How the fuck am I meant to afford this? Electric bill this month

[LadyFlumpalot]

My electric bill is £643 this month. SIX HUNDRED FUCKING QUID.

It's correct, I've checked and double checked. It was £400 last month. In the summer it was approx £180 a month.

I'm in a three story attached town house thing, fully electric. Two adults, two children. One fish tank. Usual tumble dryer, appliances etc.

I've got a balance built up of £450 so with my usual monthly payment I will just about break even this month. Next month will be a challenge though 🥶

And it's only going to get worse.

Not really looking for advise - just sympathy and solidarity. We are about to go full fucking Victorian. There will be no tumble dryer, no dishwasher, no charging appliances at home during the day.

My combined bill is about £200 a month in summer so it is possible (3 bed terrace, 2 adults). My usage isn’t terribly high but my energy provider isn’t subject to the price cap so I pay a lot more than other people do (about double last I checked). The joys of 100% renewable energy providers!

No, it doesn’t matter how high the statement amount is, hitting zero credit at New Years is 100% normal. Of course the DD amount is going to go up, the prices went up in Jan and are going up again in Apr. Increasing DDs are a given. The point is that her DD amount is well estimated because she is going from credit to debit exactly when she is supposed to be.

What type of electric heating is it?

Does it need to be on 24/7 and does it draw power in all of that time?

We are also all electric but I'm on economy 10 (not many suppliers and usually only available to all electric households).

I get cheap electric at three points, between 4.30am and 7.30am, 1.30pm to 4.30pm and 8.30pm to 12.30am. it has gone down to 5.5p a kWh at these times.
On the down side, my peak electric is 55pa kWh (ouch!) And I pay over a pound for the first unit of each day which is in effect the standing charge..

I run a storage heater which is wired only for these times and set all other panel heaters etc to only come on during cheap rate. Similarly I shower at the cheap times, set the washing machine, dishwasher etc.

It means you can't have heat whenever you like but can run things longer so if your house is well insulated it could work.

Are you in a rental as feel landlords don't always look into the tariff to suit a particular system.

I was £120 last month because I am using the rate to my advantage with five times more use on this than the peak rate.

Reason for different bills could also because different contract with different rates. My neighbor has theirs fixed for 2 years just before the price started increasing so they are on very low price now until later this year. They might actually escape the whole thing if the price goes back by then.

Us too and I have a system for fitting in the maximum stuff for optimal cleaning. I have to wash on 60C too due to my DD being immune compromised.

Hi OP

How do you heat water? We had an issue with our hot water cylinder and our bills just went through the roof. Once fixed it was fine.

Do you have UFH? It’s brutal, despite the sales pitch otherwise.

Wow, why haven't you made an effort to reduce your usage??

Stop using tumble dryer and immersion heater.

Block drafts at bottom of doors and keep them shut.

Just seen you use a lot through the night which might indicate the system was set up to run on economy 7 but has come off that??

It would be worth writing down meter readings every couple of hours for a few days to get a handle on what you use when to allow you to compare split tariffs with whatever you are currently on.

If the OP was for example paying 330 I'm summer (for say 6 months) and built up a credit of about £900

If we assume half is to pay off from January 2022 (as some people are adamant its fine she is out of credit now) then she had £450 credit to last her until Jan this year

Now she had a bill of £643 which is £313 above her dd amount.If this happens for the next 3 months she will build up a debt of £939

Which means even if her summer usage costs exactly the same as last year not only would she not clear her debt from this winter she would not build up her credit for next winter.

It seems simple to me why the OP is concerned. OP I feel for you, im all electric too and my last bill was similar, I'm currently paying a DD of £480 a month. I'm with Ovo and they keep telling me they have missed charges and keep making my precious months usages higher and higher and higher so its impossible to budget.

My husband is great at the
dishes jenga. I hope your little one keeps in good health.

