Switching Beginner

Potbellypig

Switching gas and electric deals has never been my forte, as I've never really understood it, so I've never really bothered. But last year I took on Martin's advice and switched suppliers. I was paying around £110 per month for years and checked out the compare pages to find Eon offering £75 per month. I thought it was a great deal and everyone was doing it so thought it was a no brainer.

We recieved a bill today saying we are £400 in debit for the last year. Spoke to someone on live chat today and he said the bill is based on an estimate. I've sent over my meter readings and they've said they'll get back to us with another bill, but I'm thinking surely the estimate isn't going to be far away. So frustrating as I would have just happily plodded away paying £100+ a month and not have this bill to pay now.

Sounds like a bit of a rant but I'm a little uneducated on the switching of gas and electric side of things, so I thought I'd see anyone else that's had this sort of experience, or have I just been really naive in this whole thing?

Talldave

How much energy do you use per year? What price were you paying before and what price are you paying now? From all that info you can work out how much what you use costs and whether your monthly payments towards the cost are sufficient. 

If your bills are estimated it sounds like you haven't been reading your meters and sending in readings.  How then would you have any idea what your energy spend actually is? If you know the cost of what you use (it obviously varies throughout the year) you would know if your monthly payments were about right.

Gerry1

Unfortunately, you have.  That said, it's one of the most common problems on this forum!

You need to forget all savings claims and predictions and forget DD amounts, the DD is merely a kitty that may or may not be sufficient to pay the full amount. You must send monthly meter readings and compare the annual costs based on your actual annual consumption.  Always compare single suppliers as well as dual fuel.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits/#whatyoupay

Robin9

That surely wasn't the first bill you received last year was it ?   Look back at those and see what the bottom line was and you may well see the debt building up.

Get into the habit of reading your meters every month, keep  a basic spreadsheet and do some simple sums - then you can see what's going on before you receive your bill.

Gerry1

Calculating electricity costs is a doddle, just read the meter on the wall, see how many kWh you have used and do the sums. 

However, gas meters record volumes not kWh, so they have to be converted.  That's easy if you let this site do it for you.