Advice 1st House and utilities

dmsu86

Hi, im finally moving out, and have managed to negotiate a great deal on a house.

As its 1st time, im still learning all the ins and outs of being a home owner and have wrote every figure down like 100 times!

Im budgeting £80 month gas and £80 electric (3 bedroom)

At the moment the house is on a meter for gas, presuming the electric will be too.

At first i thought it was a good idea being on the meter so i can watch my spending etc for the first few months or year then i would decide to switch to a direct debit.

But now im wondering whether i should just switch to a direct debit plan straight away?

Is it going to work out better if i switch to the Direct Debit? i'd prefer some kind of fixed amount as then i need not worry about how much im spending on utilities, is this possible?

Any help or advice would be much much appreciated :beer:

Premier_2

You'll usually pay more for energy on a pre-payment meter than on a credit meter.

Most companies will also offer credit meter customers a discount if they agree to pay by Direct Debit, and an even more substantial one if they agree to pay monthly by DD (although you'll see by the number of threads on here about the possible problems that causes when the supplier decides to increase the monthly payment - it's not linked directly to your actual consumption but based on expected consumption)

The issue you may have is that a supplier may wish to credit check you before agreeing to supply you with a credit meter or more likely will ask for a deposit (usually a few hundred pounds) for a credit meter until they begin to trust you.
Once you've been with them for about a year, they'll usually waiver any deposit (as they may also do if you agree to pay by monthly DD), assuming you've not got into debt with them.