Gas and elec cost forecast for the year ahead

[Lifeomars]

I am with Octopus and have just had a smart meter fitted. Today I had an email from them saying that based on my current consumption I am looking as gas of approx £1606 for gas and £606 for electricity. For context I have only been running the heating for 2 hours a day (had a couple of day where I had it on for 3 hours as the cold was unbearable even with thermals, a hat, fingerless gloves and thick socks and slippers. The water is on twice a day for a bath, cleaning and washing up (no dishwasher, all done in a washing-up bowl) I m mainly cook in my slow cooker and the microwave, do three machine washes a week, limit the use of the kettle to 3 hot drinks a day and measure the water, switch everything off at the mains , only have the radiators on in bedroom, front room and back kitchen diner. I live alone and retired last year. I have the state pension and a small occupational pension and until the cost of living crisis hit I had a reasonable life. Now I am at my wits end and cannot see how I am going to cope when all the other bills go up too in the new financial year. I cannot cut back on my energy use any further other than having no heating on at all but I felt ill last week, my house went down to 9 degrees and only got up up to 14 degrees after my "extravagant" use of 3 hours heating. It is making me feel so depressed and sometimes I wonder what has been the point of working for 45 years. I know I have had govt help and I have used the £500 pounds to put credit on my account and have also increased my DD by 40% so am able to cover this winter if I am very careful. I feel very bleak today, and fearful of the future, Hunt has already said that help stops in Spring and then of course we face another price hike. I feel so for young families, it must be so tough. I have some savings and had planned to use them to do some decorating and go on holiday but at this rate they will all go on bills. I was a single mum who got no money (despite going through the courts and the then CSA ) so I am no stranger to tough times, I just feel that all my resilience has been used up.

We are supposed to have, in legislation, bodies that are supposed to stop this sort of thing, quite why we pay so much for fuel, which then adds to inflation in the form of extra transport costs, is strange.

But all Mn's seem to be interested in is tearing Labour apart on TWAW.

EU has decoupled electricity from Gas, so expect Europe's electricity costs to fall, whilst ours goes up.

This government are all for the rich. I'm sure they don't even care about the normal working people at all . Can't wait for them to be voted out tbh.

I've just given a meter reading. We are with Octopus and have been away about a week of the past month. Yet our gas is nearly £200 and electricity nearly £150 for the month. Ouch. The electricity I can accept as we both work from home most of the time and use electric heaters to heat the rooms we are in, and it was ludicrously cold until a few days before Christmas. But we only have the gas central heating on 6 hours a day, we're not running it all day. Hot water twice a day for an hour.

Ouch is all I can say.

@cakeorwine thank you some useful advice there.

Our equivalent gas bill in July was £18 at current prices
In December, it's looking at £150 - so you can see the impact of the heating

My Smart Meter has been so useful in letting me see how I use energy, especially with the heating.

Hi OP
Do you have a smart meter or a way to measure your actual usage? There was a report today that some energy companies are sitting on £2 billion of customers' money by asking for inflated direct debits each month. Of course eventually the customer gets it back but in the meantime some energy companies are sitting on a mountain of cash.

A few tips! You don't say how big your house is but I have a 2 bed new build (so well insulated) and I pay £83 dual fuel to BG each month. I have a dishwasher and a dryer but only use the dryer now if I really need to. I use the air fryer for lots of cooking and I honestly can't praise my heated hoodie and heated throw enough. There's lots of days where I don't need to put the heating on at all as I'm (dare I say it) actually too hot! They require about a £100 investment up front but cost around 3p an hour to run.
The main thing is I've just adjusted the way I keep warm and I'm really happy and toasty.

I'd also look at your actual kWh usage and see if it aligns with the estimate. The other option of course is to cancel direct debit, submit regular readings and just pay for what you use, keeping a careful eye on your online account.

I hope you're able to find a solution that works for you.

Sorry, I've just read that you do have a smart meter! It may be that because it's new, it's more of an estimate and not set in stone.

For context I have only been running the heating for 2 hours a day (had a couple of day where I had it on for 3 hours as the cold was unbearable even with thermals, a hat, fingerless gloves and thick socks and slippers. The water is on twice a day for a bath, cleaning and washing up (no dishwasher, all done in a washing-up bowl) I m mainly cook in my slow cooker and the microwave, do three machine washes a week, limit the use of the kettle to 3 hot drinks a day and measure the water, switch everything off at the mains , only have the radiators on in bedroom, front room and back kitchen diner. I live alone and retired last year

So some costs:

A kettle is about 2000 - 3000 watts, so about £1 an hour to run. If you just boil what you need, that's about 1p a minute - so about 2p a boil.

What is your current daily usage in electricity? £600 is about 130 kWH a month which is similar to ours. We are low usage so it sounds like you are too.

I would look at your gas usage - it does sound high for the heating you describe. There may be boiler grants available and other support for energy saving matters.

If you are of State Pension Age, then your local Age UK might be able to offer advice and signpost you to support, funding, grants etc.

The cap this Oct is 97% higher than last year and the average bill of £2,500 is based on dual energy customers usage of 12,000 kw gas and 2900kw electricity. BG are moving customers to a new UK based accounts system and no longer recording the daily usage. As my smart meter is working I'm taking a photo of my meter late on the last day of the month in both usage and money. Get a small book and record them. It's cheaper to use an electric fire than central heating if you're at home on a cold day.

"It's cheaper to use an electric fire than central heating if you're at home on a cold day."

@bellabasset not for me it isn't - it cost me more to heat my living room with an electric heater than using my central heating.