What should my energy account balance be at this time in the year?

[Hayliebells]

My energy provider (Octopus), persistently tell us that our direct debit is too low. They have a model on their website, which predicts what your account balance will be going forward if you pay different direct debits amount a month. They suggested we needed to pay £100 more a month than we are now, and that if we stuck to our preferred direct debit amount (we can decide it, up to a point), we'd be £1.5k in debit by this time, even taking into account the £67 a month from the government. So here we are, at the end of February, and our balance is -£150, and that will be covered when we pay the direct debit in a few days. Am I right in thinking that their "predictions" are a pile of doo doo? The weather will be getting warmer, we've had the worst of the winter, and we won't be using half as much gas over the next 6 months, and we'll be building up a lot of credit for next winter. I just don't believe that we need to be building up the sort of credit that Octopus think we do. I'd completely agree that we weren't paying enough IF at the end of winter we had a massive debt, but we don't, so I just do not get their reasoning. What's a normal sort of balance to have on the account at the end of February?

@Hayliebells do they not produce a monthly statement showing your usage?

The old school method was in debit over depths of winter and in credit during the height of summer with it flexing in between.

Nowadays everyone I know on dd is in credit, even at this point in the year.

Octopus don't seem to have an easy way of working out annual usage, unless I add up all my bills from the last 12 months, which I could do of course, but it's a faff?! I've noticed they have a "predicted annual usage" for both gas and electricity at the end of the bill, but given they thought our balance would be -£1500 at this point, and it's actually -£150, I don't trust their predictions at all!

I just go by their predicted annual usage in kwh
Do they give a monthly bill?

I've got £1300 credit on my account and EON Next still keep trying to increase my payments. Not a fucking chance you thieving bastards!

This is how my annual usage appears on their app

My usage in kwh in the last year is fairly similar to my predicted usage on my bill. I think it was more that prices were predicted to be much higher this winter if it wasn't for the energy price guarantee. Also when I go in to change my dd the suggested dd is higher than the one on the prediction tool, so if I used this suggestion it would be too high.

I can look at my meter readings from roughly a year ago and compare with now to work out my annual usage.

The predicted usage that shows on your actual bill updates every time you're billed - mine's gradually gone down from 1330kwh for electric when I joined in July to 880kwh today, due to cutting my usage hugely (obv they can only base it on the last 12 months.).

@NewBootsAndRanty Yes that's what mine looks like. I suppose adding up the monthly charges, then adding the standard charge, is one way of doing it. Would be easier if they just have an annual figure though!

I owe about £600 at the moment!!

I have the opposite problem with octopus in that they never suggest putting our bills up. We got an electric car which meant we increase usage by £30-40 per month. This was a couple of years ago before everyone obsessively checked their usage. I assumed they’d put it up but they never did, I had to do that. Then when the prices went up a year ago they didn’t increase it, so we started getting in to debt, so again I increased it. Over summer we were just about breaking even so I knew we’d need to pay more when it came to winter but they just never suggested increasing it. After we had s huge gas bill for December I have upped it a lot to start repaying the debt but januarys bill was huge too. Hoping if we keep paying at this higher rate we will clear the debt by next winter!!!! I don’t get why they’ve never asked us to pay any more when most people seem to be hounded for bigger DD amounts by their companies. Not complaining mind.

Have a look at your actual bills.
There should be something like this on the right hand side at the top of the first page and the right column of the next pages.

You can cancel your direct debit at any time and request a monthly bill. This is the whole point of having a smart meter! You know what you're using and so do they.

You can pay by variable direct debit for a monthly bill too - that way you don't lose any reduction for paying by dd but only pay for what you've used that month.

I think there's no real answer to the 'expected' credit/debit question of any time of year, because it would depend on when your account was started. If you'd opened it in the warmer months, you'd build up credit in the warm months and come down to a nil balance by the end of the cold months because your surplus payments in the warmer months will have been used up, ready for you to build them up again. Whereas if you'd opened it in the colder months, you'd be in debit for a while and then slowly pay it off, reaching a nil balance towards the end of the warmer months, ready to get into the debit again in the winter.

(This is assuming a stable DD from the opening, whereas it's possible that in the latter scenario, they'd want you to raise your DD after a few cold months).

At least, that's my understanding of it! I pay by variable DD and hate the idea of overpaying in summer to artificially "reduce" the winter payments.

Yes I've seen that, but that's just Octopus' prediction. If I'd followed Octopus' predictions all autumn and winter, I'd be over £1k in credit now! There's zero justification for that, if I didn't use the energy last winter, I'm unlikely to use it, plus the additional I'll build up over summer, next winter. Therefore I'm trying to work it out myself.

Octopus are showing our account is -£15. However, we've just moved over and I didn't realise they'd bill earlier in the month so they haven't used our correct meter readings and the government amount of £67 would normally be on our bill, so like for like with our previous supplier we're around +£140. We normally break even around April.