Energy usage - how much gas/electricity do you use?

Finally, a bit of good news on prices.
I've just been informed by EDF that they are set to drop.

My electric is set to drop by a little over £90
and gas a little under £300.
A total saving of a tad over £400 / per year or a payment of about £190 / month.
That is still absolutely outrageous, compared to what I was paying, before they blamed the war though.

Has anyone else got the "good news"?
 
Cobra said:
Finally, a bit of good news on prices.
I've just been informed by EDF that they are set to drop.

My electric is set to drop by a little over £90
and gas a little under £300.
A total saving of a tad over £400 / per year or a payment of about £190 / month.
That is still absolutely outrageous, compared to what I was paying, before they blamed the war though.

Has anyone else got the "good news"?
Click to expand...

Not had good news over rates yet, but due to winter savings and having a reasonable surplus with my energy supplier - I have negotiated 25% off the monthly bill/subscription and I still have a buffer of credit if next winter is a bit nippy!
 
Last edited:
Mr Perceptive said:
Not had good news over rtaes yet, but due to winter savings
Click to expand...
Apparently that was guestimated from last years usage, and like you, I'm sure I have saved quite a bit of energy ( gas mainly) over the last year.
My "review" is due in August, and I'm hoping / guessing that it will be even lower.
I'll see.
 
Cobra said:
Apparently that was guestimated from last years usage, and like you, I'm sure I have saved quite a bit of energy ( gas mainly) over the last year.
My "review" is due in August, and I'm hoping / guessing that it will be even lower.
I'll see.
Click to expand...

They didn't make any adjustment in my 'review' (money grabbing *****s) so I rang up and re-negotiated.
 
How quaint, sounds like a regional electricity board from 1982 - I just change my payment online. They suggest a payment, I actually worked it out as needing to be significantly more, if I want the credit balance back, I withdraw it online.
 
hunnymonster said:
How quaint, sounds like a regional electricity board from 1982 - I just change my payment online. They suggest a payment, I actually worked it out as needing to be significantly more, if I want the credit balance back, I withdraw it online.
Click to expand...
I can increase the payment online but not decrease it!!! A lack of trust in the supplier-customer relationship
 
Switch to Octopus. I can decrease payment to whatever I like.
I decreased direct debit payment down to £50 per month over Dec/Jan/Feb due to me over paying 2 months before to maximise bank's "we want to pretend to care about you so here's double cashback amount".

PM me for Octopus referral code so you can have £50 added to your account (I also get some credit)
 
wyx087 said:
Switch to Octopus. I can decrease payment to whatever I like.
I decreased direct debit payment down to £50 per month over Dec/Jan/Feb due to me over paying 2 months before to maximise bank's "we want to pretend to care about you so here's double cashback amount".

PM me for Octopus referral code so you can have £50 added to your account (I also get some credit)
Click to expand...

Thanks for your kind offer, but at the moment I'm happy where I am. Yes I have to ring up to reduce payments, but it was done in 5 minutes, so not really too much trouble.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Not had good news over rates yet, but due to winter savings and having a reasonable surplus with my energy supplier - I have negotiated 25% off the monthly bill/subscription and I still have a buffer of credit if next winter is a bit nippy!
Click to expand...
We are with soenergy and had an email today, £38 less per month starting next month, good news but yes agree we are still being ripped off
 
Also with EDF, had an email to say they were altering my DD. Called them all the robbers going, only to see my debit was reduced. Nice surprise when i regained consciousness ;)
 
We are with Octopus, I have just received an email saying our payments will reduce by around 17% next month, meaning a saving of £110 pa for electrickery and £446 pa for gas.

We will still be paying £100 a month more than we were before Putin made his move on Ukraine......
 
broc said:
We are with Octopus, I have just received an email saying our payments will reduce by around 17% next month, meaning a saving of £110 pa for electrickery and £446 pa for gas.

We will still be paying £100 a month more than we were before Putin made his move on Ukraine......
Click to expand...

