Octopus Tracker

debitcardmayhem

Mines back to 4.73 tomorrow & sat

QrizB

Back to 4.85p here, after the hump in the week.

octoask

I'm struggling to choose between the current fixed tariff on offer or to switch to Tracker.

The fixed tariff is 4% under the price cap (when calculated to my usage) so it is a very safe bet that it will be cheaper than a variable tariff over the course of 12 months.

However I'm wondering if I should give Tracker a go - though have some questions please:

1. I don't want to become obsessed with unit costs, or to need to track them every day. I would rather make a few optimisations and then 'forget' about my usage beyond that point. Does this make me a bad candidate for 'Tracker'?

2. Put another way... if I switched to Tracker and didn't make any changes, would it likely still be cheaper than a Fixed tariff across the course of 12 months? I don't mind paying higher than a fixed tariff for periods of time, so long as it evens out in the end.

To answer these questions, here is some basic info about my usage:

I live in North Yorkshire.

I would be switching to Tracker for both electricity and gas.

I have no low carbon tech at all.

My latest bill estimates my annual usages at:

Electricity: 2560.2 kWh

Gas: 10642 kWh

The fixed deal unit charges are:

Electricity: 24.62p per kWh + 55.39p per day.

Gas: 5.87p per kWh + 28.93p per day.

Would really appreciate a steer on this as I'm not very savvy about it all.

Thanks!

JerryW

I'm with you on keeping life simple. Some around here seem to spend their life compariing tariffs and daily - even hourly! - rates.

We are on tracker and we have the lovely octo-tracker free phone app. It tells you today's price and come 11am, tomorrow's price. Stuff that can be done anytime, like the washing machine, the dishwasher or charging our plug-in, we do when it's cheapest. That's it, really. Octoprice tells me today's price is 13% below cap, and tomorrow's is cheaper still. I reckon you'd save even if you never looked at it at all. 

tlcgrantham

We’ve been on Gas Tracker for several years and occasionally Electric Tracker. The formulas for calculating them change frequently and are not as good as they once were. However it should still yield a profit compared to any fixed deal though not guaranteed. The current 6 month average prices for Yorkshire are
     5.12p for gas and 21.14p for electricity with sc gas 29.67p and electricity 57.27p.
     

Bear in mind too that wholesale prices tend to be a little higher in winter so those averages may rise.
       

    When prices go high you can always change tariff. Your formula is fixed for 12 months.

Slinky

tlcgrantham said:

       

    When prices go high you can always change tariff. Your formula is fixed for 12 months.

A condition of Tracker is that if you come off it, you can't return for 9 months, so you do need to be sure if you decide to exit the tariff.

Spoonie_Turtle

octoask said:
…
Put another way... if I switched to Tracker and didn't make any changes, would it likely still be cheaper than a Fixed tariff across the course of 12 months? I don't mind paying higher than a fixed tariff for periods of time, so long as it evens out in the end.
…

If you are already with Octopus you can see whether your normal usage pattern would have been cheaper on the latest Tracker for the last 12 months by using https://octopriceuk.app (web page) or the free trial version of Octopus Compare app (the completely free version shows the last 30 days).  That's never a guarantee for the future, but to give some idea.

[You can also use those to see if Agile would have been cheaper without making any changes, but I completely understand the mental load aspect as that's why I held out switching to Agile for as long as possible. 

For us it turns out to be cheaper anyway, and I do keep half an eye on the prices especially when there's activity on the forum to suggest a very cheap or plunge pricing day, but it's worked out that we can give as much or as little attention to it as suits us and it still works out cheaper.  It's just how much cheaper, the magnitude of savings, is determined by how much attention we choose to give to the pricing.  But I don't obsess, none of us on my family have the brainpower to spare to do that!]

octoask

Many thanks for those links, much appreciated - though I feel stupid as I have no idea how to use it or what any of it means! Any pointers please if you have the time? Thanks again.