Octopus Tracker

PennineAcute

masonic said:

PennineAcute said:

niktheguru said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

You were able to "compare" 3 tariffs for the same period - as well as a 4th retrospectively.

The wonders of smart meters and technology sam! :- (no excel spreadsheets required!)

Yet to find an app to give me a reasonable approximation of what my monthly payments should be.  I can find a spreadsheet though!

Octopus Compare can be used for this. You just need to use the month view a day or two before your next bill is generated and it should predict how much it will be with reasonable accuracy. While I use my own tool for this, it enables me to preload my account using a credit card and avoid my variable DD triggering. If you are on fixed DD, then I think you'd need to pay for the year view and divide that total by 12 to get your historic monthly average spend.

Spreadsheets (Libre Office)  are free

masonic

PennineAcute said:

masonic said:

PennineAcute said:

niktheguru said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

You were able to "compare" 3 tariffs for the same period - as well as a 4th retrospectively.

The wonders of smart meters and technology sam! :- (no excel spreadsheets required!)

Yet to find an app to give me a reasonable approximation of what my monthly payments should be.  I can find a spreadsheet though!

Octopus Compare can be used for this. You just need to use the month view a day or two before your next bill is generated and it should predict how much it will be with reasonable accuracy. While I use my own tool for this, it enables me to preload my account using a credit card and avoid my variable DD triggering. If you are on fixed DD, then I think you'd need to pay for the year view and divide that total by 12 to get your historic monthly average spend.

Spreadsheets (Libre Office)  are free

It depends how much value you put on your time. That said, I wrote my own comparison tool, but that I would class as a recreational activity.

QrizB

https://agile.octopushome.net/compare-your-consumption will let you compare your current Octopus tariff to Agile.

I'm still winning on Go vs. Agile, it seems.

Telegraph_Sam

@OrizB: Interesting web page link worth investigating. Is it an alternative to "Compare"?
I can see the logic in comparing Agile with Tracker. Is the comparison with Go a fair one?

PennineAcute

masonic said:

PennineAcute said:

masonic said:

PennineAcute said:

niktheguru said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

You were able to "compare" 3 tariffs for the same period - as well as a 4th retrospectively.

The wonders of smart meters and technology sam! :- (no excel spreadsheets required!)

Yet to find an app to give me a reasonable approximation of what my monthly payments should be.  I can find a spreadsheet though!

Octopus Compare can be used for this. You just need to use the month view a day or two before your next bill is generated and it should predict how much it will be with reasonable accuracy. While I use my own tool for this, it enables me to preload my account using a credit card and avoid my variable DD triggering. If you are on fixed DD, then I think you'd need to pay for the year view and divide that total by 12 to get your historic monthly average spend.

Spreadsheets (Libre Office)  are free

It depends how much value you put on your time. That said, I wrote my own comparison tool, but that I would class as a recreational activity.

There are a few things my spreadsheet does that the apps do not do.  Improved my skills whilst designing them (need the skills for work).

My time is valuable, but so are other things.  Many years ago, I got myself into a mess with my gas and electricity and ended up on prepay.  Went back onto credit meters in 2017 (using valuable info from this site) now know where I am up to. 

Now if I can work out how to use Octopus API and auto update my spreadsheet with 30 min reads for gas and elec, my spreadsheet will be the thing.

PennineAcute

QrizB said:

https://agile.octopushome.net/compare-your-consumption will let you compare your current Octopus tariff to Agile.

I'm still winning on Go vs. Agile, it seems.

Trouble with that site, unless I am wrong, is that it only uses the initial daily 48 30 minute readings to calculate your daily usage, and not your overall cost/total usage to work out the overall daily unit rate.

masonic

PennineAcute said:

Now if I can work out how to use Octopus API and auto update my spreadsheet with 30 min reads for gas and elec, my spreadsheet will be the thing.

Getting a smart meter and being able to pull from the API is what led me out of a spreadsheet and into python. However, I still primarily use a spreadsheet to track my finances, and this is powered by a script that goes out and fetches various balances and investment prices for me and writes them into a reference CSV doc. So that is a possible hybrid approach.

Telegraph_Sam

I use a spreadsheet to check that I agree with what is displayed in the invoices (without going to the extent of cross checking the individual period charges / rates at source). That done, for me it is not worth the extra hassle of arguing over forecast monthly average charges when the option of variable D/D's takes all the guesswork out of the equation with or without spreadsheets.

niktheguru

I'd like to know, for all those checking their invoices with spreadsheets and coding, how many times have you detected significant errors in octopus' billing for your account and have you had any refunds/reimbursements?

I ask as I'm intrigued if it's worth it. I normally keep very stringent tracks like the rest of you in terms of finances etc. I used to keep a track of energy usage, but as the energy usage and billing has become more complex I have let it go and relied upon octopus and their billing to get it right. Of course I check my consumption and billing regularly but it always looks right.

The only problem I've had with octopus in the past is when they occasionally randomly have moved me off tracker onto flexible without warning and by mistake. But this is something that's easily visible and reversible just by looking at billing.

Interested to hear other people's experiences and whether the data logging is merely just a hobby or whether it has a purpose with some tangible outcomes!

Telegraph_Sam

For me it is a trade-off between doing Octopus' home work from ground zero with all the time and effort required to obtain and process the source data. And at the other extreme trusting completely that the system is infallible, and just paying the bills blindly. Not a million miles away from your second para once I had finally persuaded them to quote my meter readings in the invoices. Which removed much of the guesswork.
That said, I am not aware of any real mistakes in my invoices based on the spreadsheet checks that I do. No hassle with refunds. Once the formulas have been set up in the spreadsheet it is not too onerous to keep going. Though it wouldn't surprise me if this is upset with the introduction of the Dec 23 tariff.
[case in point: I take the kWh "industry" conversion formula used in the gas invoices as an external given since I wouldn't know how to check it. If I did it would probably no longer be a hobby