Can we pay or energy bills off in the summer?

[behappy1736]

How will it work?
So at the moment I'm £200 in credit and pay £180 a month for gas and electric. We've now got the heating on so I'm guessing that £200 will get used now.
Can you pay off your bills during the summer?

The idea with your direct debit is that your annual bill is split over 12 months, so in the summer you build up credit to use in the winter. At this time of year you should be in credit and the amount of credit should be bigger the higher your usage is.

I suspect that you may be asked by the energy company to up your direct debit now if your credit won't see you through the next 4 months. I'd think if you pay by direct debit you should be starting April time with no credit or debit if your monthly direct debit is correctly calculated.

I hate to say it but don't forget the energy prices are going up again in April. It's really hard at the moment but if you are struggling then I'd suggest contacting the energy company and seeing if they can help.

I purposely overpaid my direct debit during the Summer to build up a bit of credit as I knew this coming, and British Gas just refunded it into my bank account at the end of October...

Eon did the same to me, so frustrating. So I ended up having to do a card payment to pay the bloody money back in to the account. Why would they make my balance zero as we are going into winter?!?!?!?! It baffled me. But then every month I have to go in and pay the £66 rebate as a card payment as they refuse to just have it against my account and say the government force them to pay it into our bank account.

EDF also returned all my credit at the end of August and is also refunding the £66. I expect we'll be in debt by their next review in March when they will try and force me to make some ridiculous direct debit payment.
They also have no current bills so I have to calculate my balance from previous statements and my monthly usage. They have my usage data from the smart meter (more than 1 year of it!), why can't they just put the numbers together?!

This does depend on when your contact starts though - eg mine is sept-aug, so I usually run up debt over the winter and then start paying it off in the spring. So long as they receive the right amount over 12 months, there is no "rule" that you have to build up credit ready for winter.

(as it happens this year I have put extra in over the summer, in preparation for my fixed rate to end. But I haven't done it for the last twelve years I've lived here and used the same supplier!)

We got switched to EDF when our last supplier went bust. I found their website to be completely unusable, it was telling me I was in debit when I was in credit and there was nowhere to see how much I actually had in my account. They put my direct debit down after I'd increased it to try and build some credit, then the refund to my bank account of the full balance was the final straw. Absolute shambles. I switched to Octopus and paid the credit into there instead.

@Notanotherone6 I like the EDF energy hub, which breaks down my usage. I just don't understand why they have such a weird billing system when they have so much data. They could easily calculate my monthly payments and show an up to date balance.

I've never been with Octopus so don't know how good they are. No point switching for us until our fix expires. But might see how Octopus does once we have to face the higher bills.

Weird some pay into bank

bulb pay into bulb account

but yes if you pay same all year round then summer you have credit to go towards winter

we pay 275. In summer was around 175 used so in theory crediting account £100 a month for maybe 3/4 mths

haven’t used 275 yet a month but sure oct /nov will be as using heating

then dec jan feb the 3 cold months wkkk peob ne near 400 a month so using the 275 plus the rough 100 a month from summer months

hope that makes sense @behappy1736

Eon aren’t paying into my bank, it goes directly to my eon account. They also didn’t refund the £800 credit I’d built up until I asked for a portion of it back.

I have too much credit, but I've reduced my DD, so I should come out with a small credit come spring. Shout out to Shell who let me choose to reduce or increase my DD within quite a range and didn't return the credit without asking - something that happened to people I work with.

OP - Martin Lewis reckons you should be a couple of months in credit now, so you're not way off. In your position, I would try to keep my usage under £200 (and closer to £150) a month if possible.

If you can, turn off the heating and layer/blanket up as much as you can. Limit heating, electric ovens, tumble dryers etc. Or maybe cut back elsewhere and up your DD.

You may not be in a position to do these things, but if you are, it makes sense to cut back now while it's chilly, but not as cold as it's going to be.