Whats the cheapest way to pay for a electric/gas bills?

trinidadone

I am currently with npower who have put me on a monthly budget plan of £35.00 per month for the elctric, and £35.00 a month for the gas. I understand i will be intitled to a £80.00 rebate after 12 months.

I use to pay my BT bill like this, but read on a thread, thats its better to pay whole bills per month/quarter, should I stick to this way of paying, or should i pay whole bills per quater?

moonrakerz

The cheapest way is not necessarily the easiest ! Which is why the power companies try and convince you that monthly DD is the easiest. I wouldn't touch monthly DD with a bargepole, but if you think that is the best way for you ......

But first, read the threads about gas and electricity bills and see how many of the problems which are reported involve monthly DDs !

tripled

If you can afford to pay high winter bills in lump sums, and don't think the rebate is worth the possible problems you could have, then by all means go for quarterly billing.

I actually pay quarterly myself, but that's simply because I have a dislike of direct debits for any purpose and go through my online banking cancelling one's at random every few months

trinidadone

moonrakerz wrote: »

The cheapest way is not necessarily the easiest ! Which is why the power companies try and convince you that monthly DD is the easiest. I wouldn't touch monthly DD with a bargepole, but if you think that is the best way for you ......

But first, read the threads about gas and electricity bills and see how many of the problems which are reported involve monthly DDs !

I have been looking at the threads, but because there are so, so many, not sure where to read???:mad:

trinidadone

tripled wrote: »

If you can afford to pay high winter bills in lump sums, and don't think the rebate is worth the possible problems you could have, then by all means go for quarterly billing.

I actually pay quarterly myself, but that's simply because I have a dislike of direct debits for any purpose and go through my online banking cancelling one's at random every few months

so why do you have a dislike for DD???

melbury

moonrakerz wrote: »

The cheapest way is not necessarily the easiest ! Which is why the power companies try and convince you that monthly DD is the easiest. I wouldn't touch monthly DD with a bargepole, but if you think that is the best way for you ......

But first, read the threads about gas and electricity bills and see how many of the problems which are reported involve monthly DDs !

I agree, I hate DD's as well. Have switched to Ebico for both gas and electricity and now pay quarterly by cheque - nice to be in control and not suddenly find that the DD's have been upped without me noticing the small print.

BritishGasWorker

Lee_Dunford wrote: »

I am currently with npower who have put me on a monthly budget plan of £35.00 per month for the elctric, and £35.00 a month for the gas. I understand i will be intitled to a £80.00 rebate after 12 months.

I use to pay my BT bill like this, but read on a thread, thats its better to pay whole bills per month/quarter, should I stick to this way of paying, or should i pay whole bills per quater?

Hi there


If you have the money..the totally best cheapest way to pay is " payment in advance.." how it works is they estimated you consumption over 1 year,,they say you pay say £700.00 for your total years consumption, the charge you the lowest rate possible out of all the rates for your gas/electric..once your money runs out they re-estimate again..so on ...it does save you a fortune! and you dont have to worry about 3 monthly bills

bristolleedsfan

BritishGasWorker wrote: »

Hi there


If you have the money..the totally best cheapest way to pay is " payment in advance.." how it works is they estimated you consumption over 1 year,,they say you pay say £700.00 for your total years consumption, the charge you the lowest rate possible out of all the rates for your gas/electric..once your money runs out they re-estimate again..so on ...it does save you a fortune! and you dont have to worry about 3 monthly bills

unless someone has never had a gas/electric bill before, its not really fair to say "they estimate your consumption over a year" because the supply companies ask the customer how much gas and electric they use( same as comparison companies ask the customer for consumption figures) which if someone has last years bills ( which is only 4) would be precise ( bar price increases/decreases), if a customer hasnt got the last years bills then it is the customer whos estimating how much energy they use yearly, re " they charge u the lowest rates possible out of all there rates" sadly with scottish power that hasnt been true for existing customers as scottish power have been launching new plans to attract new customers at cheaper rates than existing customers are on ( hence there has now been 3 online plans in 14 months)

ive been paying by monthly direct debit and has run totally smoothly possibly because the consumption figures i gave scottish power were based on actual previous bills

trinidadone

Thanks for this BritishGasWorker. Since posting the original question, NPOWER sent me two directdebit forms for my electric and gas to fill out. There was a section on each form which was for internal use only. This section asked how much DD would be set, and £35.00 was filled in by staff at NPOWER for both my electric and gas. not sure where they got that figure from, as I have never received a bill from them as yet. I assumed this is estimated figure, which will mean £420.00 per year for gas and £420.00 for electric, is that a good figure or has NPOWER charged over the odds?

Cardew

BritishGasWorker wrote: »

Hi there


If you have the money..the totally best cheapest way to pay is " payment in advance.." how it works is they estimated you consumption over 1 year,,they say you pay say £700.00 for your total years consumption, the charge you the lowest rate possible out of all the rates for your gas/electric..once your money runs out they re-estimate again..so on ...it does save you a fortune! and you dont have to worry about 3 monthly bills

Are you just talking about BG? - I don't think the OP was.

However perhaps you can give some examples of it 'saving a fortune'?

Take BG's normal advance payment gas tariff as an example and compare it with their Click 2 tariff.

Use the average consumption of 20,500kWh per year.

bristolleedsfan

Lee_Dunford wrote: »

Thanks for this BritishGasWorker. Since posting the original question, NPOWER sent me two directdebit forms for my electric and gas to fill out. There was a section on each form which was for internal use only. This section asked how much DD would be set, and £35.00 was filled in by staff at NPOWER for both my electric and gas. not sure where they got that figure from, as I have never received a bill from them as yet. I assumed this is estimated figure, which will mean £420.00 per year for gas and £420.00 for electric, is that a good figure or has NPOWER charged over the odds?

unless uve never had fuel bills before you should be able to tell npower what your previous fuel bills were ( ideally last four) if u have less than four previous bills then guess work is involved if uve never had a fuel bill then total guess work is used