Help with pre-payment meter?

JEB192

Hello,
Sorry if I do this wrong, I think this is my first time posting on MSE.

I have just move to a 1 bed flat with an electric prepayment meter. I read online that it was far more expensive so I asked British Gas if they could swap it over, the woman on the phone assured me it's the same cost as paying monthly/quarterly and so I left it.

I make a note daily of how much money I spend on the meter per day. I didn't have any white goods but I work from home so basically my electric outgoings were, water heater, lights, small electric cooker, laptop for most of the waking day, phone charger and occasionally hair straighteners/dryer. I don't have anything kept on standby.

I was using on average 15p a day with the highest being 29p. I was pretty chuffed with that but I guess with so few appliances it was sort of inevitable, however I just thought it would be much more expensive from what I read online.

On Sunday I bought a second hand beko fridge. I plugged it in on Monday night and since then the balance on my meter has gone down more than £3.

Is this normal? Is anyone else with a prepayment meter paying this much? The fridge isn't new but it's a small under the counter fridge with a tiny freezer compartment (I searched the model number online but couldn't find the energy efficiency rating). Research online suggests that the least efficient Fridge freezer only costs £73 a year to run, but this seems to want to cost me well over £400 a year, whilst everything else is barely costing me anything!

If anyone with a not-new fridge an a prepayment meter has a rough clue of how much they are paying out daily that would be really helpful. I'm considering just going back to living without a fridge if it's going to send my costs through the roof.

CupofTea

I pay about £20 a month, maximum £30 and with British Gas. Have many appliances and don't go over this amount.

Nada666

A fridge will not use much to keep running. But when you first plug it in it'll use a solid amount to cool itself down. Probably not £3 worth, though (if it was using this much you will hear it).

What has probably happened is your standing charge is taken off once per week, rather than every day, and it is that that has cost you £2 or £2.50.

Note that you should monitor your meter by taking the actual reading, rather than noting the balance in money. That is a less confusing measure to keep track of.

So monitor the reading each day for a while - you should find that the fridge is not using 20 kWh but about 1 kWh per day (2 kWh if older.)

[Deleted User]

BG elecric prepay in my area is set at something like 13.5 kwhr with a weekly standing charge of approx £1.10. You can get Npower now fixed for a year at 11.5 kwhr+ 21p a day standing charge with a further 6% off for direct debits and more for dual fuel, so some very useful savings on the standard tariff of a prepay. Ditch the meter asap

macman

PPM's cost the same as a credit meter on Standard tariff. But up to 6% more than the cheapest online discount tariff, so the adviser wasn't being entirely truthful.

shazza71_2

omg i am using £3 a day for my electric

Atidi

JEB192 wrote: »

...I have just move to a 1 bed flat with an electric prepayment meter. I read online that it was far more expensive so I asked British Gas if they could swap it over, the woman on the phone assured me it's the same cost as paying monthly/quarterly and so I left it....

Don't believe a word of what BG say.

Take it from me, if you read it on the internet, it must be right :cool:

[Deleted User]

BG s new "standard " tariff, which prepays will be set to, coming in on 23 Nov, at 13.75 p per kwhr and the daily standing charge at 26p a day. There will be small regional differences. First Utility rates on a fix to 2014 was 11.4 p per kwhr , standing charge 20 p a day for direct debit credit meters