Which provider and tariff to choose?

Peco141

I'm currently on a standard dual fuel account with British gas. I have only a direct debit discount.

I pay £60 a month electricity and £39 gas and am currently £176.28 in credit on the gas account and £139.28 in credit on the electricity account. Understandably with winter kicking in and energy prices rising my bills are soon to rocket and those credits will turn into massive debits in only a month or two.

I realise this question is likely asked many many times by individuals on the site however despite searching, MSE, uSwitch, Moneysupermarket and Gocompare I have absolutely no idea what I should be doing to save money as every site and comparison is as confusing as the last and there are so many to choose from.

• Should I switch provider?
• What sort of tariff is the cheapest
• Which tariff offers the greatest to choose from
• Should stay with British gas and get a different tariff, fixed or other?
• Should I be looking at one of these energysmart tariffs with the fancy gadgets.

If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

snowcat53

No sure what the problem is. I use energyhelpline.com.
You should find out from bills your annual kWh useage for both gas and electric first though. The results come out in order of price. All you have to do is decide if you want to go for a fix or not. You might look at service ratings too, but frankly all of the companies have problems.

dogshome

You don't mention the details of your household, but from your figures you do seem to be overpaying on your D/D for Elec. - The rough rule of thumb is that with Gas CH & HW, your Winter Elec bill will be 20% higher than that in Summer.
For the Gas the 'thumb' rule is that Winter use will be 80% more than Summer.

To get the best from the Switch sites, you must enter Annual consumptions of Gas & Elec in Kwh
These will be shown on your bills, but if in difficulty phone BG and ask

I prefer the 'switchwithwhich' Switch site - When the list of suppliers and prices comes up, press the 'Tariff Compare' icon any of them which will bring up a new window listing the fine details of that suppliers tariff, directly alongside those of your BG tariff

Peco141

Ok thanks guys.

Details of household are two persons living in one bedroom basement (previously converted apartment) flat/house. 9108 kWh Gas for £470.61 per annum and 4222 kWh Electricity per annum for £570.61 Total annual energy spend from 07/12/10 to 06/12/11 of £1041.22.

Having managed to find the annual kWh I searched Switch and a few other sites and found some cheaper deals. Most of the better deals seems to be with npower so it looks like they are the best option at the moment. Now to decide if I should fix or go for some smart energy option, whatever the hell that is.