How the f*** are you all managing your electric bills?

[cofingalthetime]

I don't have gas...
Electric has gone up from 139 per month, to 225, and now the latest is 450...

I don't know how I'm supposed to manage.

Do you all pay by DD. I don't want a meter, I had one before, and it was a nightmare, so expensive.

If 450 goes out of my account next month I won't be able to buy food or petrol or clothes

I got the 150 from the council, and paid it immediately into my electric ,b ut that's a drop in the ocean. How are you all managing.

I'm really really scared.

We're lucky to have a mid-terraced Victorian house which seems to be kept warm on both sides!! It's the warmest house we've ever lived in.
I wonder if there could be a way to put a daily cap on your bill (like you can do with mobile phones per month to stop you going over a set limit)? So that, once you've reached the limit of what you can afford, it goes off. I know this would come with risks and wouldn't work for everyone especially elderly, infirm, etc (eg if you got up in the night and the lights didn't work, there's a fall risk) but things like freezers would keep themselves cold enough until the electricity came back on say at 6am. Or something . Sorry I'm thinking and rambling. Just trying to think of a solution that might help in some way. The anxiety levels of most people are going to be through the roof, I'm so sorry this is happening.
Sending hugs to everyone x

I wonder if there could be a way to put a daily cap on your bill

Unfortunately, most people's daily bills will be much much lower in summer and very high in winter - so that would be hard to work out.

As you're on a fixed rate , the reason yours has increased is simply because you've been using more electricity and/or gas , probably during the winter.

You won't have a price hike until your fixed rate finishes, same as me, mine finishes end of July. Not looking forward to it.

All us poor people using less, going without nice things like clean clothes, roast dinners, crispy jacket potatoes, cakes, heating, hot water etc, I don't think is going to help in the long run.

When the usage drops, the energy companies will stop making as much money so the price of the standing charge will go up to compensate.
This is happening already.
This means that at some point there will be be people paying the standing charge for the meter but using no energy.

Maybe they should get rid of the standing charge so it's included in your usage, then you have some control over how much you spend.

My husband works in the energy market and told us to lock into a deal with Ovo for two years paying 42p per unit for electricity. It seemed excessive back in April as the ofgen rate was capped at 29p odd a unit. He can see that’s happening with wholesale prices and was predicting this for the last 12 months. He expects it to get far worse in October this year and next April. Apparently 42p will seem a bargain by then 😮😮😮😮 DD now £900 per month. We are entirely electric and use 26,500 units per year. Yes I’m fully aware that’s a lot. We have a heat pump and solar panels. Also a pool. Tried to lower it. It is what it is.

Should mention we were paying £350 a month last September. Massive increase but we are trying to protect ourselves from the future increases which ARE coming.

At the risk of being cynical about the prophetic powers of a man who works in the energy market, it's a shame he didn't put his powers to use last November.

I'm treating the SVR like a cheap fix at the moment tbh.

The cheapest fix offered to me by Octopus is:
Electricity: 40.30p/kwh and 49.38p s/c
Gas: 11.27p/kwh and 27.22p s/c

Currently pay:
Electricity: 27.84p/kwh and 49.38p s/c
Gas: 7.33p/kwh and 27.22p s/c

But by paying 42 p per unit now you're going to be overpaying for a year (variable is currently 27 p and even if they go up in October by the predicted 40% that's still only up to about 39 p a unit) so you're likely to be worse off with that fix.

Plus prices simply can't keep going up like this, without wages going up to compensate. If prices climb up further than 42 p, nearly everybody will be struggling and probably the lower third income-wise will be destitute.

But it's likely that you don't really care anyway, you just want to let us all know about how you can afford your ridiculous energy usage.

@3Phoenix3 Your post really upset me. I'm really sorry you are living like this, as are many others in same boat. I hope you are claiming all the benefits you are entitled to, UC/WTC, carers allowances, pip/dla for children, any council tax reductions or exemptions. You're doing bloody well considering the enormous challenges you face. Yes, the energy bills are frightening for all of us on limited incomes. Just ensure you pay for what you use, not the energy firms estimated direct debit. I hope you don't lose your home. 💐

Plus prices simply can't keep going up like this, without wages going up to compensate

I think they can. This is part of the global green new deal I think.

