wish to, but leaving money in a company which might go bust and then I have to wait for a rebate...no thanks. How much money do you think they make on credit on account?

I would pay for petrol on estimate or anything else. I just want to pay what I owe thank you.

@MrsMingech

I knew it was going to increase a lot. But for it to be 3.5X more seems impossible?

We don't actually have the money to pay that each month.

Is that usual? Is that truly how much everyone's has gone up by?

Could you give us your old and new tarrifs, including standard charges plus your usage?

Roughly speaking old taffis went from 4p kWh to 7p gas and 20p to 27p kWh for electricity. 25p to 27p daily standing charge gas and 25p to 48p daily standing charge for electricity.

I sat and did the maths, our old energy usage for march would have been 47 quid, our new is 67 quid, an increase of roughly 42%.

Go into your account online and look up your previous usage then come back and tell us the facts.

wouldn't pay 😂

I did this last week - Scottish Power’s website only gave me 3 options to switch tariff too, no mention of a standard variable option. From £168 to £653 I was totally shocked. Called & the guy on the phone said I had the standard rate option, this will be more like £300. The website was totally misleading, it looked like i had no option but one of their fixed tariffs

British Gas dual gas and electric gone up from 56 to 61 per month. 2 bedroom property.

If you do nothing when your fix ends then you automatically roll onto the standard variable rate

All the energy companies are at the same game - they are using this as an opportunity to exploit every single one of their customers, hugely increasing direct debits and using YOU, yes, YOU, their customers, as a source of an interest free loan. Think about it, you are, every month, lending them your money for something which you have not yet used, or actuallly may not use. Meanwhile, your money is sitting in their accounts, earning THEM interest, not you. Greed, opportunism, exploitation...

Ye it's true @IDespairOfTheHumanRace
a DD saving of £3.33 a month, but you give them hundreds of pounds each month... it should be illegal. Same as higher costs for prepayment meters. Ripping off the poor should not be allowed!

Wish I was French, we'd be burning stuff in the street!

My electric has gone from £20 to £33, but I live alone and have gas for heating and water.

Ours has gone from £113 to £270.

They're really not @IDespairOfTheHumanRace. We're with octopus. They've put our DD up a bit but not enough as we're in debt currently and will never catch up based on what we're paying now.

We've never been significantly in credit with any company, not that anyone makes much in the way of interest anyway.

Plus our bank pays us cashback for paying these bills by direct debit.

@BarbaraofSeville can you not change your direct debit on the app/online?

@BarbaraofSeville

They're really not *@IDespairOfTheHumanRace*. We're with octopus. They've put our DD up a bit but not enough as we're in debt currently and will never catch up based on what we're paying now.

We've never been significantly in credit with any company, not that anyone makes much in the way of interest anyway.

Plus our bank pays us cashback for paying these bills by direct debit.

Octopus are great. I've been with them for a couple of years, and they're so flexible and brilliant customer service.

I can believe the OP easily. We're totally up to date and that jump is similar to ours.

Not quite more than our mortgage. But there's still hope yet.