It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

JinJinBlue

I've started to put things away for winter too. I have some shelves in my garage and put things in there. I won't have to go shopping for at least 2 weeks because my fridge and freezer are filled with yellow sticker bargains. I don't mind long life milk so I have a stock of oat milk in. As I'm vegetarian verging on vegan my grocery bills are probably lower than average. Hoping to put any money saved into my "Replaster the walls and ceiling in my kitchen", fund. I have a textured ceiling and it can't just be patched. Any savings will help. Stay cool friends. 

CKhalvashi

Our bills rocketed quite sharply when the existing deal ran out, we're with Shell.

We were paying 11.1p/kWh overnight on an E7 rate, which is especially important for car charging (I've got a Hyundai Ioniq that was costing about 2.5p/mile to run before the deal expired). It's now 18.579p, so hasn't risen too sharply and is still a lot cheaper than petrol/diesel (it's saving about 16p/mile over my diesel Jag currently in terms of what diesel would have cost, or a payback of around 150000 miles/5-6 years), but the day rate has increased to 33.7p.

I'm starting to cook at around 11pm now, as well as getting a load of washing done around the same time when necessary. We've looked at one of the 5p/kWh car charging deals but can't make the numbers work at the moment on our usage.

Business electricity is cheaper than personal electricity at the moment, which seems stupid to me. I may or may not have been transferring £5 to the company account on occasion when I've been in the office all day and charging the car at work. We are switching slowly to EV for the van fleet (second Vauxhall Vivaro double cab will arrive mid-September, replacing a '65' plate Sprinter with 9 seats, but the industry trend has been to go slightly smaller), so we have the infrastructure in place for that in 4 parking spaces.

Floss

YoungBlueEyes said:

The principle’s the same though. I’ll not pay £2 a day for no heat and no shower if I can get it for £1.50. (Roundy made-up figures again.)

I pay £0.90 a day total standing charge for both gas & electricity, including VAT.

elsien

YoungBlueEyes said:

Energy tariffs - I check the standing charges for each company and pick the lowest. That way when I’m using no or very little energy, my bills will be the smallest possible. 

There are pretty much only fixed rates out there at the moment. And expensive ones at that, because they are anticipating the October price increase. There may be one or two companies taking new customers onto the standard variable tariff, the majority are not.
You are likely to find that your options are to sit on the variable rate of your existing provider, or look at an expensive fixed tariff of which they are few and far between unless with your existing provider also. 

YoungBlueEyes

Effician said:

Unfortunately the choices you were used to no longer exist, you may want to take a look at what today's reality is & what's in store for October.

I’ve just checked my “today’s reality”, and it’s nowhere near £2 a day. It would have to nearly quadruple to be £2 a day!

I appreciate that gas and electric prices are volatile (in one direction, naturally) and will be mental come October. Gawd help me if standing charges are actually going to go up by that much… 

Effician

YoungBlueEyes said:

Effician said:

Unfortunately the choices you were used to no longer exist, you may want to take a look at what today's reality is & what's in store for October.

I’ve just checked my “today’s reality”, and it’s nowhere near £2 a day. It would have to nearly quadruple to be £2 a day!
 

I made no mention of £2/day , it was you that stated " (Roundy made-up figures again.)"

YoungBlueEyes said:

Runs out soon sadly, and we’re moving too so god knows what it’ll be next! 

The principle’s the same though. I’ll not pay £2 a day for no heat and no shower if I can get it for £1.50. (Roundy made-up figures again.)

elsien

My standard charges on SVR (no choice due to previous supplier going bust) are Electricity: 47.86p per day

Gas: 27.22p per day

The unit rates are 

Electricity: 27.86p per kWh Gas: 7.36p per kWh

There’s nothing cheaper out there to move to. 

The expectation is that the standing charges are unlikely to move a huge amount come October but that unit rates will hoik upwards at speed. 

Effician

This is a projection by QuizB from the energy thread

Cornwall Insight original press release here:

https://www.cornwall-insight.com/default-tariff-cap-forecast-climbs-further-as-ofgem-announcement-looms/

» show previous quotes

If I break that down, assuming similar standing charge rates to the April cap, I get:

	Q4 2022	Q1 2023
Gas SC £	100	100
Gas price £	1700.34	1777.81
Gas /kWh p	14.17	14.82
Elec SC £	170	170
Elec price £	1274.2	1315.89
Elec /kWh p	43.94	45.38

Floss

YoungBlueEyes said:

I’ve just checked my “today’s reality”, and it’s nowhere near £2 a day. It would have to nearly quadruple to be £2 a day!

I've just rechecked the figure I posted earlier, it's actually 75p a day in standing charge including VAT on my standard tariff. When on a fix I was paying just under 27p a day.

Nargleblast

MSE Martin was saying a while ago that if you can get a new deal that is 50% or less higher than what you're paying now, then it might be worth taking it, as the rise later this year will work out more than that. It's still complex though, so many ifs and buts. All we can do is stay on the ball with our usage and cut waste where we see it.