Doing something about it.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Kamaya wrote: »

Hi all, I have now switched energy company to Eon which save us £170 per year, and they've given me 1000 clubcard points & if we stay with them a year we'll get £100 cash back. I'm tempted to amend the monthly payments though, as to my delight I've found out that we're in credit with our current energy supplier by £400!

Hi Kamaya,

Just noticed your post and thought I may be able to offer advice.

The Direct Debit payment scheme works by building up credit in the summer, this credit then goes towards your larger winter bills.

As you have just changed over to E.ON you won't have any credit on the account, as yet.

As you are £400 in credit with your current supplier some of this would have gone towards the winter bills.

So just make sure when having your monthly payments re-calculated, they will cover you through the winter.

If you need any info from me, just shout up, we are happy to help as much as we can.

Glad you have made some savings:T

Helena:)

podperson

Would say the main priority is definately the spending diary, your soa says you have over £700 a month left over and even with a few items not budgeted for this should still leave a substantial amount. Obviously you are not seeing this or you would have no problem in overpaying the credit card so where is it going?

wales2309

I started a spreadsheet and put all my DDs etc on it and updated it every couple of days with further spending. Over a couple of months you will start to see a true figure on what you spend. No more starbucks for me. I can now see I spend more on food that I used to. You forget all the little bits you spend here and there. Keep a diary or a list of everything you spend. Its also amazing how a bottle of wine here and there adds up to.

missyp123

Hello,
just wanted to say that i spending diary for you and your partner is really the best way for you to see where your money is going.
You will be really surprised how the odd magazine and trips to the corner shop for bread etc add up!!!:o

One thing i have done that is keeping me in budget is to take out cash for my food shopping & petrol. I put the money in labelled envelopes and find that i am lots better at keeping an eye on the actual cash!
i wil lbegin to do this for bills etc once i feel more confident with it.

this also helps loads with keeping an eye on balancing the bank account daily, less transactions to track:p

Kamaya

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

Hi Kamaya,

Just noticed your post and thought I may be able to offer advice.

The Direct Debit payment scheme works by building up credit in the summer, this credit then goes towards your larger winter bills.

As you have just changed over to E.ON you won't have any credit on the account, as yet.

As you are £400 in credit with your current supplier some of this would have gone towards the winter bills.

So just make sure when having your monthly payments re-calculated, they will cover you through the winter.

If you need any info from me, just shout up, we are happy to help as much as we can.

Glad you have made some savings:T

Helena:)

Hi Helena,

Thanks for your post. When we bought our house, we didn't know how much energy we'd be using so had a low d/debit set up. As a result, we racked up quite a big balance. Monthly d/debits were then upped to account for this balance. We paid that off within a few months, but it was never brought back down. So as a result we had been overpaying, and this resulted in a £470 refund which is due back to us shortly. I will need to adjust my Eon d/debits though, as I didn't realise how much we were still overpaying!

Kamaya

Thanks for the advice all. Trying to find a way of not taking out a loan, as if my wife goes on maternity leave then her pay will drop by 60% for 8 months. During this time i'll have to foot most of the outgoings. Have made a start on a spending diary, plus have just negotiated a cheaper mobile deal with a new phone, so have sold mine to highest phone recycling bidder for £120, sold some things on ebay for £50, and have signed up for paid market research - which is around £30 a hour every few weeks. It's going to be a budget Christmas this year, and have thought up some cheap novel ideas rather than spending an unnecessary fortune.