high electricity bills

[Zarooshki]

Hi mums!

My gas&electricity bills are coming out at £130-£150 a month. I live in a modern two bedroom flat. I dont have a tumble dryer or hair dryer and dont leave lights on or have the heating on a lot. My neighbours, who live in almost identical flats are paying roughly half!

I've had the metre checked and its not that. Has anyone had this experience and found the reason?

Find a better tariff?

What do you have your thermostat set at?

You're being conned. What provider are you with?

I pay £135 a month (and I think that's too much) for a 5 bed house that I've been in every day for the past 9 months (maternity leave) with the heating generally somewhere between 18-21, a couple of washing machine and tumble dryer loads a day and regular tv/pc use. I know, I'm single-handedly killing the planet. Don't worry I go back to work soon! That's been upped from £65 over the past 12 months though, the bastards.

check you bill to see how much you are paying per unit, then look round for a cheaper deal.

That's ridiculous, we pay about that much per quarter for a three-bed house with 4 adults living in it.

Switch absolutely everything electrical off, and then look at the meter. If it is still going round, then you are paying for someone else's electricity as well as your own.

Are your bills 'actual' readings or estimated? Does the meter reading on the bill correspond with the actual reading?

Is it a fairly new-build flat, or recently converted? If so, you might find that you are paying for all the lighting in the communal areas. It isn't unknown for electricians to connect up the wrong wires.

Is that the amount of money you are paying for energy use, or is that your Direct Debit set by utility company?

Set an alarm weekly or monthly and read your meter to see your usage, then give this information to the supplier

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1609670/Energy-firms-sit-on-direct-debit-millions.html

It's almost certainly too high, but there are a few things you need to check to work out why.

Is that amount based on your actual usage or has your direct debit been set too high?

Do you have correct bills based on actual readings or have estimates been used?

What's the gas/electricity split? Is your heating and hot water gas or electricity? You don't have storage heaters or an immersion heater that's been left on do you?

How do you pay - monthly direct debit, quarterly, or prepay? Have you done a comparison to make sure you're on the best tariff? If you don't have storage heaters, you need to be on a normal, not an economy 7 type tariff.

I agree about finding a cheaper tariff or provider, it’s really easy to switch providers. I have a large modern four bedroom house and was paying £92 per month dual fuel and it’s just gone down to £75 as we were overpaying.

Hi,

I pay £80 for gas and electric per month on average through the year for a 3 bed. I am with Octopus Energy. Might be worth looking on U-Switch or something to see if you can get better rates with another provider?

If anyone does research and wants to join Octopus Energy, I have a referral code which means we split £100 (we get £50 credit each on our accounts) feel free to use the link below if you are wanting to switch to get a bit of extra money:

share.octopus.energy/glad-wind-705

Hope this helps some of you lovely mums out there. Every little helps!