What on earth is going on....gas & electricity bills

[whateverisleft]

Not sure if I'm posting in the right place...happy to post elsewhere if its not.

Ah what a nightmare. Just got another quarterly bill through and our monthly direct debit for electricity has gone up to £109 per month! We're a family of 5, in a 3 bed semi detached house, in Kent. Our gas bill is now at £63 per month. Does this sound normal? We're with British Gas because, being a wally, I missed the deadline for renewal cancel. We're on a 2 year fixed tariff though. Before I do a deep dive investigation, is there anything I should be living for specifically/in general, or is it just British Gas prices that are so high? They started creeping up last Autumn, which doesn't make sense as I started working 3 days a week so if anything I would've thought lower usage meant lower bills. We've got a smart meter if that makes any difference. We don't have any appliances that guzzle electricity or gas as far as I'm aware. I've tried starting to turn things off but we've only got 1 TV, I only use the tumble dryer once maybe twice a week, dishwasher goes on once a day, and they're all relatively new appliances so arguably more energy efficient. It's driving me insane! I may just end up paying to leave the contract early, which I believe is £40 per utility. Any help/advice welcome!

You could compare the price per unit cost on the bills before and after the tariff switch, that will tell you if its your usage or British Gas price hike.

Might be worth looking on Uswitch too to see if you can get a new supplier cheap enough to offset the exit fee.

Prices have hiked up 20% I found when I was looking to switch last month our consumption had hardly changed!

Prices have soared. I recently renewed my contract with Octopus fixing for 2 years and my payments have increased by 25%. No arrears, in fact my account was in credit.

Thank you for the replies. I'll have a detailed look at bills to compare and will try uswitch to look at other providers.

Good to know there has been a general increase for everyone. Painful being a responsible adult sometimes. 😏

That said your bill does sound high, we pay £100 a month gas & elec 4 in the house. But no dryer as I use washing line mostly. I do work from home but I’m forever turning off lights behind the kids at home!

Sounds about right to me.
We are 5 plus dog in a 3 bed semi.
A lot of showers and tumble dryer on most days.
We pay between £120 and £150 per month.

Sounds high to me, we have 4 adults in a 3 bed detached and 3 of us are here 24/7 working still

I run a dryer plus computers for work and monthly direct debit for joint fuel with Ovo is £90 and we’re £200+ in credit

We are 3 adults in 3 bed semi, 2 of us WFH for last year. Our monthly gas and electricity is £75.

Switch everything off, and I mean absolutely everything, and go and look to see if the meter stops.

A friend of mine once paid for the entire street of lamp posts on a new build estate for 18 months, until they queried their high bills and it was found that the house and the lamp posts were wired together.

Thank you for all of your replies. Apart from the odd exception, it looks like I'm paying far too much, as I suspected.
(If it matters, we're family of 5 that includes 3 young children).

I think I'm going to try that suggestion....switching absolutely everything off and go from there.

Bills are a combination of pence p/Kw and daily standing charge usually somewhere around the 20p mark +/-. Your bill should tell you what you are currently paying and then look around at other providers and see if it is relatively high to help you know if you are with the wrong provider. Meanwhile all you can do is try to reduce consumption.

Our electric price has gone up too! I know some suppliers will pay your exit fee from your current supplier- bulb being one, so look into that too.

We’re a 5 person family with 3 young children and ours is £150 per month!!

Sounds similar to mine. 2 adults and 5 children in a 5 bed detached, on the cheapest possible tariff I could find.

We are also with BG in Kent , largish 4 bed detached , 3 adults ( occ 4) , and on the standard variable tariff , we pay £50 gas pm and £100 electric and both say I will be in credit by £50 . We have TV / computers / iPads on all day , dishwasher once a day, tumble dryer and washing machine about 7/8 loads per week on average often more , fans going 24/7 in various rooms at the moment . All our white goods are less than 6 months old so all run economically.

I wish mine was that low!

Family of 4, moved fm 3 bed 1970s semi where we paid £1200pa for both gas and electric to a 'brand new' highly insulated 5bed detached house (we did the renovation so know the insulation etc is good and exceeds minimum standards) in the same area and with the same utility company and despite only replacing existing appliances with newer, more energy efficient ones (not really any more things as such) and a much more efficient boiler and heating system, our bill is now over £3000 pa.

Apparently, our smart meter is within limits though.

Doesn't sound that high to me tbh
I give monthly readings to Octopus and last month used £80 of electricity and about £30 in gas.

We do 4 loads of washing and drying per week as we did in the other house ( also smart meter), have not changed any other habits so I can't understand it, but we've no choice except to pay it.

Means our monthly dd is now over £300 from £100 pm 6 years ago (in the old house).

3 bed house but only 2 of us live here.

Just looked and I've paid £50 over the last month.

Yours seems soooo high

That seems high but not so high it's an obvious error.

Remember that in the long run you pay for what you use, the direct debit is just an effort by the supplier to approximate that. If you had previously paid less than you used they'll whack up the direct debit to repay your debt.

Check your meter readings in kWh and check your usage is reasonable. For gas there's a slightly complicated calculation to go from cubic metres that your meter measures to kWh that you're billed for. You mention having a smart meter fitted - if you have previous bills, compare your average use per year before and after the meter change, a significant increase indicates a faulty meter.

(Money figures on smart meters are often wrong when the meter gets the wrong tarrif values in. When trying to track down cost problems ignore the £ signs on the meter. Your actual billing goes by the kWh.)

Then check the supplier have the right readings. That should be automatic with a smart meter - but check the old meter reading when they did the switch is sensible. (I took photos on meter switch day so I have it recorded).

The tarrif is what it is. The saving from a switch can often be enough to offset the early exit fee on your current tarrif.

You bill should have British Gas's prediction of your future usage. This could be wrong. For example if last winter your boiler broke and you spent two weeks using expensive electric heaters, well British Gas's computer program will assume that's going to happen next year, and your direct debit will be increased to get ahead of higher usage that's not actually going to happen.

We moved into our house 18 months ago, and our gas and electric jumped up from £70 for a family of three living in a three bed semi, to £170 a month for same sized new property. We turned stuff off to see what was happening, and it was our electric fire (old house had gas one). The fire was absolutely. guzzling electric. Do you have gas or electric fire/cooker, as it could be that.

Is £63 the average amount you've used on gas over the last year, or did you use £63 worth in June? If the latter that seems crazy high for summer?

You need to know your actual meter readings (not the amount of the monthly payment, which can be quite different) so you can work out your annual usage.

Our bill is £160 a month. 3 people. 5 bed house. Cheapest we could find. Gas/electricity is bloody expensive