£160 monthly bill from ScottishPower!!

WorkFromHome

OMG I am in shock. I know I should be checking my joint account more often but just found out that my Scot Power bill has risen to £160 a month taken out on 6th June and next bill is August.

It was originally £65 on 6th Feb then risen to £100 a month and now £160 .... how is this justifiable. We haven't bought a new appliance nor using anymore than usual and there are only the 2 of us living in a 3 bedroom bungalow

Never had a problem with Scottish Power until now

JJ_Egan

What are your meter readings and have you worked out your bills .
Does your account show you have been underpaying in the past and its now being clawed back ??

maas

WorkFromHome wrote: »

how is this justifiable

Could be any reason.

• Maybe you were underpaying previously.
• Unit cost has increased
• Billed off inflated estimates

You need to actually look at your bill and work out consumption. Given it started at £65 in Feb and has increased substantially twice since I would suggest the original estimates for a monthly £65 DD were way off.

WorkFromHome

I'm not sure how to. I normally just send them my meter readings when they ask but last time they asked for them was May. How do I work out if I'm paying to much? Always paid between £60 - £100 (the latter amount being in the winter).

My balance says it's £79 in Debit

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

So you owe them £79 in the middle of summer - this is a sure sign you haven't been paying enough to cover your consumption.

It seems like a classic case - £65 is on the low side, most people pay around the £100 mark. Now they want to cover your actual consumption, plus the debt you owe them.

You should be a few hundred quid in credit at this time of the year.

All of the above is an educated guess, for complete info we'd need your consumption in KWh, which should be on your bill.

Robin9

Send them readings today and every month - then you shouldn't get estimated readings..

When you received your last bill was the reading an actual or estimated one - what is it today.

maas

Also, are you working from home (as your username suggests?). Do you have computer/TV on all day?

This may be one reason the original DD was set at £65 (just 2 people in bungalow) but the actual consumption is much higher.

WorkFromHome

Electric in May 81553
Now 82274

Gas in May 9865
Now 9876

Last bill May 2014
Gas 7,661.307 kWH
Electric 7,289.200 kWH

I don't work from home no. I have a full-time job but often my boyfriend will fall asleep with the TV on until 6am and also he leaves the water heating up for hours so maybe this is it. We didn't have to wait for water to heat up in our last home.

Nada666

Nearly 8,000 kWh for both fuels. Your problem is you are using well over double the average electricity. 8,000 kWh gas but 3,000 kWh electricity would cost about £800 per year so the £65 starting estimate was probably fair enough for your property - but you are using much more electricity.

Once you are behind you have to pay 'double' to get back on track (even more if the arrears are over six months rather than twelve). As you have discovered not paying attention can result in large increases of the instalment.

Track down what is eating the electricity and alter usage or budget to pay for it.

WorkFromHome

Nada666 wrote: »

Nearly 8,000 kWh for both fuels. Your problem is you are using well over double the average electricity. 8,000 kWh gas but 3,000 kWh electricity would cost about £800 per year so the £65 starting estimate was probably fair enough for your property - but you are using much more electricity.

Once you are behind you have to pay 'double' to get back on track (even more if the arrears are over six months rather than twelve). As you have discovered not paying attention can result in large increases of the instalment.

Track down what is eating the electricity and alter usage or budget to pay for it.

Thank you. Now I know it's gone up because of our usage and not because of SP I can do something about it. Looks like I'm going to suffer financially though for a few months

maas

The Gas usage seems reasonable but the electricity is high. I'd recommend getting an energy monitor just to educate you on what everything is costing.

After my first electric bill came in which was huge, I got an energy monitor and I was amazed what everything costed. I made changes and I no longer,

Fill kettle to the top just for 1 cup of coffee
Leave kitchen lights on all evening (6 spot lights)
Halogen lights in general - turn everything off if not in the room
Spare fridge virtually empty turned off

The 2nd thing I did was switched energy provider from SP to OVO and saved a further 15%.

Also, go into the TV settings and set a sleep timer to so it doesnt stay on for hours unattended.