How much to live on

WYSPECIAL

trevjl said:

Good old Octopus, just had my 3 monthly saying they are going to put the DD up. I'm in credit as always so it's complete nonsense. 

But they want you to lend them even more money interest free!

Albermarle

trevjl said:

Good old Octopus, just had my 3 monthly saying they are going to put the DD up. I'm in credit as always so it's complete nonsense. They do make me chuckle how they say we are supplying all our customers with 100% renewable electricity, like you can split up the supply from the national grid, laughable.

However it is the only practical way to do it, and other suppliers do the same. If Octopus can prove they buy the same amount of renewable energy as they sell, then their claim is valid, even though the electricity you get is a mix of electricity from different sources because of the way the National Grid works.

trevjl

You can't determine where it comes from it's nonsense. So if their customers demand for a certain KW at a certain time is more than the KW they but from a so called renewable source they don't supply it then ?? I don't think so.
They are just trying to use it as a marketing tool to make people that have no clue about electricity generation think they are being all green.

Albermarle

trevjl said:

You can't determine where it comes from it's nonsense. So if their customers demand for a certain KW at a certain time is more than the KW they but from a so called renewable source they don't supply it then ?? I don't think so.
They are just trying to use it as a marketing tool to make people that have no clue about electricity generation think they are being all green.

It is true that the situation is complex, and some 'green' providers are more green than others. This Which article explains it reasonably well.

Differences between green energy suppliers - Which?

You can see that of all the different energy suppliers, Which only rates four suppliers as their top Eco suppliers.

It’s often hard to tell what a company is really doing behind the scenes to support renewable energy. So, in August 2023, we asked energy suppliers in Great Britain to tell us exactly how they sourced their renewable energy and assessed their transparency and clarity. We found four companies that stood out. 

These are 100Green, Ecotricity, Good Energy and Octopus Energy. 

All scored close to full marks for buying and selling renewable power and also scored highly for generating renewable power or selling green gas.

MarzipanCrumble

Octopus at least have reasonably good customer service.  Not to be sneezed at!

trevjl

MarzipanCrumble said:

Octopus at least have reasonably good customer service.  Not to be sneezed at!

apart from this week when I had to ring them to tell them I was not dead as they have been sending me bills to "Estate of .................
The guys voice when I explained the problem and he asked who he was speaking to was amusing, I would love to have been able to see his face. 

robatwork

MarzipanCrumble said:

Octopus at least have reasonably good customer service.  Not to be sneezed at!

At least if you sneeze at an Octopus there's a pretty decent chance they're holding a hanky in one of their tentacles

Organgrinder

Well my move to Ecotricity went through smoothly. Now on a fix 7% lower than current price cap. £129/month v £136/month which was the offer from Octopus. 

Topped my account up this morning @ £0.30 a time to qualify for my tsb double cashback. So £6 energy credit and £10 cashback. Was doing this with Octopus too. In total I've topped up my energy account by £56 and will have got £60 cashback for maybe 30 mins effort over 6 months.

Also started an ISA transfer this morning to Wealthify who will top my account up by £500 this time next year. Ok there's a risk it will go down (stocks and shares isa) but there's usually a one year election "boost" to the stock market.

And finally it's exam marking season. So hopefully another £2000 coming soon.

Oh and recently I've done a bit of tutoring @ £35/hour. 

All of which has allowed me to buy some new garden furniture. After 6 years in the house, the garden is finally starting to look almost presentable!

DT2001

Octopus were good when my account was moved from one of the suppliers that went pop. By the start of spring I had built up a healthy credit balance (partly due to decreased heating costs) and with the drop in rates I asked for a refund. The amount refunded was about a quarter of the balance - partly I think because the DDR was set for 7 days after the monthly bill and their forecast for the coming months being conservative. The option to ask for a further refund requires a phone call so I just adjusted the DDR date 3 times in a month to in effect have a ‘free’ month. Now if I look at their forecasts they think I need to up my DDR by 20%+ . It will only need adjustment when costs change. Maybe the system works for most.

louby40

We have now sold our house and are currently living with my parents, who are very fit and able 80 year olds. We've been there for 4 weeks now. It's very interesting, mildly irritating in some ways living with your parents again aged 55, but we are grateful that they are ok with us temporarily living in their spare room. 

We decided to break the chain so my buyer could move in. We're waiting for the sale to go through of our onward purchase which we hope will be in the next couple of weeks.

So, there's a large sum of money earning interest and being mortgage free feels very strange.

im desperate to move now and have our own space and things back.