Should I switch

clemmenza

Hi all,

I feel I am in a bit of a quandary... I'm currently on EDF's Blue Price Promise April 2014 for my gas & electricity. Perfectly happy, (relatively!) cheap energy.

However, I'm wondering whether I should get myself tied in to one of the new, four-year fixed price schemes. In the short term, I'm aware this will mean me paying quite a substantial amount more for my energy (i.e. between now & April next year), but am I likely to save more over the long-term, with the expected price rises that are due?

Any advice gratefully received!

ic

I was in the same boat on the same tariff. I decided to do it and have started to the switch to NPower's 2017 tariff. Don't forget the switch normally takes six to eight weeks to actually happen - so assuming you were to switch now, you wouldn't start paying more until the start of December. As soon as one company announces a rise (and they will), these tariffs will quickly go.

Also of course, you get ten days or so to change your mind too.

Mr_K

Although prices rises are imminent I never fix for more than a year. Anything more is guesswork. They wouldn't offer these tariffs if they didn't think they'd make more profit.

DragonQ

My current fix for electricity is way cheaper than anything on offer now so I think I'll wait until it's run out before fixing again (even though there's no exit penalties). I suppose fixing for 2 years or something might save me more in the long-run but it'd cost me more now and, like Mr K says, it is partly guesswork.

[Deleted User]

If Ed Millibands threat of a price freeze comes about , maybe a 2 year fix now is the best deal. They were saying that suppliers will beat the freeze by raising prices to cover the 17 months

macman

What's the price difference between your current EDF fix and the best 4 year fix? Several hundred probably. How many percent will prices have to rise in 4 years for you to recover the extra expenditure? If you switch now you'll miss a whole winter on the cheap EDF rate.
People really have to stop thinking of long term fixes as possibly 'cheaper' options. They might be, but essentially what you are doing is buying an (expensive) insurance policy against future steep rises. Only you can decide if you need such insurance.
I'm on the same EDF tariff and will probably do nothing until the spring.

ctdctd

I was on the EDF Blue Fix June 2014.
Combined gas and electric usage is about £850 PA

Checked my costs against their published fixed rates currently on offer and the March 2017 tariff came out at about £120 PA more.

However the March 2015 tariff came out at about the same as I'm paying now so I switched to that one.

Gives me peace of mind for a second winter and after that the nice snake oil salesman from the Labour party is going to fix everything!:p

debhemsley

I am on the same edf blue April 14 tarif I am thinking of the one that goes to 2015. Not sure what to do.

cbrpaul

I am also on Blue 2014 here, but its so much cheaper than the rest , and with winter coming up I am sticking !!!

the-mango

I'm in a slightly different situation in that my fix runs out in December 2013 - do you think I should switch now?

AMO

the-mango wrote: »

I'm in a slightly different situation in that my fix runs out in December 2013 - do you think I should switch now?

I'm similar although mine's to November 2013. There isn't a great deal of time. I would say check regularly and if there is the first sign that deals are being pulled or more energy companies are raising prices, I'd say move to the next deal.

With the recent news, prices are definitely not going down for the next year, so it's good to move - at most you'd lose a month or so off your current deal.