I'm with British Gas, got an email yesterday that they are reducing my payments by a further £100 from August, and thats after my £100 reduction I made a couple of months ago. My DD going forward is £5 more than my last fixed rate (before Ukraine war!) - I know that this is too low going forward but I have built up a significant surplus, I will be keeping a beady eye on it to ensure that we don't go into defecit :)
 
Last edited:
Mr Perceptive said:
I'm with British Gas, got an email yesterday that they are reducing my payments by a further £100 from August, and thats after my £100 reduction I made a couple of months ago. My DD going forward is £5 more than my last fixed rate (before Ukraine war!) - I know that this is too low going forward but I have built up a significant surplu, I will be keeping a beady eye on it to ensure that we don't go into defecit :)
Click to expand...
Similar here. Went from £203 to £98 in April, now gone to £57. Am plenty in credit but this will nibble away at it.
 
I really quite like the bit where Octopus tell you the average cost of your electricity for the month. It makes sense of the various time of day tariffs.

This is June's - it's less in July because the day rate has dropped by about 25%.

1688829035623.png
 
EDF have finally smartened up their act.
The new web site is easy to read, and as long as I send in monthly meter readings, I will be billed on that monthly's usage.
Or it will be guesstimated.
I'm sure its just another step towards getting people onto smart meters.
No big deal, both my meters are easily accessible.

I knew damned well I was being overcharged, it seems that I am over £700 in credit!
 
Had my bill last month. 10 months ago British Gas in their infinite wisdom decided my £154 a month direct debit was to be reduced to £96. Right as the price cap typical use was estimated to be £2500. We generally sit on Typical use amounts so I conservatively estimated my next 12 months at costing £2500. What made it worse is that British Gas chose to pay the £67 a month to my bank account rather than apply it to my energy account.
I changed the DD to £208 (£2500/12) and low and behold my Bill says I am £100 currently in Credit. Had I not done that I would have had a huge deficit to pay.

They have today tried to lower it back to the £96 and so I have again changed it now to £166 (£2000/12) as that is mine and an independent calculators estimate of what my usage will be over the next 12 months. I refuse to let them yoyo my DD for far too cheap to far too expensive because some algorithm is flawed
 
I never understand the problems people have with understanding their energy bill, to me there's two ways of doing it depending on your preference.
1: just send in your readings monthly and pay for what you use or 2 look at your latest bill and see what your annual usage is multiply it by your tariff and add on the daily charge divide by 12 and set that as your monthly DD adjust as required when the tariffs change and just ignore what your energy supplier says.
 
Cobra said:
I knew damned well I was being overcharged, it seems that I am over £700 in credit!
Click to expand...
As I'd not had a refund, I contacted them via email,
it seems that they haven't received a request for a refund!
In the distant past, when I was in credit, they have asked me if I wanted a refund, or a lower bill.

I've now asked for the full amount + interest
Lets see what they say about that.
 
tarric said:
I never understand the problems people have with understanding their energy bill, to me there's two ways of doing it depending on your preference.
1: just send in your readings monthly and pay for what you use or 2 look at your latest bill and see what your annual usage is multiply it by your tariff and add on the daily charge divide by 12 and set that as your monthly DD adjust as required when the tariffs change and just ignore what your energy supplier says.
Click to expand...

That won't work in practice, as most people will have a January bill of roughly twice their July bill.

My daily cost varies from just over £4 a day (remembering charges have just gone down) to a max of about £15 a day after a week of very cold weather.

Our averages are about 12.75 for 3 months of the year, about £5.50 for 3 months of the year, and around £8.75 for the 2X 3 months in-between.

That averages out at £271 a month, so if we did as above, we would be in debt by a good amount after a year. (the figures will change as the prices vary)


Understanding is the key :)

It also has to be understood that the companies predictions are based on a persons historical usage, and most people have taken care to reduce their consumption as much a possible due to the high costs, so the company's predictions are very likely to be higher than actual.

My advice would be if you don't know how/can't be bothered to come up with an accurate estimate, then pay as they suggest and ask for a refund later, simply because it is preferable to paying too little then having to find a large sum to catch up.


Edit:
Just occurred to me that maybe your company shows the last 12 months usage on your bill, in which case it would work, I have never had that, they only show their estimate for the annual usage, which is what they use to calculate their suggested payments anyway.
Previous companies (ie Avro) have only shown the last few months actual usage, depending where you are in the cycle.
 
