Prepayment Meters!

Terriixx

Hi!

I use a spreadsheet for my budget and it has tabs on the bottom for my Gas and Electric bills. You input the date, amount and how many weeks that's for and it will work out your average week, month and year amounts... I'm on a prepayment meter though so I've tried to work out roughly how far between top ups it is (1 week, 2 week, etc., not exact as some is 2 weeks 3 days for example, so I've only put 2 weeks..), but I'm not sure if my averages are right then.
Does anybody use a spreadsheet or how do you track your prepayment meter receipts?

Thanks in advance,
Terri xx

HappyMJ

Any figure will do...it's just an estimate. Gas/Elec costs what it costs. You can't budget for a cold winter.

If you can budget which you seem to be able to by the fact you have a spreadsheet then why don't you consider going onto a credit meter which can save you much more going forward as you can pay by direct debit. This could save around £100 or more per year.

I used to use a spreadsheet to record my meter readings on a fortnightly basis but I've since given up on that.

If you are paid fortnightly then try and get into the habit of buying a certain value of top-up each fortnight and make sure you have a good credit balance by the beginning of November so you don't have to increase your fortnightly top-ups by too much over the winter.

A very cold winter can easily add £2-£3 a week over the whole year.

undaunted

You already know how long its taking you between top ups without a spreadsheet so presumably you're looking for something more. What are you trying to achieve? Eg how much the average week or month costs you or something else?

If you put 2 weeks in for 2 weeks & 3 days for example you can't expect to get an accurate average. It would be more realistic if you entered the exact number of days & used that in your formula to get averages for a week or month.

[Deleted User]

The kwhr price is on the electric meter along with total reading since the meter was installed on screen G and total kwhrs you have used since you occupied the property on screen H. Weekly standing charge is there too The gas has the kwhr price on one of the screens also along with meter reading and weekly standing charge.Multiply the units you have used by 11 for gas kwhr , then by the pence per kwhr price..I think its inclusive of V.A.T. for both meters

Terriixx

Hi, thanks for the replies...

I changed my spreadsheet so that I had it in days between top ups rather than weeks.
I've also added it on so that I can see my average daily amount.