To ask what your dual fuel DD is and for what size property?

[MamaDuckling]

EDF have put my DD up again from £404 per month to £517. This is up from £230 ish a year or so ago.

I’d had a substantial credit on the account (which is now reduced since I plugged in meter readings this morning as requested, but still almost £1K in credit). If there’s still such a large credit on the account I’d have thought they’d be reducing the DD, not increasing it??

Can I please ask what size home you have and how much your DD is so I know how “typical” ours is likely to be? We have been careful with energy since at least March.

We are a Victorian terrace, 5 beds, 4 stories (inc a converted lower ground which is used as playroom). We also have my mum living with us so an extra adult in the house all day.

The bill just feels wild, I know prices have gone up massively but it feels like it’s just spiralling.

I am so confused. We are on standard variable rate. I cannot get through to them on the phone today.

I’ve never had a direct debit for energy. I’m not being told what I have to pay each month if it bears little resemblance to my actual usage - which it doesn’t: Bulb have been asking me to set up a DD for £230 a month since July. In the summer months I was using less than £60 a month gas and electricity combined. October was £82. I’m not expecting it to be any more than double that in the winter at the worst. Small two bedroom terrace, one of us WFH full time the other part time. We are careful about not wasting energy (always have been even before price rises) but not frugal.

They want you to increase your DD because they want to make use of having your money in their account, not yours. It isn’t set up for your benefit, however much they try to convince you that it’s a good thing to have loads of credit as a contingency.

What are your usage figures on your bill in KWh for electricity and gas? Your bill should say what you use on average a year so you can work out if the DD is accurate or not.

If you were paying £230 a month before the prices rocketed then you must be v high users. We are way above average users and we were £130 a month a year ago.

Oh and we are a four-bed detached, two adults, two young kids, someone in all the time and we are now about £250 a month for both.

If you're in a large Victorian property that credit will most likely get chewed through over winter. Your winter bill is quite likely to be 4 or more times what it is in summer. We are £600 in credit and that will be gone by spring.

That sounds high although I suppose your house isn't very well insulated if large victorian. I don't think they can insist on putting your direct debit up if you're so much in credit. I would just refuse. You can always pay a bit extra if you do go in debt before march. In the meantime I would try to reduce your usage. Perhaps just heat the room your mother is in during the day, for example.

That's fine if you have tiny bills or have the cash flow to pay radically different sums every month. But for us, for example, we would be paying maybe £80 in July and then £700 in January. I don't have the cash flow to pay £700 for one month just after Xmas so I prefer direct debit as that spreads the cost throughout the year and I have a fixed sum every month to help me budget.

You can achieve the same by putting the extra money into a savings account instead if you are sure you won't spend it, but a lot of providers give a discount for paying by DD which is higher than the interest you would get anyway.

You need to do regular meter readings to work out your actual usage.

we use about £120 per month at the moment and pay £140 so have room for winter being more expensive along with a bit of credit from over summer.

And everyone pays for what they use, it's just what method you choose to do it. Direct debit money doesn't disappear into the ether; it sits in credit until the winter months consume it and by spring you should have got through most of it to start building it up again for next year. If you want to just pay off what you use per month instead of it averages over the year that's fine, but you do need to know that will mean way larger winter bills at a time of year money is often tight anyway. If your cash flow allows you to do that then there's no issue, but a lot of people who have cancelled their DDs are going to get a nasty shock in winter when they get a £800 bill for January.

There's no way to avoid paying for what you use, it's just how you spread it.

5 bed Victorian end terrace: our DD is £160 our usage is roughly £110 based on Octobers bill (no heating) we don’t really used the heating much as it triggers my migraines so expecting it to be about £150 max with heating on and tumble dryer used more. Currently £500 in credit

£78 a month. One adult one cat. 1900 mid terrace. I am pretty frugal with usage to be fair. £400 credit.

Five bed victorian semi, two floors as we don't utilise the attic space and don't have a basement.
Double glazed but poorly insulated, DH wfh and I keep the thermostat at 19c.
£347 pm with OVO. £600 in credit.

To be fair going by last years usage when we were running a hot tub, using a tumble dryer and keeping the temperature at 21c we would be paying over £500 per month at today's rates.

Still I would think that if you are 1k in credit there is no reason to be increasing your DD. In that situation I would probably cancel the DD and pay them monthly via debit card.

DD is £454 per month (and £67 of this is deducted due to the government funding). I’m with E.ON Next. It’s a 5 bed house, 1930s and typically quite cold. Before energy prices went up, we were paying £150 per month.

Just to add to my post, this October we used half the fuel we used at the same time last year but it cost double the amount.

1930s extended 4 bed detached, 3 adults. Most recent bill was £210. I don't pay via DD as Bulb wanted around £350 DD in the summer even with around £600 in credit on the account. So we just pay for what we use but we are being particularly careful now with heating and using appliances.

There's no way to avoid paying for what you use, it's just how you spread it.

The point is that a lot of people aren’t using the amount of energy providers are trying to get them to set up a DD for. There have been plenty of threads with posters facing enormous DD increases which don’t reflect their actual usage, when they are already in a lot of credit, getting very upset that they can’t afford the rising DDs. Most people are capable of looking at their actual average monthly usage and calculating whether they actually need to be doubling their DD as their provider is trying to force them to do (and it is force, as a lot of people seem to be totally unaware that they can just opt to pay monthly manually) or whether they’re just helping their provider’s financial balancing act rather than their own.

EDF did the same to me. I have a thread on it. The increased my payments based on usage from when we were all in lockdown and working from home and I built up £1,500 credit. My payments were increased twice and they recently increased them to £442 per month.

I handed in my meter readings and worked out that if I use the exact same amount of energy that I did last year my direct debit should be £250 per month. I actually expect to use less as ds has now left home whereas he was only at college 3 days per week last year and used a lot of energy with showers and equipment etc.

I applied to reduce my payments and they refused so I contacted them again and they did agree to reduce them to £370. They refused to refund my credit balance until March. I then attempted to contact them in person, kept getting cut off but they have now agreed to refund £1,000.

So keep at it. Try webchat if you can't get through on the phone.

£100pm dd

£500 in credit

Eon next

I emailed them and asked them to reduce my dd from £160 to £100

3 bed terraced Victorian house.
2 adults 1child
Wfh

I forgot to say, we are now 2 adults in a 5 bedroomed house.

I live in a dolls house in comparison to yours, 3 bed mid terrace, 2 story, 2.5 bathrooms, £39 pm and £180 in credit.

300 a month. Accurately calculated on smart meter. 4 bed detached new build, well insulated and not needed heating yet but we are not obsessively frugal. High day time rate (price cap) but Cheap EV tarrif 4 hours a night so do dishwasher and washing machine at the same time.
i think yours sounds right for current pricing.

Yes, direct debit is a bit cheaper so I use it but still avoid giving them too much of my money in advance so I wouldn't let them increase while in so much credit.

Most people are capable of looking at their actual average monthly usage and calculating whether they actually need to be doubling their DD

Sadly this isn't true. The level of financial illiteracy around bills has been laid bare with all this energy stuff. A lot of people have no clue how to find their usage and even less clue how to do the maths required to find what they should be paying. I'd say people who understand their energy bills are in the minority.

With EDF you don't get any choice. You get a cheaper rate from paying by DD and they decide the amount. You can ask for it to be reduced but they often say no at first. You have to keep trying. It took me several attempts and I'm not there yet.

They also only bill twice a year so you can hand in monthly meter readings and they take no notice of them.