Advice wanted about my bill!

pollyorange

Hello, I am with powergen for gas and elec and they really underestimated my bills last year (and tbh I was never asked for actual readings and never did them for one reason or another)

Now they have realised this and have worked out that to bring my account back to a credit (it is over £1000) now, they want to increase my dd monthly from 67 to 330! I cannot afford this and told them so.

They now said that they can only drop it down to 220 pm. I cant afford this either. They suggested I pay it off with a creditcard (my only option now) but is there ANYTHING else I can do about this??

Please help! I dont want to use credit card but I cant afford the monthly repayments on the bill either (credit card is 0% interest mind)

What best thing to do??

lisyloo

OK, firstly in your position I would want to establish whether this is a longterm or shorterm problem.

If your outgoings are more expensive that your income with no sign of improvement then you need to consider changing something fundamental like reducing your outgoings (smaller home) or increasing your income (second job, ironing cleaning).

If you have a shorterm problem i.e. you can generally afford your bills but this one jsut ahs got out of hand then I would do the following.
Negotiate with Npower i.e. offer them a lower figure.
You will need to keep it fairly reasonble or they will refuse e.g. £2 per week isn't going to work. But £150 per month might be acceptable.
I know you don't want to use your 0% credit card but it's free and it might be an easy way out of this situation IF this is a short term problem.

Cardew

They will normally allow you a year to pay off any debit balance.

As this balance is over £1,000 you are talking £90 - £100 per month just to pay off debt.

Obviously your £67 is totally inadequate for your consumption(or you wouldn't have run up such a large debt)

So £220 a month seems like they are giving you a year to clear your debt - which seems reasonable.

As both paying off Powergen and your Credit Card will be at 0% interest, it doesn't seem as if there is much to choose between either method.

Although I may be wrong, I detect that you are implying that it is Powergen's fault you are in this position?

Cardew

lisyloo wrote:

Negotiate with Npower i.e. offer them a lower figure.

You put NPower, I almost put BG - Freudian slip?