Outrageously high gas & electricity bills

[ToRecordOnlyWater]

Anyone else noticing their bills skyrocket in the past 6 months?
Switched from ScottishPower as the bills were getting really high, now with Octopus in the hopes of reducing them a bit. Just input my first set of readings since switching and my account is now -£382!

I am on maternity leave so in the house a lot, I’ve been trying to do things like switch off lights, heating off as much as possible but the house is naturally very cold. Tried shutting doors, draught excluder by the front door so can’t get my head around it getting higher!

Just hoping I’m not alone in this, feeling quite sick at how high it is. Resenting the fact that I’m having to look at going back to work earlier than planned to ensure we have extra money to do things like a little day out a month.

What do you guys find to be the biggest drain on your gas and electricity? I don’t have a smart meter so not sure why the harder I try to keep the cost down, the more it goes up! Property is a terrace built in the 60s. Is this just what energy costs are now? Makes me want to cry that half my maternity pay goes on this one big bill every month 😭😭

Anyone In a similar boat would be amazing as feels like I’m the only person paying this much that I’ve spoken to, and any advice on good ways to save energy would be appreciated. Run the washing machine probably once every 2 days, water heater only turned on when we need it, dishwasher runs once a day but would struggle to cut this down. Thanks in advance x

Sorry, that was electricity as attached here

My gas from April to Feb is here (we were away for over 2 weeks in April too)

Unless you switch to a smart tarriff from Octopus, the bills are unlikely to be very different. The majority of energy suppliers offer pretty much identical tarriffs for most customers - the maximum price per unit OFGEM have set.

Unless you have a tarrif the charges different prices at different times (E7, EV tarriffs, Octopus Agile for example) there is no benifit in running items overnight.

Smart meters won't cost you any more than traditional meters read frequently. And should prevent you getting into debt on the account due to estimates not being right.

Things that cost: heating! Be that electric showers, central heating, electric radiators, tumble driers, washing machines on anything other than a cold cycle, hairdryers, kettles. If it gets hot, it's costing.
The biggest thing I think you could do is turn down the temperature on your heating. Try it down to 20. And then try taking it down to 19. It also sounds like you have the heating on overnight. Ours goes off at 8pm, and comes back on at 5.30 (I get up at 6). That's probably a step too far for you right now - especially if you are up with a small baby - but why not set the heating to 17C overnight?

FWIW I also have an electric hob, so I am not using gas for anything other than the boiler.
I've looked at the "Current annual amount" and it says £2,369.31. This is Octopus Flexible tariff. Am I on the wrong one?

Looking at your usage your electricity usage doesn’t seem that high I don’t think. Your gas usage does seem high in January but as you were away for 2 weeks in Dec you can see that it was less. Are you paying £460 per month all through the year and are you in credit? We have solar which makes a big difference as we export in the summer. We’re paying £50 for gas and electricity as we’re still in credit from the summer.

No I did have it set up as paying in £430 and was in credit in April, so took 2 months off and decided to reset the amount to £320 (foolish really as was summer cheaper usage) so now am actually a month behind which will be paid over the next 2 days. It's crippling me as a singleton tbh!

I got our costs down by getting a smart meter.
Big culprits I was unaware of - the oven! The shower (it's electric) and chargers plugged in constantly. Big things I was already aware of was washing machine and dishwasher (tumble dryer is also huge but we dont own one). I now turn sockets off at the wall in the morning (charge things overnight), dropped the level on the boiler to 65 and dropped the heating. Ours kicks in if it drops below 17 degrees.
To many that will be cold but we like it cooler and DS's have thicker sleeping bags/duvet.
I also do meter readings every month even with a smart meter it means I can keep an eye on it and the direct debit adjustments if required are much much smaller.

So have you paid 7 months of £320 that’s seems really high £2240 total. I don’t understand how it can be so high sorry. It’s more than our yearly cost (before Solar) and we are a family of 4 in a 4 bed detached.

@Opohat yes, considering I may be on the wrong tariff? I thought Octopus were generally quite good at moving customers if there as a cheaper option though? I don't use the shower, bathe 3 times a week. Really can't imagine how my bills are so high.

