i am being ripped off big time with my gas and electricity

mussell2503

Searching for advice. I have recently switched to prepaid meter's as paying direct debit my bill was still rising every month. because i have debt on both gas and electric going on prepaid my debt would not increase. On monthly direct debit i was paying £160 elec, £80 gas that was covering my useage plus paying the debt off, they told me i was using £30pm on gas and £85 elec the rest was paying off my debt. since going on prepaid my useage has gone through the roof i have rang and rang them saying i am using to much but it falls on deaf ears. i spoke to them yesterday and they told me i was using £3.60 per day gas and 4.60 elec per day. i am paying £32per mth of my gas debt(they take £8 weekly) plus my useage is £108 per month( i've only got a gas fire and cooker no c/heating) so im paying £140pm and my useage has jumped from £30pm to £108pm. my elec i pay £6 per week of the debt £24pm and my useage is £138pm, so im paying £162pm and my useage has jumped from £85 to £138. there is no standing charge for the meters and when i spoke to swalec they said the meters would cost no more than paying direct debit but my debt would not increase.
i speak to family and friends and on average they are paying about £100-110 on both gas and electric pm. i am at my wits end and cannot afford nearly £300pm but swalec keep telling me that my useage is normal! i turn everything off at night apart from my fridge and freezer, the fire is on for a 1 in the morning and about 3-4hrs inthe evening and the cooker once a day for half a hr.
this cant be right please any advice would be welcome

HappyMJ

It probably is normal. You will use so much more energy in winter than you would in summer. With my usage charts the coldest week in winter I used 7 times what I used in summer. It makes a huge difference on prepayment meter as you have to pay it every week rather than spread it out monthly over the year. If you top up £50 a week now (averaged over the last 4 weeks) and £10 in summer that's an average of £30 a week which is high but reasonably normal. Then you have your debt repayments on top which add even more.

My advice is to read the meter every week at exactly the same time. Write that down and figure out the difference each week. I use a website called IMeasure to chart my usage. Top up only once per week so it isn't as scary and put as much on as you can each time.

Also, figure out why your electric usage is so high. Get an energy monitor and switch everything off.

espresso

Why are all of the figures in your post in £'s? If you are now on a prepaid meter, you will be on your suppliers most expensive standard tariff.

Gas and electricity are sold in units of kWh, so instead of stating how much you are paying, say how much you are actually using in kWh units, so that others can make a sensible comparison.

You may be paying twice the amount per unit on a standard tariff, compared to other peoples much more competitive on-line tariffs!

Quote your actual consumption in kWh.

HalloweenJack

the meter will be taking a daily standing charge , each time you put money on your key , it`ll take off the accrued debt amount first then whats left is for you

how big is the debt?

chris1973

i speak to family and friends and on average they are paying about £100-110 on both gas and electric pm.

Comparing your bill with those of family and friends isn't really constructive, unless their lifestyle is exactly the same as yours. For example, the bill of somebody who is a travelling salesperson and out on the road 5 days out of 7, is obviously going to be a lot lower than a family of 4, with any one or more persons at home 24/7

On a prepay meter, you will not be getting the same discounts as is offered to those on credit meters, so you are immediately at a disadvantage straight away in your comparisons if your family and friends are on credit meters, and using any DD discounts.

Everybodies comfort zone is also different, some people are happy with the room thermostat at 15c others want the heating turned up like a blast furnace, even 1c different can make a huge difference in bills.

So unless these people who you are making comparisons with, work the same hours as you, have the same house with the same level of insulation as you, have the same brand of gas fire / boiler as you, have the same comfort level as you etc etc, then your comparisons won't mean a thing.

It would be far better for you to spend time examining what appliances are using the lions share of the gas and electric and examining how you can cut down on their use. Unfortunately the reality is, that the only way of saving money is to switch things off and use them less or replace them with things which do the same but of which use less energy to do it.

Start taking meter readings, do it everynight when you return home, and see for yourself how many units of electricity / gas you are using in each 24 hour period, this will give you a good idea of what you are using in real terms in the form of power / heat and what is being taken as a debt and also as the standing charge.

£138pm if this is your accurate usage on Electricity does seem rather high. Have you replaced every lamp in the house with low energy types?, Do you have any of those nasty little rows of energy guzzling spot lights in your ceilings?. No immersion heater or Electric Heaters running?. Do you use a tumble dryer?.

Things like lighting may not seem important, however i've frequently been in houses with rooms and hallways lit by rows of 35w and 50w spotlights, add the usage together as it adds up by a frightening amount. Suffice to say that at this time of year, any house which is heated by and cooks with Gas, means that after washing and drying clothes - lighting and entertainment devices are by far the biggest regular everyday users of Electricity and the first things to look at, once any forgotten electric heater or immersion heater is ruled out.

Its also really easy to look fondly back at previous years and say that you weren't paying much back then. Well, energy companies weren't charging you as much back then!. Last Year alone saw two individual price increases being levied in less than 12 months, the last one being around 18% - 20%, that is a HUGE increase for most households, even if their usage patterns remain exactly the same, in this case when the huge post-increase bill drops through the door, it will appear at first glance that they are using more, but the fact is that often they are just PAYING MORE for the same amount of energy.

mussell2503

HalloweenJack wrote: »

the meter will be taking a daily standing charge , each time you put money on your key , it`ll take off the accrued debt amount first then whats left is for you

how big is the debt?

this one does'nt work like that. it takes the debt over seven days,nothing comes off my key when i top up

mussell2503

espresso wrote: »

Why are all of the figures in your post in £'s? If you are now on a prepaid meter, you will be on your suppliers most expensive standard tariff.

Gas and electricity are sold in units of kWh, so instead of stating how much you are paying, say how much you are actually using in kWh units, so that others can make a sensible comparison.

You may be paying twice the amount per unit on a standard tariff, compared to other peoples much more competitive on-line tariffs!

Quote your actual consumption in kWh.

my elec is 14.70kwh but unsure on my gas

HappyMJ

mussell2503 wrote: »

my elec is 14.70kwh but unsure on my gas

That's a little high not very high just a little higher than average. What sort of electrical equipment do you use? Things that really make a large difference are heaters and dryers.

You said earlier you are paying £4.60 per day for this 14.7kWh of electricity. Your unit rate is very high. Do you know what the unit rate and the standing charges are? You should be looking at paying half of that.

jd87

You have your gas fire on for 5 hours a day. End of story.

jalexa

jd87 wrote: »

You have your gas fire on for 5 hours a day. End of ...

And your point?

5 hours of a gas fire would cost less than £1. You, me and the rest us on a competitive tariff might pay £0.50p. Do you begrudge that during cold weather? The OP's story is more to do with understanding debt recovery on a prepayment meter.

caz2003uk

There is definately something wrong if your using nearly £5 a day on electric!

When i was paying back debt through prepayment, it was as you say taken over the week, i think it was something like 5p every 100 minutes (told to me by british gas)

I no longer have debt on my meters and use between £12-£15 in a fortnight! and I use a tumble dryer too!

Have you double checked the amount they are taking for debt on the meter? If i remember correctly its screen S? but i might be wrong....double check that to begin with! Then use a process of elimination to find out what is drawing lots of power... each day un plug something for the full 24 hours if possible and see if it makes a small or large difference to your meter reading!