Anyone else suspicious of low how their energy bill is?

[Hagpie]

I’m very worried of getting a massive bill in April or something because it doesn’t seem to make sense so here is the situation. Please bear in mind that all of these figures are before our monthly refund of £66/67 okay?

DP and I moved in on July 30th and had no credit with anyone. We live in an E-rated 3-bed semi with 2 kids and our first bills were £180 DD per month. Then it suggested putting our DD down to £101 after 2 months which we did. Then last month it asked for £133 - no problem, when we moved in I was ready for £300+ like it seems everyone else is paying and we had turned the heating to 18° where it has stayed since late October/early November. When we moved in we had no furniture at all so I kind of ignored my suspicions because well we needed a fridge lol and have a baby due January.

Anyway, last month a guy from British Gas came over to take a reading. Later on I read in the news they were sending workers out to check customers aren’t messing around with the equipment/committing fraud and obvs we didn’t because I like breathing. After his visit, the app updated to say this. It should be reassuring but I am still worried. Would you enjoy your good luck or put the DD up to £300 because I am definitely screwed come April?

We have a smallish 3 bed semi, run a tumble drier most days and have heating on 18c inc overnight. Our bill is £103 pm

Thank you! I instantly feel better. My mate in a 1 bed flat pays less than us and they don’t have to run around after kids turning things off so I was feeling so paranoid.

I'm with British Gas. They only seem to properly generate a bill once every 6 months, the rest appears to be guesswork on their part. Have you submitted an actual meter reading and/or got smart meters that are doing this?

I take their DD suggestions with a pinch of salt. This is what they suggested we did in Oct when our usage that month was £197

It's your usage.

You need to know how much energy you have used, your predicted annual usage and your current balance.

If you know those, then you can see what makes sense.

For my flat, I am predicted about 7500 kWH gas and about 1400 kWH electricity for the next year

I can use that to predict my bills using the current unit price - but of course that might change after April and then in October

How often do you submit readings?
What's your annual predicted usage?

I’m very worried of getting a massive bill in April or something because it doesn’t seem to make sense so here is the situation. Please bear in mind that all of these figures are before our monthly refund of £66/67 okay

If you haven't got a Smart meter, then the best way to track your predicted bill is to track your usage - daily or weekly. Just to make sure it's not going to be too much. Take meter readings and do the conversions if necessary to get to kWH and then the actual cost

Your problem is that winter has only just properly begun in the last couple of weeks.

A significant proportion of the cost is winter heating and you haven't paid for any of it yet.

Not helped by British Gas only billing every 6 months. All I can suggest is that you take weekly readings and work out the cost yourself, and put some money aside to pay the bill if you can because unless you never have the heating on, your average annual use will likely cost far more than £130 pm, probably more like double.

But if you're underpaying and come out of winter with a debt, most likely they'll recover it next year with a much higher direct debit, to pay back the debt and also get ahead for next winter. You'll pay for what you use eventually, it just depends how much slack there is in your budget whether it's best to try and save towards it now, or accept the bigger DD later.

We moved house at the end off August this year.
I'm still very worried that octupus will say our meter is faulty. Unless British gas used to charge us a ridiculous amount. We now live in a 3 bedroom house, we used to live in a one bedroom flat. Our gas and electricity cost is the same and octupus has suggested we pay £0 for this month as we build up a small credit + the government subsidiary.
I called up few times, but they trust their smart meter. Dh says don't borrow anxiety, you told them you are suspicious of the meter, but they are not worried. So stop worrying.

My friend with BG only gets a gas bill once every six months. I'd be worried they are charging you based on summer estimates.

I'm in a 4 bed semi effectively (would be a three bed if you moved the bathroom upstairs, it's not a huge house tbh) and we are paying £300 by DD and I think that's about right in current usage.

Why don’t you read your meter and calculate how much you are using?

Do you have a smart meter? Ours didn’t send any readings for 2 months for some reason which was why our bills seemed low.

I'm still locked into a cheap deal until 2024. My actual usage for duel fuel is about £30 a month after the £66 is knocked off. I take readings weekly and do the calculations.

You'll get hit with a massive bill probably. They want me to pay £73 a month, reduced from £212. I live in a 4 bedroom house. I refused. Be careful

Submit a meter reading every week.

British Gas suggested I only pay £10 a month for gas based on my summer usage but I hadn't put my heating on yet. Although even with my heating on I'm spending less than £3 on gas and £2 a day on electricity in a 2 bed flat because I have a smart meter I can keep a close eye on my bill.

I would put your DD up to what you can afford. The worst that happens is you move into credit and can reclaim it later.

Two bed bungalow with a smart meter, we are only using about 6.oo a day on electricity ( heating is oil but run by the electric). I use the tumble dryer a couple of times a week as well. We pay 120.00 a month and are almost 600.00 in credit. We are with Ovo, can monitor usage daily/monthly on the app.

Look at your bill very carefully. I am with a different supplier and had a weirdly low bill too..here goes. We already knew we had used £670 of gas and electricity over 6 months (have smart meter). At the point of billing we had had £130 cost of living rebate paid into our bank account (not kept by company to pay for energy). However our company wrote our charges on the summary page of bill as £440 for gas and leccy + £130 rebate. Why not just state we had used £670 of energy like we had? Basic maths told me that my account balance had reduced £670 not £440. Has BG done the same weird thing with their bills too? For us everything is fine, I just had to read bill 10000000s times before I got what the hell was going on.

@cakeorwine im not too sure on useage- they said based on last years readings my estimated use is £1236 so that’s just split into 12 monthly repayments I think? We haven’t changed our habits much from the year before!

I give readings from the box onto the app each month but we don’t have a smart meter

3721kwh electric
5238kwh gas
that was last years

@TheGirlWhoLived you're still on an old tariff. Your electricity usage is slightly high, but your gas is very low. However, when your current tariff ends, your costs will double as your unit rates will then be 35 p and 10 p instead of 20 p and 4 p. Your standing charge will increase as well.

OP, check your unit rates. I don't think there were any tariffs available as cheap as what @TheGirlWhoLived is paying available if you moved this summer.

There's no point taking reassurance about costs by comparing yourself with someone on a tariff that you're likely to be on yourself.

I am also feeling suspicious. I pay £110 a month for electricity and gas, and I am now more than £600 in credit. I run the heating and take lots of baths, and I submit meter readings every month. When I come on Mumsnet and see a wall of threads saying "I put the heat on for 30 minutes a day and it costs me £800 a month" it makes me uneasy that a day of reckoning awaits me somehow.

Now we have cold weather you need to look at your meter and see how much gas you are actually using per week then multiply that by the cost my meter records Cubic Metres so there is a conversion factor to compare with the KWH that they bill you.
You can then adjust your payments if needed.