Was it really worth switching?

wakeupalarm

Which is the point I'm making, we have been told to switch and save but sticking with the big 6 would have worked out better.  There were no warnings about Avro Energy or any other supplier at the end of July when I checked the comparison sites.  Your link was published in mid September.

If my crystal ball was working we wouldn't obviously have gone with Avro but the point I made still stands.  It's not been worth it,  If we had stuck with the big 6 when switching throughout the last 5 years, we would still have been better off by now.

QrizB

wakeupalarm said:

Which is the point I'm making, we have been told to switch and save but sticking with the big 6 would have worked out better.

And my point is it wouldn't; you've saved £300-£350 but are now paying at most £240 more.

wakeupalarm said:

There were no warnings about Avro Energy or any other supplier at the end of July when I checked the comparison sites.

Avro went bust on the 26th of September. You said you switched a couple of weeks before that, so early September. The warnings were there from mid-August.

If you switched in July you could *still* have heeded the warnings in mid-August and switched away then. You chose not to.

wakeupalarm

I know how much we are paying more and it wipes out the £300-350 savings we have made by switching to non-big 6 suppliers over the last 5 years.  Could have, would have, should have is not the point, we didn't so for us It has not been worth it.

milgo

Over the past 5 years there were consistently some rather large savings to be had over the cheapest of the big 6,and huge savings over the dearest of the big 6. So we arrive at now and all of the cheapest tariffs are exactly the same so not sure how you arrive at you would have saved money being with a big 6 for the past 5 years! 

Petriix

I'll never understand why someone would come to a money saving website and trumpet the virtues of wasting money.

Given that the cheapest 'deals' from the big (now) 5 suppliers have typically been hundreds of pounds more expensive than the cheapest suppliers, I fail to see how anyone thinks they've gained anything by paying more.

Yes, some people are still within their fixed period with a big supplier and are now saving slightly over the cheapest deal with Neon Reef. But, cumulatively, they've paid more over the years. All those fixed deals will end at some point in the next few months, then it's the same boat for everyone.

NINJA59

Over the near 4 years we have lived in the current property I have definitely saved the £300 increase it is going to cost us in being with 6 suppliers (including now 3 SoLR's). 

The fact the process happens barely registers with me now, I just need to do some extra meter readings go to a different site and just keep an eye a little more than I normally would. 

In terms SoLR octopus have been the best, British gas the worst and by some margin.

The biggest issue this time round was long term, cheap fixed tariffs for companies looking to build market share, is the plain and simple problem. The market is truly broken, the energy cap ensuring suppliers are also !!!!!! over when it comes actual real costs as well (blame government to a degree there), come April 2022 I think there is more significant energy related pain to come.

Looking around the octopus helpful 24m fixed I managed to get us on is only £36 more than when looked around just prior to the Avro collapse, but the tariff lasted days (big thank you to this place highlighting the existence of it).

For those looking around with a fixed coming to an end, interesting times ahead. 

Reed_Richards

I was on a one year fixed tariff that ended at the end of October.  Now the best deal available is the Standard Variable Rate tariff.  It makes not one jot of a difference whether I (or anybody else) was with a big supplier or one that went bust.  If you are lucky and signed-up to a fixed rate tariff (before September) that is still ongoing you will be paying less than you are/will if that tariff ended recently or ends anytime soon.  It's just the luck of the timing.

brewerdave

OP - I did the sums about 18 months ago and I'd saved £3000+ over the "standard" big 6 variable tariffs over the previous 6 years or so . I'm now with two small suppliers who may or may not survive much longer but I'm getting leccy at ~ 13p/kwh and gas at ~ 2.6p/kwh - the longer the better!!!

tghe-retford

Petriix said:

I'll never understand why someone would come to a money saving website and trumpet the virtues of wasting money.

Given that the cheapest 'deals' from the big (now) 5 suppliers have typically been hundreds of pounds more expensive than the cheapest suppliers, I fail to see how anyone thinks they've gained anything by paying more.

Yes, some people are still within their fixed period with a big supplier and are now saving slightly over the cheapest deal with Neon Reef. But, cumulatively, they've paid more over the years. All those fixed deals will end at some point in the next few months, then it's the same boat for everyone.

I think the argument is that everyone should be paying at least a minimum for their unit prices and standing charges, as opposed to the maximum set by the price cap. Something that only the most expensive tariffs could even hope to meet. So rather than companies competing on unit prices and standing charges that won't meet the wholesale costs, they'd have to charge at least wholesale costs, plus a safety buffer and compete on additional services such as customer services, boiler cover and so forth. Cheaper services providing a no-frills service, like PlusNet compared to BT or Smarty compared to Three.

Like with Openreach, you have line rental, they charge a minimum wholesale rate and everyone can't charge less than that. Something similar to that, so that there is a guarantee that the resources will be paid for by everyone. Problem is with electric and gas, unlike telecoms, the price is variable. The only way to end that is to abolish the fixed tariffs and charge dependant on the true current prices. I fear we will see a move to variable time of use tariffs as the norm in future with the highest price charged over a period of time for those who refuse to switch to a smart meter as a disincentive. Look at how Agile Octopus works, that'll likely be the future.

QrizB

I've looked back at my records. Over the past ten years I've had nine suppliers, seven dual-fuel plus the current two single-fuel (Octopus and Zog). And nineteen tariffs, seventeen dual-fuel plus the current two.

Before this year, switching supplier has saved me money compared to the previous tariff on almost every occasion, by as much as £200 per year. My highest annual equivalent amount (assuming current-day consumption numbers) was in 2013, when I was paying nPower £990 per year; my lowest, 2018 when OFTM were asking £560 for the same. (I was fortunate to fix in September but if I was on an Ofgem-capped tariff today, the current cost would be ~£1095.)

What I don't have is a complete counterfactual; if I had stayed with Southern Electric (the local legacy supplier) for the whole time, what would I have paid? Although I was with them in 2014 and my subsequent switch to First Utility saved me £150/yr.

It's also interesting (to me, at least) to see that prices today are only ~11% higher than they were in 2013, while CPI has risen 17% in the same time and the Basic State Pension has risen almost 25% from £110.15 to £137.60.