So confused with energy prices

Ultrasonic

QrizB said:

The right-hand side of your bill has your Estimated Annual Usage figures, about 2700kWh for elextricity and 13000kWh for gas.

On Flexible Octopus, from April, your bill weill be around £165/month averaged over the year; less in the summer, more in winter.

I know you know this but just to highlight: you mean from April until the end of September. At that point the price will likely go up again, making the higher use next winter more expensive. The challenge for us all is guessing how big this increase may be, which in turn dictates whether the Loyal Octopus fix may be the smart move or not.

Ultrasonic

@RhiBi how long have you been with Octopus? If it's over a year then the estimated annual figures will be a good guide. If it's a shorter period of time then there's a good chance it is an overestimate, as your current credit balance would suggest. This would be good news since the over £200 monthly figures you're seeing will be overestimates too.

RhiBi

Ultrasonic said:

@RhiBi how long have you been with Octopus? If it's over a year then the estimated annual figures will be a good guide. If it's a shorter period of time then there's a good chance it is an overestimate, as your current credit balance would suggest. This would be good news since the over £200 monthly figures you're seeing will be overestimates too.

I’ve been with them since December 2020, I was on a fixed rate until December 2021 when I went onto the variable rate.  I was given the warm home discount because I am in receipt of universal credit in order to top up my wage.

RhiBi

I think I’ll increase my dd to £150 a month and hopefully I’ll build up further credit over the next few months that will hopefully help to offset any price increase come October🤷‍♀️

EssexHebridean

Don’t up the DD quite yet. Instead, set up an easy access savings account linked to your current account, label it as something like “energy buffer fund” and put the additional £50 a month into there. If you will be in receipt of the £150 council tax rebate then add that to the new account as well when it lands. Two reasons for saying this: firstly, you’re currently overpaying a little anyway - hence the credit when, at this stage of the year, you should be running toward “empty” as usually the summer months top up the credit again. And secondly, money in a savings account will earn you a few pennies of interest over the year whereas money being held by your energy provider will earn them money instead!  As and when the Octopus account starts running a little dry you will have money saved to top it up with - and extra £100 at a time, as needed. 

Remember also you will be getting the £200 loan-not-loan into your energy account in October - that is effectively 2 months of your current DD for “free” - at leat initially - too. 

Ultrasonic

RhiBi said:

I think I’ll increase my dd to £150 a month and hopefully I’ll build up further credit over the next few months that will hopefully help to offset any price increase come October🤷‍♀️

Going by the numbers in the table that @elsien shared, I make it that your estimated annual usage would correspond to a monthly cost of £166 per month if the current capped rates stayed the same for the whole of the next year. Which, sadly, they virtually certainly won't.

Presumably the Loyal Octopus quoted £218 per month was based on the same estimated annual usage, and over the year it will cost about £623 more than the current cap if this didn't change. For this fix to work out cheaper the monthly payments on the October price cap would need to be more than about £270 (about a 62% increase). Right now nobody can say for certain whether this might happen but the estimates so far have been less than this.

Staying on the Flexible Octopus tariff is therefore probably what I'd do but I must stress it is impossible to know right now whether this will definitely work out cheaper or not. Octopus presumably think their fix is likely to be more expensive though, or they'd be risking losing money.

I know these number are all more expensive than you want to be seeing  . There is a little extra government help planned, which you may well know about already but if not there are details here:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/02/chancellor-unveils-up-to-p350-in-support-for-households-to-mitig/ 

RhiBi

EssexHebridean said:

Don’t up the DD quite yet. Instead, set up an easy access savings account linked to your current account, label it as something like “energy buffer fund” and put the additional £50 a month into there. If you will be in receipt of the £150 council tax rebate then add that to the new account as well when it lands. Two reasons for saying this: firstly, you’re currently overpaying a little anyway - hence the credit when, at this stage of the year, you should be running toward “empty” as usually the summer months top up the credit again. And secondly, money in a savings account will earn you a few pennies of interest over the year whereas money being held by your energy provider will earn them money instead!  As and when the Octopus account starts running a little dry you will have money saved to top it up with - and extra £100 at a time, as needed. 

Remember also you will be getting the £200 loan-not-loan into your energy account in October - that is effectively 2 months of your current DD for “free” - at leat initially - too. 

That is a good idea.  I have a Plum account and do a few regular savings into that so I could open another pocket and label it as such so that it accuse a little interest too.  Thank you x

sitesafe

I’m one of the ex Avro customers that got transferrred.  I am on Flexible Avro which I was told is the same as Flexible Octopus but the rates are slightly higher.  Also my switch to Octopus Loyalty fix the rates again are slightly more expensive than the ones you’re showing.  Maybe because I’m ex Avro I’m being charged a premium?

  I also noticed that a quote to up my payments to £105 a month on a fix the other day went up to £113 overnight!  That’s an increase of nearly 77% on my current payment of 63.87 a month on the Flexible 

QrizB

sitesafe said:

Also my switch to Octopus Loyalty fix the rates again are slightly more expensive than the ones you’re showing.  Maybe because I’m ex Avro I’m being charged a premium?

It's more likely due to rates varying by region, and you being in a slightly more expensive one than the OP.

MWT

sitesafe said:

  I also noticed that a quote to up my payments to £105 a month on a fix the other day went up to £113 overnight!  That’s an increase of nearly 77% on my current payment of 63.87 a month on the Flexible 

The fixed tariffs were updated from the January/February versions to a new, more expensive, March version a few days ago.

With the way the market is right now I would not hesitate too long if you see a fix you like as I suspect we'll see more versions of the fixed tariffs this month...