No, it doesn’t matter how high the statement amount is, hitting zero credit at New Years is 100% normal. Of course the DD amount is going to go up, the prices went up in Jan and are going up again in Apr. Increasing DDs are a given. The point is that her DD amount is well estimated because she is going from credit to debit exactly when she is supposed to be.

Sorry no, that's not it!

We agree broadly - re how the credit works & it 'running out'.

And you agree with me her DD will increase.

The point is it's going to do so substantially, representing a significant increase to OP.

Whereas in another year, she still would have got to 'zero balance' now. But her bill would not have been as high (as this year's) and she'd carry on mostly the same.

In my case, my DD, already high, is going to rise to a level I really do not know how I will afford.

That's the same broad point we are both making: that the massive hike in energy costs is causing real challenges for so many to pay (however they do so!)

Yes! You've explained it much better than I did!

@LadyFlumpalot

Your point re the immersion is key to find out about & stop if you can - that was previously a huge cost for me; have just switched to combi boiler, instant hw but importantly no wasteful heating of full tank.

to the fools who think a fixed monthly direct debit makes any difference…. #yawn.

Ours is £80 leccy and £120 gas. The gas is extremely high for us, but it has been very cold.

18 months ago, we were double that when prices were cheaper.

What we did was:
A. Get a blooming smart meter.

B. Get Tapo wireless energy monitoring plugs and download the app.
C. Understand where all the usage is going.

We found that - we had some much drain by virtually everything being left on standby, so we switch everything off when not in use now. Microwave, Oven, and so on. We plan out washing and dishwashing a bit more, for example: we know we need to run the dishy twice a week, not daily with a partial load. Our fridge was set to lowest temps possible, it now sits at ‘recommended’ levels, freeEs quickly, everything is cold enough, and saved about half a kw per day. It took about 6 weeks of using the smart meter and the tapo data to figure out where it was all going…. We don’t really notice the difference in how we use it all now, just minor changes which we adapted to quickly.

I know your leccy includes heating, whereas we have gas for that. I suspect if we hadn’t made the above changes we would be looking at £500+ bills now too.

That's very interesting Bard. The standby drain is definitely an issue for me.

I've had the heating (gas)on every day from about 3:30. And an hour in the morning. Longer on weekends. I work from home. 3 bed 3 story townhouse, 3 people.

Our bill for the last month was £250. Before all the increases I paid a DD of £65 pcm. We seem to use a lot less energy than other households but I'm not sure why.

I don't use a tumble dryer & I shower at the gym. 2 high school children. I do use heated airer & dehumidifier for laundry.

Immersion heater would explain large costs.

It’ll be the electric radiators.

Well it makes a difference to me. I know exactly how much I am going to pay each month. I understand that its not reflecting actual usage and as I said earlier I understand I will need to pay the difference between what I owe and any credit left, but as a PP said that will be rolled into a revised DD amount moving forward.

Doesn’t make sense, we have a 2 bed terrace (90’s build). Our gas and electric is around £100pm and we have the thermostat set to 18.5 most days. I don’t understand how your bill can be so high?

Our combined energy bill is £530 for the last month. I had anticipated a huge bill as I figured out average use on new prices. It still came as a shock and, looking at our historic useage, we have one higher bill to come before they start to fall. We have been mindful of use, kept the thermostat a little lower than usual, moved from a tumble dryer to a more efficient heat pump model, and I dread to think how much it would have been otherwise.

Op as you have Raynaud's, can I suggest an electric blanket at night and gloves during the day. A heated throw for daytime if you work at home or spend time on the sofa. Most cost around 5p an hour.

I have an electric blanket at night and find it makes a huge difference. I have it on for 2 hours, starting 20 mins before I get in bed.

Sorry OP.

It's really bloody shit.

I dread to think of the impact on the economy- if everyone is scrimping & saving to pay the electricity bill, we're not spending on other things.

will be rolled into a revised DD amount moving forward.

Yes, a massive one that presumably will not be easily met by you, ie you don't have several hundred lying spare that you are quite happy to direct toward this higher DD when it comes in.

I know I don't.