Energy: Find the cheapest supplier & earn cashback

Rosa_Damascena

Thanks for your feedback - have just checked and there is a maximum of £84 to be saved pa, and the top tariff does save me about 10p/day on standing charges - sounds good except it adds up to all of £36.50 over the year so I think the pull is largely psychological!!

Am not over impressed with the reviews of Avro but on the other hand, if I'm not happy I can exit without penalty. I'll sleep on it before switching.

Joe9090

Going by the title of this thread you would think it was easy to find the cheapest supplier but it isn't.
First you have to find the best comparison site and surprisingly it seems the Cheap Energy Club is not the best going by some of the comments on this forum.
Then you have do you your own calculations preferably  on a spreadsheet. I have basic spreadsheet skills but can anyone recommend a good template with the formulas already added? 
I suppose you can only use last years usage as the best guide to what you are going to use in the coming year. It seems many people make the mistake of assuming the monthly DD payment recommendation  the new supplier  gives you will be sufficient to cover the total for the year no matter what you use.If you move this time of the year at least you have the time to build up a good credit for the coming winter.You still need to check on your usage regularly to ensure you are in control of what you are using rather than the new supplier.  
No doubt there are more variables to consider.
Sorting out House,Car,Broadband,TV and Mobile are easy after Gas and Electric. I now know what 'Confusion Marketing' means.

Doc_N

Joe9090 said:

Going by the title of this thread you would think it was easy to find the cheapest supplier but it isn't.
First you have to find the best comparison site and surprisingly it seems the Cheap Energy Club is not the best going by some of the comments on this forum.
Then you have do you your own calculations preferably  on a spreadsheet. I have basic spreadsheet skills but can anyone recommend a good template with the formulas already added? 
I suppose you can only use last years usage as the best guide to what you are going to use in the coming year. It seems many people make the mistake of assuming the monthly DD payment recommendation  the new supplier  gives you will be sufficient to cover the total for the year no matter what you use.If you move this time of the year at least you have the time to build up a good credit for the coming winter.You still need to check on your usage regularly to ensure you are in control of what you are using rather than the new supplier.  
No doubt there are more variables to consider.
Sorting out House,Car,Broadband,TV and Mobile are easy after Gas and Electric. I now know what 'Confusion Marketing' means.

I think you're over-complicating it.  No need for spreadsheets - just your annual usage in kWh.  Put the figures into three or four (more if you like) comparison sites and out will come the figures you need.  Just make sure you tick or untick whichever boxes allow you to view all the market - not just the ones that make the site money on clicking through.

Joe9090

Doc_N said:

I think you're over-complicating it.  

Maybe........ and I did not mention fixed or variable prices,cashback,customer service or smart meters to name but a few!

dinora

           

dinora

           

Gerry1

dinora said: Candles , mate - they're the future!
- especially when all the power stations shut down because all the workers are self islolating. Stock up now, together with toilet rolls paracetamol, tinned foods and hand-gel.

Those with dumb meters will be OK: our lights will stay on and our central heating and hot water will still work. Those with smart meters may discover what the Load Limiting and Load Shedding features in the smart meter specification are all about.

accorian

Joe9090 said:

Going by the title of this thread you would think it was easy to find the cheapest supplier but it isn't.

Disagree.

I do think some consumers cause themselves needless headaches by trying to build an ocean liner when a raft made from a few planks would do.

Appointing an energy supplier on terms that undercut the 'standard' tariffs in the UK really isn't that difficult. We wouldn't know where to begin with a 'spread sheet' and so we've no idea why anyone would want to create one. In our case, we merely:

(1) Paged back through our previous year's gas and electricity "Dual Fuel" billings to locate the annual consumption statement.We were NOT looking to see the prices charged, because prices fluctuate, but the number of units used. That task took us less than 1 hour; NEXT:

(2) We ignored all online 'comparison sites' and joined the MSE Energy Saver Club. We did so for simplicity's sake, not necessarily definitive guidance. Time taken to join, submit the requested info (annual usage figures) and get a series of quotes: less than 30 minutes; NEXT:

