What do you think of my electricity bill??? PLEASE HELP!!!

[lunavix]

60 days (I think, 27 feb - 3 may) for £111.

Now I KNOW prices have gone up, the first 604 was at £52.98, the second 566 was at £53.12. But my concern is how can we be using that much, and for £55 a month???? Our hot water and heating is gas!!!! We pay £40 gas a month in winter, £20 in summer (rough figures, it's on a meter which we can't change as we're tenants) but we were happy paying that if electriciy was around £30 a month. But £55 a month?????????

Is this reasonable? THe woman on the phone told me they won't come check out our meter unless we're using over 30 units a day, average usage is 0 - 30 units a day and she worked out our units as 9 per day so basically she told me to stop whinging as it was nothing. My first issue was - so my bill would be over £150 a month before they care?

And the second is, if we've used 604 + 566 units, that = 1170 units, divided by 60 days = 19.5 units. Not 9!!!!!

Is there anything I can do? We can't afford bills this big.

Anyone? We have small 3 bed terrace, only me dh and ds living here although I do CM from home.

Are you sure its for 60 days?, dont utility bills normally come in quarterly? is any of that amount arrears from your last bill?

You could check on uswitch.com to see whether you can get better rates from any other supplier.

Also, it's worth checking that different suppliers have different charging methods / schemes, and some are currently doing a discount for on-line billing schemes, so it;s worth shopping around.

we pay about this much during the winter months because I have a tumble dryer and rest of familyare crap at turning lights out.

It's definately for 60 days as she told me on the phone the dates (I thought it was odd too)

It's not arrears, and while it's estimated it's pretty spot on.

We checked on uswitch but I'm sure we can't be using that many units and the quote for us was based on previous bills with npower which is what I'm disputing. Argh!!!

Just checking our last bill, which was for 40 days because we were changing supplier.

We used 655 units over 40 days, so your usage seems a lot.

We use teh washing machine, dishwasher and tumble drier daily.

hmm. We have electrical stuff (tv, dvd, pc, usual bits) plus washing machine/dryer. But washing machine isn't on a huge amount as we're rather lazy lol! It has just broken so I'll be peeved if it's been gobbling up fuel. No dishwasher, the oven's electric.. but that's it really. Only one tv in the house, granted it's on a lot but we don't leav eit on standby (don't turn it off at wall though)

i have a monthly payment plan that started at 20 quid per month but they upped it to 40 quid per month :( I have NO idea about how much these things cost, i just pay them anyway

we use about £40 a month electric. we have a card meter and 5 in the house .

im peed at my gas its coming in at £300 odd .paying £60 month on that .

Fuel prices have rocketed. On the bottom of our last gas bill it said they were increasing our monthly direct debit as we had "used more gas than expected". Er, no, our consumption was LESS than expected, but their prices were much higher. Grrr!

ive just changed from british gas to npower according to them my gas bill was £130.33 for 2 mths and my electric bill was £170.00 for just 2mths couldnt believe it. Theyve upped my payment scheme from £43.00 to £80.00 a mth for electricity i cant believe it. Has anyone else has real shocking bills through?

We have just changed to a direct debit scheme with Brit Gas for our electricity, paying £90 a month which seems very high to me. We have no gas in the house though, so our elec runs storage heaters, oven and everything. There are only 2 of us in the house, and we use a tumble drier about once in 10 days. What's everyone else paying (make me feel better about this.....)

our monthly direct debit for elec has just gone up to £46

don't use our dryer much at all

My electricity bill is £140 PER MONTH!! We have a koi pond that needs UV lights, pumps, filters 24hrs a day.

I change suppliers regularly to try and keep the cost down. The electrcitiy company actually called me as our bills were so high to check no-one had run a lead from our electricity supply. They also suggested switching off ALL plug swithces that are not being used ie: the kettle, washing machine, tunmble etc... as just leaving the plug points switched on uses loads of electricity.

My electric is £65 a month. Thats for a 3 bed house ,no dishwasher but do have a tumble dryer for rainy days . Hot water and heating is gas and thats £45 a month.

Fuel has rocketted this year. Last year I was paying about half that.

We switched at the beginning of April from ecotricity & British Gas to Ebico for both. I did a final reading for both and sent it to Ebico but they lost it apparently and did an estimate.

The gas estimate came out with us owing about £80, which at that time of year seemed reasonable. Our DD for gas was c £40.

The electricity estimate, when it eventually came, was for an extra £240 - our DD had been £45 for about 2 years, they had done a reconciliation at some point in 2005 and only put it up by a couple of quid, so was a bit cross to put it mildly. ecotricity have the maddest billing system in the world, instead of each bill bringing forward a balance from the previous one and then adjusting it up or down according to usage and payments, they just send statements on random dates; I've not been tuned in to this and the bills are on 2 unrelated pages so are a nightmare to marry up.

Anyway (to get to the point) their line is that readings have never been done accurately the whole time we've been with them apparently (and I can't argue because of this paper muddle) so probably our DDs should have been higher all along - even though the extra is 25% more than it's ever been before (but then I suppose prices have gone up 25% over 2 years...???)

So maybe this bill of yours is just catching up? And it was very cold and wet in that period.

Not much help! Sorry.

Can't advise you sorry...try having a £2500 gas bill..see my other thread..!!

I sympathise with you..

We got a letter from British Gas saying " we changed your payment and forgot to tell you". Our monthly electricity payment by DD is £53 and the gas has gone up to £57. The accounts are £118 and £136 in debit and i have queried it until i'm blue in the face, but they are adamnat it's right. I cannot afford to change suppliers, as i'd have top pay off the two debit balances.

My elecric direct debit is £92 p month and my gas £70 p month.We only live in a 3 bed semi and i have queried it to no avail.

You know what's awful is here I am saying, my bill is high, tell me your bill is higher to make me feel better, and in actual fact what I should be hoping for is that everyone else has lower bills and mine is a mistake......how are we expected to be mums and look after our babies if we and our husbands HAVE to work full time to pay all these stupid bills ? It's not as if we have huge American washing machines and dryers and TV's in every room, most people on this post don't have dishwashers.....makes me irritated......

Do you have halogen lights? We have them in the kitchen and they burn leccy like there's no tomorrow!
SInce seeing the meter spin when they are switched on I have become enthusiastic about cooking by the light of the gas flame

We've just had a catchup bill of £340 to pay on top of about £150 in estimated bills over the past year. So that would be around £50 per month 4 bed house with washing machine, dishwasher and rarely used tumble drier but our cooker, central heating and hot water are gas.

Think most of you are paying over the odds, Our electricity bills come to approximately £90 per month. This is for a six bed farm house, with three rooms let to B&B's the washing machine going on average twice a day, dishwasher 1-2 times a day, electric showers, cooker tv's in rooms etc. We did try to swap to British Gas as they said they could make it cheaper but they made such a cock up and started supplying to the farm yard next door! We are now back with our original supplier.

my bills are high too. im paying around £50 a month for my electric. we are in a 3 bed-semi.