Last edited:
Sangoma said:
That won't work in practice, as most people will have a January bill of roughly twice their July bill.

My daily cost varies from just over £4 a day (remembering charges have just gone down) to a max of about £15 a day after a week of very cold weather.

Our averages are about 12.75 for 3 months of the year, about £5.50 for 3 months of the year, and around £8.75 for the 2X 3 months in-between.

That averages out at £271 a month, so if we did as above, we would be in debt by a good amount after a year. (the figures will change as the prices vary)


Understanding is the key :)

It also has to be understood that the companies predictions are based on a persons historical usage, and most people have taken care to reduce their consumption as much a possible due to the high costs, so the company's predictions are very likely to be higher than actual.

My advice would be if you don't know how/can't be bothered to come up with an accurate estimate, then pay as they suggest and ask for a refund later, simply because it is preferable to paying too little then having to find a large sum to catch up.


Edit:
Just occurred to me that maybe your company shows the last 12 months usage on your bill, in which case it would work, I have never had that, they only show their estimate for the annual usage, which is what they use to calculate their suggested payments anyway.
Previous companies (ie Avro) have only shown the last few months actual usage, depending where you are in the cycle.
Click to expand...
Every company I have been with has shown me the amount of gas and electricity I have used in the pervious 12 months and even if they hadn't they give me a bill every month and from that I could find out how much gas and electric I had used in the previous 12 months, I also stated that if your tariff changed you would have to adjusts your payment accordingly.
I agree if you don't know how (but it's hardly rocket science) or can't be bothered then just pay up.
 
tarric said:
Every company I have been with has shown me the amount of gas and electricity I have used in the pervious 12 months and even if they hadn't they give me a bill every month and from that I could find out how much gas and electric I had used in the previous 12 months, I also stated that if your tariff changed you would have to adjusts your payment accordingly.
I agree if you don't know how (but it's hardly rocket science) or can't be bothered then just pay up.
Click to expand...
I have just double checked both Avro and Octopus, and neither have how much I have used in the last 12 months, they both only have an estimated annual use.
I also have several emails to and from Avro complaining I could only see the past 6 months statements online, at the time I had no reason to download them every month.

Before the beginning of 2021, we only checked to see the readings were correct, didn't bother about the cost (except once a year when it was time to renew) or how much we used, if previous companies from earlier years had the last 12 months total, I wouldn't know.

I can see that some people would not be quite so adept at working it out than others, not because they lack intelligence, however some people are "just no good at numbers", and with price changes/split bills, possible meter changes (meaning you can't just look at a start and end figure for the last 12 months) the process may not be as straight forward for some as it is for others.

I do however think the energy companies need to come up with a more adaptive method of calculating the estimated consumption (they have all the figures needed) to take into account customers changing usage habits, the old annual historical method is really invalid now with people cutting back.
 
I don't know about avro but octopus give you your average daily use on each bill. Like I said it's not rocket science and while I agree some can just not be bothered and a few may struggle for the majority it's only simple arithmetic that most learn in primary school, you could even use a calculator.
If you use you last 12 months it's not that historic.
 
Cobra said:
I knew damned well I was being overcharged, it seems that I am over £700 in credit!
Click to expand...

Cobra said:
I've now asked for the full amount + interest
Lets see what they say about that.
Click to expand...
And it went something like this ( Abridged) after several emails to customer "service" who's first language was unlikely to be English,
Or they were reading from a script written by someone, who' first language wasn't English.

1) I can see that your account has not yet been made up.
2) I see you owe us £54
3) I see you owe us £95
4) We will now be taking £233 per month as before ( that is well over the energy cap!)

I have not printed my replies to each email. I'd get myself banned if I did :D
I'm formulating emails to both the EDF CEO and ofgem.

The up shot is going on various comments and recommendations here, I'm now with octopus, with a guesstimated saving of £70-ish / month
I'm just awaiting the final settlement figure from EDF, which I'm sure inits self, will be a p***take ripoff joke
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top