Anyone else cry over their bills?

[insanegasbill]

Got our monthly energy bill this morning.

£525. For one month.

I honestly cried. I can't remember the last time I cried over a bill. How is this even possible?!

Last month it was £390 ish which was bad enough so we budgeted around £400 for this month and our usage seemed to be very similar.

We are both employed with good jobs and we are sinking with these ridiculous outgoings.

In January our rent will be £900 as it's going up.

So we are looking at £1400 ish just for rent, gas and electricity come January.

Heating is on a timer and we really do try to limit it, we've been using electric plug in heaters as much as possible instead.

AIBU that this just isn't sustainable? I just needed somewhere to get that out and scream into the void...... What's the actual point of working as hard as we do to be struggling like this? 😢

How much are you using? More importantly, does it tally with what your meter shows?
I use below average leccy even when wfh, but everyone has it widely different. But heating is on for 3 hours approx a day and I am on about 110 for gas.
525 is like 2.5 house run to me!

Yes!! £225 on prepayment gas meter since 21st November!!

YANBU it's not sustainable. Dreading my quarterly election bill.

Just can't see an end to the misery at the moment.

Sorry. 2-2.5 hours. 3 only in proper frost

It does seem terribly expensive. Get on to the utility company and ask if there is a cheaper tariff. I pay half that (maybe less, I haven't checked), for gas and electric.

Electric plug in heaters are likely to be whacking up your bill. Probs cheaper to pop heating on low.

The electric heaters won’t be helping..,,.

That does seem an awful lot.
On Sunday we had the heating on from 7am-9pm and it cost £6.40 in gas for the day.
We also had a plug in Dyson heater on for 4 hours and our electricity cos £5.17 on Sunday. (our electricity is normality about £2.50 per day ) so that 4 hours doubled our usage for the day.

Spent £260 on prepayment meters on the past 30 days. It's just insane. My gas can be £10 a day if I heat it just at 16 for 4 hours.

It's very depressing. My house gets very damp if it's not heated for this long. I'm praying that January and February aren't as cold but considering it's been -5 for the past 3 weeks I don't hold much hope.

Also are you sending meter readings? Or are they predicted bills?

We need more info to be able to help.

How much is Gas, Electric
What heating system do you have
What appliances are used and frequency
How many people and rooms
Look at the bill, what is the use age in kWh for gas, and electric
How are you drying washing

Seems we're all in the same boat. It's just ridiculous. 2 weeks before Christmas and now we need to find an extra £125 for the bill. Merry Christmas to us 🙁

We have a smart meter

Your bill is quite high. This electric plug in heaters are probably the culprit.

What is your unit rate?

I agree with others, I had an electric plug in heater once, cost an absolute fortune to use.

Gas central heating is much cheaper to run than plug in electric heaters! Stop using them and just use your central heating on a timer.

They can sometimes send wrong readings out compared to what they show

If you have a smart meter how is this a surprise to you? That's the whole point of them.

Call me sad if you like but I have a spreadsheet of our weekly energy useage so that I can economise where necessary and know exactly how much my monthly bill is going to be, give or take a few quid. Smart meters also allow you to pinpoint which appliances are using the must energy and limit useage. If you want to save money, you'll need to get a bit smarter about your useage.

I don't understand the smart meter readings tbh and they don't tally up with the bill either.

That seems like an awful lot. We live in a very energy inefficient 4 bed semi, very old windows and central heating, we need to renovate next year.

We have been using the heating 4 hours a day, 1/2 loads of dishwasher and 1 load of washing and (usually) tumble drying a day (husband is in sport so needs lots of kit), electric cooking, tv on in evening and ours was £259 last month. Also on a smart meter so I can see what we are using.

I'm sorry you've been reduced to tears with that huge bill.

I hate to be obvious but why are you using plug in electric heaters as much as possible, instead of presumably the central heating system?

That is really high!

Are you in the house all day? Have you worked out with your smart meter what is using it?

So we are looking at £1400 ish just for rent, gas and electricity come January

I mean it's a big bill but 2 full time salaries in good jobs must still leave you with a decent disposable income? Half of those costs only comes to £700 each, for housing and gas/electricity that's not bad. Even on minimum wage you'd have around £1500 left for everything else.
I'm a single parent with housing costs alone of 1k a month (rent and council tax), current utilities costing £300 p/m, to put things in perspective.

Is that figure based on actual readings or just an updated DD?
Can you check your monthly meter readings and check where the additional cost is coming from?
If you are paying more for EL by not using the gas central heating does it cost-in?

Just before we had our smart metres fitted, we tested having 1 electric radiator plugged in and the metre whizzed round so much faster so it may be them causing your high bill! We stopped using them after that and noticed a difference.