Bulb Energy customers will be moved to Octopus Energy.

bristolleedsfan

...........

sourpuss2021

Okay so if it would cost more after the switch to Octopus, I thought perhaps I should look into setting up a direct debit.   But what madness is this?!!?  Obviously I would never consider paying by direct debit when the figures are so ridiculous...

Plan name
Equal Direct Debit

We recommend £162.72 a month, based on your usage.

[Actual usage]Latest statement

£75.46
01 Sep to 30 Sep 2022

bristolleedsfan

sourpuss2021 said:

Okay so if it would cost more after the switch to Octopus, I thought perhaps I should look into setting up a direct debit.   But what madness is this?!!?  Obviously I would never consider paying by direct debit when the figures are so ridiculous...

Plan name
Equal Direct Debit

We recommend £162.72 a month, based on your usage.

[Actual usage]Latest statement

£75.46
01 Sep to 30 Sep 2022

It is possible to set up a DD and ask for monthly payment amount to be set @£1 per month paying any remaining amount by other methods of payment, or ask for variable DD to be set up which takes full payment about 10 working days after statement has been produced.

EssexHebridean

If you know your annual use in kWh Octopus are extremely good at setting the DD amount to be correct in my experience. When I joined them recently I gave accurate use figures for both the gas and the electricity, gave them the day/night split for the electric, and the amount the call handler suggested was pretty much spot on what I expected (£113 a month). I had intended to go onto variable DD with them but in fact decided instead to go on standard monthly DD as this seemed like a promising start. 

sourpuss2021

Thanks, that's all useful to know.

Keep_pedalling

sourpuss2021 said:

Okay so if it would cost more after the switch to Octopus, I thought perhaps I should look into setting up a direct debit.   But what madness is this?!!?  Obviously I would never consider paying by direct debit when the figures are so ridiculous...

Plan name
Equal Direct Debit

We recommend £162.72 a month, based on your usage.

[Actual usage]Latest statement

£75.46
01 Sep to 30 Sep 2022

It’s not really madness, the new price cap came in on the 1st October so going forward it will cost a lot more to use the same amount of energy. There was also little call for heating costs in September (or October come to that) but your use and costs will go up significantly once we actually get some cold weather.

ariarnia

sourpuss2021 said:

Okay so if it would cost more after the switch to Octopus, I thought perhaps I should look into setting up a direct debit.   But what madness is this?!!?  Obviously I would never consider paying by direct debit when the figures are so ridiculous...

Plan name
Equal Direct Debit

We recommend £162.72 a month, based on your usage.

[Actual usage]Latest statement

£75.46
01 Sep to 30 Sep 2022

thats a monthly dd not a variable so you would pay more than you use in summer so you pay less than you use in winter. £162 a month is about £1952 a year.

thats less than the 'average' household on the cap paying by dd. you might use a lot more or a lot less than the average but one (warm bright) month isnt a good month to use to guess what your yearly cost might be. you paid £75 in september but i'd bet money you paid a lot more than that last january. and the point of monthly dd is to average it out. 

if you want to know if the quote is reasonable or not you should really look at your actual usage. two ways to do that would be (easier but less accurate) how much did you spend on your energy over the last 12 months? then add in that rates have gone up since then so your bill might have doubled for the same use.  

or (more accurate but some sums) look at two meter readings about 12 months apart (from your bills) then times that by the unit rates they've quoted you and add on the standing charge. 

sourpuss2021

Keep_pedalling said:

sourpuss2021 said:

Okay so if it would cost more after the switch to Octopus, I thought perhaps I should look into setting up a direct debit.   But what madness is this?!!?  Obviously I would never consider paying by direct debit when the figures are so ridiculous...

Plan name
Equal Direct Debit

We recommend £162.72 a month, based on your usage.

[Actual usage]Latest statement

£75.46
01 Sep to 30 Sep 2022

It’s not really madness, the new price cap came in on the 1st October so going forward it will cost a lot more to use the same amount of energy. There was also little call for heating costs in September (or October come to that) but your use and costs will go up significantly once we actually get some cold weather.

Ah yes, good point about the price going up from 1st October.   Though I am sure that my energy usage in November-February will be far lower than in previous years simply because I'm aware how much more expensive it will be.

The projected figures remind me of those COVID graphs that used to show every person on the planet getting infected if the rate of growth continued that way forever.  In both instances, there's little or no consideration of how people's behaviour changes to stop the worst outcome from happening.

ariarnia

sourpuss2021 said:

Keep_pedalling said:

sourpuss2021 said:

Okay so if it would cost more after the switch to Octopus, I thought perhaps I should look into setting up a direct debit.   But what madness is this?!!?  Obviously I would never consider paying by direct debit when the figures are so ridiculous...

Plan name
Equal Direct Debit

We recommend £162.72 a month, based on your usage.

[Actual usage]Latest statement

£75.46
01 Sep to 30 Sep 2022

It’s not really madness, the new price cap came in on the 1st October so going forward it will cost a lot more to use the same amount of energy. There was also little call for heating costs in September (or October come to that) but your use and costs will go up significantly once we actually get some cold weather.

Ah yes, good point about the price going up from 1st October.   Though I am sure that my energy usage in November-February will be far lower than in previous years simply because I'm aware how much more expensive it will be.

The projected figures remind me of those COVID graphs that used to show every person on the planet getting infected if the rate of growth continued that way forever.  In both instances, there's little or no consideration of how people's behaviour changes to stop the worst outcome from happening.

i get what your saying but HOW could they estemate your changed usage? especially as a new customer. all they can really go on is what you tell them your last 12 months usage is. but unlike a bill you pay the money goes into an account so you can always review and drop your dd if you are building up to much credit. the alternative is variable dd where you only pay what you use each month. but then you need to be happy knowing that if the prices have gone up or you use more then you need to find the cash that month and not spread it out over a longer period. no right or wrong really. different things suit different people. 

sourpuss2021

Thanks for the explanation, ariarnia.   The heaviest month of the year, January 2022, had this usage:

01 January 2022 to 31 January 2022 bill £144.82
229.0 kWh electricity @ 19.7740 p/kWh
1945.8 kWh gas @ 3.9870 p/kWh

That would be about £310 under the energy price cap.  So I definitely need to be more careful now.  We'll see how it goes but yes I think I will stick with Variable for now, even if it does look like switching to Direct Debit will be the best thing to do after the move to Octopus.