@makeupme no idea if this is helpful for you to compare suppliers etc but I am with EON and this was my last statement below. I live in a 4 bed terraced house 2 adults and 2 children. I work from home 3 days a week, all 4 of us shower/bathe daily and at least one wash on every day and tumble about 5 loads per week. Heating comes on every evening around 19/20 degrees for about 3 hours. I pay £147 per month and built up about £450 of credit through last summer to cover the extra usage in winter.

Having the heating at 21 is pretty high. Our DD is about 150 a month but in terms of actual usage are something like 350 in Dec/Jan/Feb and 75 in June/July/Aug.

It's certainly very different from mine! If the heating was over 20 I might understand but I know I've been cutting back on usage, just assumed everyone else's bills had gone up as much with all the news around it!

These are my prices for Octopus. It is pretty much the price cap levels and will be similar to all the other suppliers.

I have been giving weekly readings for around 3 years. It's second nature to me now but it's my way of keeping a VERY close eye on my usage...

You need to find out what is causing your high usage. Check things line having your immersion heater switched on constantly, any old appliances like freezers which might be using too much electricity

Don't worry about TVs , laptops or anything that doesn't heey up or cool down as that won't be the reason

My electric is between £280 and last month £470 . Bloomin ridiculous. These are mortgage sums not energy which used to be an incidental cost

A great tip the British Gas man gave me when he came to service my boiler was to turn the radiator setting down on the boiler to 3 (out of 5, in my case, or whatever the equivalent is on your model).

I also have my heating only set to 18.5 but have it on a lot.

It's more efficient to have it on low like this for extended periods than crank it up for a few hours.

Heating bills are one of the biggest mumsnet mysteries..
Our house was built in 2005, therefore not very new. 3 bed semi. Didn’t do anything with originally installed double glazed windows, however replaced boiler 3 years ago.
Heating is on thermostat at 19C 6am to 8 am and 5pm to 11 pm weekdays and all day on the weekend. Using the stove every evening, oven maybe two or three times a week, washing machine twice a week, telly is on all the time when we are home.
Boil the kettle as many times as we want, we also use a toaster, coffee machine, microwave and hoover daily, one or two laptops are always plugged in.
Direct debit is £102 and we are still about £150 in credit after submitting meter readings on the 15th of February. 🙄EDF.

21 is high for heating. It's what my 90 year old grandmother has it set to, she sleeps downstairs and it is off at night. Sixties semi.

Does your husband have a proper winter duvet to sleep and an electric throw if he is sitting up late?

We are a 3 bed detached. I wfh. Electric car. 3 gadget mad teens who run showers, xboxes etc. During the winter we pay £400 a month normally Nov to March, then it drops to around £220. £60 roughly each month of that is car charging. We are gas heating but electric cooking. Use dishwasher once a day and washer is on 7 or 8 times a week.

Paying £300 ish on ours to get out of the debt we had on it! Two more big chunks
It's a pain! I feel you.
We live in a mid terrace by the way as well two bed.

My bill is about that at the moment for a late 1800s 3 bed detached house with some damp issues (penetrating, largely). Most of that is heating as I'm home most of the time and it's cold. Plus vivarium costs are the biggest electricity drain. Sounds wrong for a 60s terrace though. What's the insulation like? Is it damp?

A little update as I checked my Octopus bill and £167 of it is gas and £214 is electricity. Will reply properly to everyone when my baby is settled as we both have nasty colds at the minute!

@makeupme

There is a classic error on gas consumption where you end up paying 3x as much.

It's a billing error where they think your actual meter (not the smart meter) is in ft3x100 but actually is in m3.

To check look at the units on your bill and see whether they say m3.

Then look at your meter and see whether it says m3 on it or ft3x100.

There are other possibilities, like you may have a small gas leak. best way to check this is to turn everything off and see whether the actual meter moves over a few hours.

Thank you @GasPanic - I'm away tonight but will certainly check on this tomorrow!