Utilities bills how much do you pay

[Flum]

We pay £80 for Electric and £80 for Gas. I have just had bills and been told these monthly payments will not be enough to cover what we are using .

We are a family of 4 in a largish, old 4 bedroom house. DH works from home. We have a gas Aga so expect that to be expensive.

Nevertheless, I think it is soooo high. I run washing machine 5 times a week, dryer 5 times a week. Hoover 1 hour a week, iron 2 hours a week. Admittedly lots of lights and its dark on ground floor in day so I have kitchen lights on. We have one telly, one stereo, one computer, one fridge, one freezer blah blah.

Is our bill mahoosive or whaaaaat????

family of 7

large non - double glazed 3 bedroom house

oil ch

95 a month electric, and 212 a month for oil

not looking forward to this winter

ooh, higher than me. But 7 is much more than 4. Just asked a few people at work and they all seem to pay £20 - £50. I need to look at ways to reduce. Am going ot switch everything off tonight and start from scratch.

we are a family of 3 (1 adult 2 dc)i pay 70-80 for each, a quarter but am in a very small new 2nd floor flat ( middle of buidling) so very rarely need heating on. i have just got rid of my washer/dryer, just have a washer now so expect the elec bill to reduce a bit next time.
do a google search there may be ways for you to be more energy effeicient reduciing your bills.

check out the insulation in the loft - often the easiest way to cut heating costs.

Yes we definately have no insulation, and will get that done before the winter. Will need cleaning out first though!! eugh.

Also crazily some rooms still have no curtains after a year here and no double glazing so that will let lots of heat out.

Our house is cold an hour after heating goes off, tiz true.

Haven't had it on for a month though. Tempted today though ...brrr, just put a jumper on instead though. Halo glowing already.

Flum just check with them what you are actually using. My electricity bill was set to jump by about £45 per month which I thought mahoosive. When I queried it they said I was in arrears to date by £75 & this increase reflected my previous quarters consumption.But as I pointed out we are coming into summer & (hopefully )using less power so I could see by Sept/Oct I would be in a large credit with them. They then said if I paid the balance off I could just increase my DD by £20 instead of the £45 which is more acceptable IMHO, so I did.

Hope that makes sense!!

Family of 5 (only 4 when DH away) in a 4 bed semi.

Computer on from 0900-2300 most days. TV on 0800-2200 (not constantly but on and off).

Washer - about 7 times per week. Tumbler - 2-7 times per week. Dishwasher nightly. Lights switched off when not in use, nothing left on standby (apart from those appliances on all the time eg fridge, freezer)

Gas - £56 per month
Electric - £49 per month

We are pretty much breaking even in the balance so haven't had to change our monthly DDs.

Oh forgot to say gas central heating and hot water (combi boiler).

Flum - per month?or quarter? is it estimated? We always get the 'you actually need to pay £75pm" letters, which are crap, estimated on bollox all. I call em up and tell them, No, I am not paying that amount, give em the reading. If it is accurate I either pay it, or say No I am not paying that amount, as it is summer now and my bills will decrease accordingly so either you set it back to what it was, or else I cancel DD. Always works.

Family of four, 3 bed detached smallish.

We pay £42.50 leccy and £50.00 gas per month. We are in arrears with gas but should level out over the summer. Pay by DD.

Dishwasher on daily sometimes more, washing 1 load a day. Almost never use tumbledrier.

Agree with others advice about ringing to challenge.

We pay £31 gas & £34 electric per month for smallish 4 bed det. house and family of 4.
We run dishwasher and wash machine nightly (leccie is a quarter the price at night for us) one TV, 3 or 4 PCs running a lot, one fridge/freezer & low enery bulbs everywhere. So Flum, aside from the tumble drier I can't see why your electric bill should be so much higher. Suggestions are to cut down on tumble drier usage and look into running stuff at night with a cheap night-time rate. Gas is much more dependent on the insulation and thermal characteristis of your house - we are lucky there in that our house has a high solar gain (though we don't have huge amounts of loft insulation or filled cavity walls).

PM - £30 for gas £30 for electric. We owe a reasonable amount on electric, and Gas owes us, in summer it will even back out again, on DD so not a problem, which is why I never listen to their rubbish about increasing my payments. If at the end of the entire year I owe them a significant amount, and means I should increase my monthly payments I will do so. But almost always I owe electricity like £20 or so, which I just pay lump sum, or they owe me (last years £50 in credit with gas).

2 bed flat, 2 adults, 1 toddler, washing machine used every other day (or more like 2-3 times a day every few days!) dishwasher every day, PC/Lap used most evenings, TV most evenings, PC during the day - some-one is usually in. GCH/hot water and gas cooker.

I think many people are in for a shock this winter.I use to pay 35 each in a 3 bed big maisonette no double glazing etc and three of us and when we moved out we owed££££.Now we are renting waiting to buy and we have meters and I can see how much gets used but worse when prices rise the amount of time I get for my money really goes down.I think when we move our bills will double at least.

We've have an 80 year old, 3 bed semi with 4 adults living at home all the time. We have double glazed windows and doors, cavity wall insulation, roof insulation and low energy light bulbs throughout the whole house (yes, even in lamps). We cook with gas and have gas central heating supplied by a combi boiler.
The computer's on most of the day, not to mention ds3&4's various consuls and tv's. I do a washing and dishwasher load every day. I usually manage not to use the tumble drier and will only resort to using it for 10 mins to finishing off stuff that I've had on the line. I encourage everyone to shower rather than bath. We pay for both gas and electric from scottish power and our monthly direct debit was £95 but from this month it's going up to £119, I suspect to pay for their new charges....

i had a letter so say that my direct debit for electric was due to go up from £67 per month to £115 per month

Flum have you looked at warmfront??? I found when we had cavity wall insulation fitted, stopped using the tumble drier and started using low energy light bulbs it really did save us a fortune. At one point our direct debit payment was £180 a month and that's when I decided something had to be done.... Admittedly some of it was arrears but I would say using the above methods definitely saved us £50 a month.....

We have just changed over to npower, they are fixing their prices till 2011, i am hoping this is going to help abit.

these figures all seem high, we pay quarterly
electric 120
gas average over a year 150

so if this was monthly elec 40, gas, 50

heating on loads in winter
loads on standby
comp and tv on all day
fridge freezer
gas cooker
washer, daily
tumble, daily in winter

old fashioned boiler - we have just replaced this with a combi and have been told to expect £10 reduction in gas a month.