@FourTeaFallOut
Just because major wholesale gas prices weren’t being reported by ms media doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening behind the scenes.

we were on a fixed deal with peoples energy (June-Sept) as he knew rates would have to increase as locked us in. Our provided went bust (end sept) so we were transferred to British Gas. We couldn’t have foreseen which providers were going to go under.

Under guidance from ofgen we couldn’t move supplier and lock a new deal until the transfer was finalised (end of Dec). They had us on a similar deal but it was only for a short period of time. Around feb/March most suppliers stopped offering fixed deals as they knew the price cap was massively being hiked in April. We could finally get a new deal in mid April and it was almost 12p a unit over the price cap. Husband knew it would be getting worse, especially as Ukraine had been invaded by then, so locked Ovo which given our usage seemed excess now, but after a 50-% in October, will seem cheap.

it’s reported every day in the news the price cap will be at least 50% again in October.

we did everything we could to protect our bills.

@BarbaraofSeville
hardly. That’s why we protected our dd with a fixed deal. If the rates get to over 50p a unit, we couldn’t afford it.

and make no mistake, £900 is a hell of a lot for us to find. We cannot reduce our usage any more than we have already. Heating has been off along with the tumble drier for months. Everyone is struggling. My post certainly wasn’t a braggy post.

im reminded why I rarely comment on this site 🤐

Agreed.

Perhaps there is a more fundamental issue here.

TBTB know that oil and gas are running out. They've used 'climate change' as a stick to try and get you to use less but it hasn't worked, so now they must use price. We have a few years left to transition from fossil fuels. Taxing fossil fuel companies more is plain daft given that we need them to find and extract the last reserves and transition us to green.

Think they've said a 42% rise on October.

The price difference between the SVR and the fix I've been offered is 44.76% for electricity and 53.75% for gas so I'll stay with the SVR for now.

TPTB

Please contact your energy supplier and tell them you are struggling. Also make sure they have an accurate meter reading. They should help if you are struggling x good luck and keep us posted x

Second the comment about talking to your energy supplier. There are extra grants available for people on low incomes or in receipt of certain benefits, but you have to apply for them.

For the unit price to go up to 50p/kWh the svr on electricity would have to increase 76%.

But that fixed rate is no longer available to new customers!! Enjoy it while you can.
Yours will jump enormously when your fixed rate ends.

I think Ofgem confuse a lot of people with the way they describe the cap - saying bills will rise to £4200 (or whatever) is very misleading. Lots of people assume this is some sort of cap on total bills but it is just a representative number for an average household.

It would be much better if they described it purely in kWh (unit price) instead and gave that as the headline figure to the media instead.

It would make it clearer the only way to limit bills is to cut usage.

If your bill is £500 a month, your usage is going to be way above average.
Mine is £73 a month - I don't say that to be smug but I am smaller household, a small flat and pretty stingy on heating plus work in an office most of the time so not at home a lot during the week.

Energy retail companies are not making huge profits - in fact many of them are running losses.
The big profits are being made in gas and oil production - BP, Shell etc. Shell is not making money on its power retail arm though.

Just logged into my energy account and a bit confused and wondered what others would do in this situation?

SVR
Electric - sc 41.66 and 29.48/kwh
Gas - sc 27.22 and 7.32/kwh

Fix for 12 months
Electric sc 41.66 and 39.84/kwh
Gas sc 27.22 and 9.82/kwh

Do you mean a pre payment meter or a smart meter? I don't know how you can manage that, as others have said, are you providing actual meter readings or are these estimates? Our combined gas and electric is £137/month (up from £78 in October last year) with Ovo...can you do a price comparison, how much of your contract have you got left?

Surely people understand that if you use more, you pay more, and there couldn't possibly be a 'one size fits all' price limit that applies in all circumstances?

It's so unrealistic that it's just impossible that it could work that way. Plus we all have meters in our homes so it's no big secret that you pay according to usage. The price cap is simply a shortcut to expressing the typical price for the average user.

If people can't grasp that concept, they're not going to take in unit prices that vary by fuel and sometimes day/night rates and also the payment method and/or whether you have credit or debt on your account. Oh, and you have to add on a daily standing charge on top.