Energy bill £339 per month 😭

[Peony94]

We have just had an email telling us our monthly cost for gas and electric will be £339 per month, that is more than I will be earning a month after I pay for nursery. We cannot afford that amount 😣

Is there anything we can do about this? Is it better to give them monthly meter readings and just pay for usage, is this even an option? We don't have a smart meter.

I'm also confused as I thought the price cap was £2500 a year but they're charging us over 4K, I must have misunderstood this.

Oh crap, thank you. I've asked for it to be taken off

Mine has just been kindly readjusted by OVO to £347 from £201. I have just called them and they can reduce it to £290 if I go through a financial assessment with them.
I'm reluctant to do so because we are able to afford the rise strictly speaking. I would rather the help go to people who genuinely will struggle so just going to have to suck it up.

Its just crap. Energy is so expensive and the 2500 yearly cap is so misleading, average usage must be very frugal usage IMHO.

The prices in that screenshot are not the current variable rate. Current prices are around 34p/kwh for electricity and 10.3p for gas.

If I use the current figures and the standing charge prices then your payment would be closer to £200. £330 is far too much given your usage so I'd definitely contact them

It runs out in November, those are out current rates. We both have one quick shower a day!

I will call them as soon as they open on Monday. Thank you so much for all of your help!

Its just crap. Energy is so expensive and the 2500 yearly cap is so misleading, average usage must be very frugal usage IMHO.
It's based on 2.3 people in a three bed I think, so more people in a larger house would use more. I don't think it's frugal though as we are 2 people in a three bed using less than half of the average. We are fairly frugal but do use heating in winter.

OP you need yo talk to your supplier.
I did and my monthly DD is now much lower.
It doesnt hurt to ask

It was from Aldi or Lidl, the brand is EasyHome but they don’t have it at the moment I don’t think. I’ve only seen the bigger ones recently. It’s not the best dehumidifier ever but does help the washing dry/stop mould.

🤣🤣 if you find out will you let me know?

Thank you so much for all of your comments and advice!

I know our electricity usage is higher than average but that is because we are both home most of the time so that will definitely drop, so I'm really hoping that will make a difference. I'm now trying to think what electricity usage I can cut right now but I think it would literally just be never put the TV and the kettle on 😅

My supplier Bulb was looking to charge similar amounts each month however my usage is much lower so I phoned and asked for my DD to be variable based on actual usage

I have a smart meter so can see what tue daily cost is and generally it will much, much lower than their expectations. I think companies are inflating DDs to avoid customers being in debt but they doesn't work if your usage is low.

My supplier Shell will only let me increase my DD of £271 pm, I can't reduce it but they can't increase it.

I wouldn’t panic yet. It’s all estimated stuff which means nothing.

Take a reading of your gas and electric meters on the day you phone them. They can calculate from that and from your previous usage what your consumption will be. And charge you accordingly per month.

I'm with British Gas, not on any fix, and they told me my DD was increasing to £400 a month which would have bankrupted me. I've cancelled my DD and am now going to be billed quarterly. They 'estimated' my usage from data during covid when 4 of us were at home all day. Now there's only really me at home. I've bought a couple of low wattage radiators, am using candle powered lanterns for heating my room if I wfh, and as I have a smart meter, I can see that powered by my tremendous rage against the energy industry, so far, even given the price hikes, we've spent less this month than we did this time last year, this month.
I'm really lazy and stressed about various things and always loved having the heating on high, but am now motivated to out-maneuvre them as I hate them so much.
The other thing to watch out for is that they had previously set my DD to an amount that didn't quite repay an outstanding amount of £200.00 from 3 years ago, which they then add onto their justification for an outrageously high DD with the increased rates.
As far as I'm concerned, it would be better to form a cooperative nationally and we all pool the amount we would pay into the DD monthly in there, invest in something huge and distribute the earnings quarterly than allowing them to take monthly amounts off us and do the same for themselves. They make scale work for them, we should do the same. If BG for example has 20 million customers, and they make money from us overpaying by 1.00 each month, imagine what we could do if we reversed this! I know it wouldn't really work but I am so angry at this whole situation currently. I just don't want them to win!
Don't let them panic you, and I hope that you can reassert some control by paying quarterly and having your own savings account to put money aside each month for energy. I'm not sure if EON allow that, but if they don't this needs investigation. Best of luck xx

It's more likely to be an electric shower, oven, and/or tumble dryer than a kettle or TV. It will be based on previous usage so may be inaccurate if you have recently stopped using the tumble dryer. Do you have a four minute shower timer? I got one for free through my water company.

So many people will be blindly following their ‘estimated’ DDs and vastly overpaying. That’s a lot of interest in the energy companies pockets. It’s disgusting that they’re allowed to do this.

Watch your usage and pay the amount you use each month.

Oh really! 😣 No I don't have one! I probably take around that time when I don't wash my hair but definitely need more than 4 minutes when I do!

I think it varies by billing company. I'm with Octopus and their suggested dd is very accurate for my annual estimated usage. I've returned money to my account when the app has let me so I think I may go into debit temporarily in March or something (in credit £200 now). I don't want to have to pay high winter bills but I also don't want them to have any more than needed to get me through winter!

Loving the tremendous rage against the energy company 🤣 I also am so angry at the disgusting price rise, it's not possible for so many people! Thank you!

@MinervaTerrathorn oh so the average family and house size is 2.3 people in a three bed? Thanks I didn't know that. Well £347 is probably about right for our family in a victorian five bed. And DH working from home all the time too.

I was going to try to do the ecologically correct thing of freezing us all at 18 degrees all winter if it was going to keep our prices low. I'm less inclined to do so now I'm going to be paying a small fortune in any case.

We will be warm all winter but probably foregoing any chance of going abroad for the foreseeable. These are the choices we are dealt right now 🤷‍♀️

You should cancel your DD and start sending meter reads every month. I did that months ago as the payments were stupidly high. I'm only paying for what I use!

Yeah, but people need to check. Some of them are MUCH higher than 72kw.

My understanding was that the £2,500 ‘average’ bill under the capped rate was based on the average USAGE by households, not the size and makeup of the household? After all, one 2.3 family could be in a really energy efficient 3 bed, being careful and using eco efficient gadgets, and one could be in a drafty, badly insulated 3 bed house, having long electric showers and using the tumble dryer daily!

So many people will be blindly following their ‘estimated’ DDs and vastly overpaying. That’s a lot of interest in the energy companies pockets. It’s disgusting that they’re allowed to do this.

I always read these threads with interest, and shock. I'm not in the UK, and here we just get a monthly bill and pay for whatever we've used. I think the energy company deciding how much people will pay each month is ridiculous.

@Peony94

makes me want to call you Petal!😊

So Petal, do you understand now how it works?

Once you do, decide if you want to do manual meter readings or not. You could go back on a smart meter, but there's a bit of a wait.

you can get plug in meters, that you then plug your appliance into & it will tell you how much it's using.

sometimes you get a rogue appliance that's costing a fortune & some that are surprisingly not. I have an old undercounter fridge that only gets used for drinks & odd things now since getting a new FF, I thought I should probably get rid of it, but when I checked it was barely using anything, so it's cleaned & restocked! But the light bulbs I thought were economical are 4p an hour (ok not earth shattering, but I thought they were costing about 2p for 10 hours and they're not, 40p. Not a lot but several add up over a month. Old oven I thought would be £££ but isn't at all.

secondly to that & not what you asked, but have a look at your finances with DH. Everyone makes their own choices to how things are paid, but your arrangement sounds unfair & unwise.