Advice- first time bill payer!!

hayleyjane82

Hi

I am just about to move out of my parents home and in to a rented flat with my boyfriend. Im trying to fiure our roughly what I should anticipate putting aside each month for bills. We're moving in to a 2 bedroom flat on the 1st floor (i.e. a flat below us), have 1 bathroom with standard shower and bath and an en suite with power shower (likely to be a popular feature), gas hob and oven, but otherwise powered by electricity. Out most of the day, in during the evenings and weekends- other half has ps3 but doesnt seem to play on it for hours. Can anyone give me an idea of what to expect in terms of gas/electric bills?

I appreciate it all depends on supplier etc, but any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks

Hayley
:A

KimYeovil

Read your meters regularly and find out what your particular lifestyle and your house and your different patterns consume. Be anoraky for a month or two with sessional, daily and weekly reads. You'll soon get an idea what various scenarios cost.

Ballpark figures are anything from £50 to £125 per month (combined).

prettyvacant77

KimYeovil wrote: »

Read your meters regularly and find out what your particular lifestyle and your house and your different patterns consume. Be anoraky for a month or two with sessional, daily and weekly reads. You'll soon get an idea what various scenarios cost.

Ballpark figures are anything from £50 to £125 per month (combined).

Kim is right, take meter readings when you move in and store a copy of them safely somewhere! I actually wrote them down and took a close up photo of the meter with reading displayed just in case...

Take meter readings often, monthly if possible, even if you can't submit them to your supplier that often.

Don't fall for the "oh, we can set your direct debit lower than any other supplier" line. You'll pay for what you use eventually, the lower the Direct Debit, the more you end up paying on any catch-up bill.

In my experience, all suppliers have their faults. Eon were good when I used them, switched to Scottish Power (being Scottish I had to :rotfl:), they were fairly dependable for the short amount of time I used them.

Although it'll be tempting (especially if you read this forum a lot), don't worry about switching your supplier every few months n your first year anyway. Get a full year's billing under your belt so you can see your usage across summer and winter months. You can then better understand any savings you can make and get yourself the best deal.

Good luck :j

NJW69

I changed my supplier in Sept last year after doing an online comparison and I'm now with first utility.

Prior to this I had my gas and electric supply from different people as when I did the last check that worked out cheapest including the cashback for swapping.

I was paying £135 gas and £62 electric every month (don't panic I have a large detached house).

This new scheme is worked on paying for what you use each month rather than an average payment each month on your years usage.

The highest payment was in February and was £243 but the lowest will be this month and it's only £93.

It will actually be lower than this as after twelve months I get back a discount which at the moment is £190 and I also get £5 per quarter for reading the meter myself.

This suits me as I'de rather pay as you go so to speak but if you have a fixed income that couldn't stand these fluctuations you may want to do it in equal payments.

If you do an online account (no paper bills) and pay by direct debit you will get lower rates.

You can make a big difference by monitoring your usage as someone else suggests and turning things off, only using washer on low temperature when full, cooking things together if you have the oven on, using a slow cooker, having showers instead of baths.

You don't need to be obsessed but saving money on this means you will have more money for other things (like going out!).

Enjoy your new home.