(3) We ignored all results from small or new-to-market companies or those with poor feedback. We then took screenshots of the best value tariffs and their unit prices. Time taken: around 30 minutes;

(4) Having kept it quick and simple by avoiding ALL energy comparison sites (other than MSE's, the format of which we like because its content is of greater clarity than those we've encountered at rival comparators) we next:

(5) Avoided all potential suppliers and went straight to the website of the one supplier which we knew provided straightforward information in a straightforward tariff. That supplier was Bulb. (Friends had earlier recommended the company  as being worth checking out if/when we needed to switch.) NEXT:

(6) We screenshot Bulb's tariff / unit prices / standing charge etc and copied pasted that into a Word doc along with the screenshots taken of other alleged energy 'best buys'. Time taken: 30 minutes

(7) Having from the outset decided not to base our decision purely on the basis of cheapest-is-best (because it rarely is) we opted for Bulb. We liked the simplicity and straightforwardness of a single tariff  and we appreciated the way that Bulb directs a substantial chunk of its advertising/promotion budget into new customer acquisition, which meant our friends collected a nice referral fee and we collected a similar amount on signing up. (We find the certainty of that type of system far preferable to the unreliabililty of so-called 'cashback' schemes.) Time taken online at this stage of contract sign-up: 20 minutes.

Total time taken: a morning's work of not more than 3½ hours from start to finish, including time for coffee to debate the reserch stats. Nothing in that process was difficult. Just a simple step by step  routine, evolving from that first fundamental step of knowing exactly how much energy we used in the previous 12 months (and thus side-stepping all the ridiculous stuff we've seen in the past from some price comparators about "typical" this and "average" that: the need to be precise and exact overrides all else when switching. We seriously doubt there's any such entity as "a typical 3 bed house" or an "average family".

The upshot is that we're with a supplier (bulb) who we've found to satisfy all our requirements. We particularly like the quality of its comms, and the speed with which it constructs our monthly consumption billing based on the readings we provide; we've no idea how this carbon offset thing works or whatever greenery it is that Bulb reckons we're helping to achieve, but surmise that such is a good thing, too.

Finally: we couldn't care less that out there in the marketplace are very probably several rival suppliers offering a better deal, albeit to the tune of less than £100 "saved" per year, a sum which to us isn't worth bothering with if it brings with it contract early exit charges as well as the hassle that usually arises when dealing with the likes of a rogue outfit like Scottish Power or one of those newer operators which should never have been granted a licence in the first place.

Hopefully, that explains how our own 3½ hour switching routine was conducted and why it was anything but hard work.

However, I appreciate that may not answer your specific line about "finding the cheapest supplier".

I think it's possible that when saving money (to the exclusion of all other considerations) is the driving force behind the Switch process, it may be that a great deal more time has to be expended just to screw a best-value deal down to the very last penny. Whether the savings achieved justify the amount of time and effort in accruing them is obviously another matter. 

Gerry1

accorian said:

I do think some consumers cause themselves needless headaches by trying to build an ocean liner when a raft made from a few planks would do.

At least three hours of that was wasted building a fleet of Concordes, only to end up choosing an expensive supplier !

• All you needed to dig out were the meter readings from 12 months ago: you should be taking monthly readings anyway, so you don't even need to dig out the bills.  In any case the annual consumption figures on the bill are often estimated and way, way out; far better to see exactly what you used in the last 12 months.
• Not a good idea to rely on the CEC. It misses out cheap suppliers such as Neon Reef, and it hides cheaper Avro tariffs if you are already with Avro; sadly, it can no longer be trusted.  Far better to use several, including Citizens Advice and 'Switch with Which?' because they show all suppliers and don't default to suppliers that pay them commission.
• Not a good idea to avoid smaller suppliers.  They have to have better deals than the big boys, and many of their tariffs don't have exit fees.
• Not a good idea to use a supplier who pays referral fees.  Who do you think pays that £100? YOU do !

dinora