Please help with my gas situation

FlashBarry

No not wind – far worst than that!

A couple of years ago we were on a standard tariff with British gas which came to about £55 a month. During a money saving spree, I went through a process of reducing our bills and unnecessary expenses. As part of this I joined MSEs cheap energy club and switched suppliers to M&S energy on the basis that our usage at the time would cost about £50 a month. We live in a well insulated small 2 bed semi.

Shortly after switching, our baby daughter was born and we realised that we needed the heating on more frequently than normal as her nursery room was getting very chilly in the night.

With a new baby I kind of lost track of the utility bills for a while. About one year ago the energy company warned that our monthly payment wasnt covering the usage and we had accumulated about £700 of debt on the account(!!!!!) and they were increasing our monthly payment to £95 a month. I was a bit shocked about how much debt had come up but understood that we have been using more gas.

A year on and I spoke to the energy company to see how much we have knocked off the debt by keeping these large monthly payments. They said the debt is now at £800 and my £95/month payment is just about covering the monthly usage.

I have had a couple of emails from MSE saying that cheaper tariffs are now available and I want to ditch this provide, but how does it work with this big debt over me? Does the debt attract interest like an overdraft?

We have obviously cut right back on gas usage for now, but what should I do next?

JJ_Egan

First question has to be do you know what gas you are using .
Do you take monthly readings ??

FlashBarry

JJ_Egan wrote: »

First question has to be do you know what gas you are using .
Do you take monthly readings ??

Nope - we have been pretty slack on the utility side.

I suspect the boiler might need looking at as it sometime takes a while to fire up. Got a service booked for later this week.

Whats the deal with interest on debit on a gas account? Does it complicate a switch if a debt exists?

molerat

Your current supplier will probably block a switch with that level of debt. Are you on the cheapest tariff with your current supplier ? What is your current consumption in kWh per year ?

FlashBarry

I need to look up the usage figures and report back.

As a rule, do energy companies charge interest on overuse debts? If they are charging 30%, I need to raid my savings to pay this off asap.

CharlieBilly

They wont charge you interest but obviously it will have to be paid back over time or full amount if you switch

Robin9

FlashBarry wrote: »

Nope - we have been pretty slack on the utility side.?

If you haven't been reading your meters and your supplier hasn't then you accounts will all be estimates.

You MUST read your meter and give it to your supplier and get an up to date bill.