to think people who don't have Smart Meters and who pay monthly or quarterly are going to be in for a shock at their next bill?

[cakeorwine]

Gas has gone up from 4p a kWH this time last year to 10p a kWH this year.
Obviously people with Smart Meters can see this on their display.

But if you still give readings and wait till the bill arrives, I think there are going to be some real surprises. Gas use is at its highest over the next few months.

I know people will have the £66 off their bill - but it's going to be high.

At least with Smart Meters, you can see daily use. Submitting a reading and then getting a statement and bill is going to be a shock for some people.

Ditto

Exactly this. To all those saying 'just read your meter, work it out, it's not hard', it absolutely is hard for a not insignificant number of people. It might be hard for you to believe that someone could struggle with basic arithmetic but financial literacy in this country is extremely low and it is beyond the capabilities of many people, usually the people who need to save money the most too.

A huge number of people do not understand their energy bills, struggling with admin and filling in forms for help, can't grasp the maths being talked about. Some people literally don't know how to multiple something by 2.5. I'm not exaggerating; I've had to help people with that before. They don't understand decimal points, how to multiply units by unit rates, how to calculate percentage increases, all things that seem so easy to those of us fortunate enough to have been able to learn.

It is very frustrating - it's another energy company for us - we think it's out of the call center scripts and TBF at least two have tried kicking it up higher for us only for it to be sent back down to first level call center staff where they then pretend it's the house monitor or tell us to try steps we've already tried many times.

DH contacted them via chat and e-mail - so when they tried to close the complaint (guy checking the work told us to complain to get anything done as he couldn't help) we found an address and wrote a letter with every bit of data they asked for and e-mail chain - they're coming out again but there's a long wait for them to do so.

I'm 'educated' and know prices are going up, I submit a monthly reading, I don't work out how much it's likely to be as don't really understand how I'd do that or have the time/inclination. My gas bill went from £80 last month to more than £200 this month. It was indeed a shock. YANBU.

I think the point is though that those people are unlikely to be on this thread, so it’s unclear what the OP is hoping to achieve by posting it here?
It’s fab that the OP works for a charity helping people who need support in areas such as this. That seems like the correct place to be directing her energy.

People I know who do struggle with maths and literacy are still aware prices have gone up a lot and are very wary about putting on heating and using electric.

In fact I can see why the government has started urging more vulnerable people to put heating on - I have older family members who can certainly afford the higher prices worried about putting the heating on even when they've had snow.

December is going to be a big month for usage.

When January comes round I am 100% confident there will be absolutely zero people on here complaining about a massive bill "coming out of nowhere".

I actually think the biggest disaster at the moment is all the people on prepayment meters who literally have no heating because they can't physically afford to top up. The FB energy group is full of horribly sad posts from people sitting in 9 degree homes with water dripping down their walls because they don't have any money to put on their meter. At least with standard meters you can run up the debt and try to pay it off over summer but with prepayment meters if you can't afford to put money on, you sit in the cold.

@WaddleAway Well from reading these comments it's clear that many people on here are oblivious to how other people are living so at least maybe it's shone a light on that!

Same here, when I submitted my last two readings I got a message asking me to double check as they seemed low! Could be to do with the extra I added to the reading before the October 1 increase!

That's outright fraud...

Off the back of this thread I just submitted a mid month meter reading and was pleasantly surprised. We’ve had the heating on low constantly (I have a severely autistic child who refuses to wear clothes in the house, so I can’t have it extremely cold), and it’s far lower than I was expecting.

That's good.
I suppose there is an opposite to this - people who are worried about the cost of energy and who haven't been using much - and who can't easily monitor their usage.

So they hold off using it and then submit their reading and find out that it's lower than they thought - and actually, they could have had the heating on and been able to afford it. That's also an issue. I do know people who haven't turned on their heating or even lights because they are worried - but they can't easily monitor their usage.

Yes, my mum has been reluctant to put her heating on at all (she has a smart meter but it doesn’t work, never has since she moved into her new build 5 years ago). I explained that as her monthly fixed direct debit is now 3 times what it was last winter she can have her heating on as much as she did last year for that cost!