How much do you pay for electricity?

weejack65

Switching off from standby on electrical appliances does help a great deal as I have found as, since my family started an energy saving drive about a year ago ( due to my rants about elec. bills) we have saved approximately 20 pounds per month by reducing our monthly direct debit bills from 56 pounds a month to 37....also leaving mobile phone chargers on well past their charge time is apparently very expensive in energy terms....energy saving bulbs are another great help and can be purchased relatively cheaply now as we found at ikea in belfast where we got a pack of 3 ES bulbs for 2.99.....

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Remember - Its better in your pocket than theirs !!!

and If you're going thru hell - Keep going !!!

iluvfreebies

Our electric is £35 /mth for 2 of us - pay by DD each month

Tobyruby

I pay around £33 a month - not by direct debit as I have had issues with gas and electricity providers losing my details etc. I work from home, so the computer is on most of the day. I don't have TV, dishwasher, tumble dryer. But I do use a small electric heater in the office rather than heating the whole house using LPG gas, which costs a bloody fortune. The heater definitely pushes the bill up, but nowhere near what the gas costs.

ollywood68

my house is a 3 bedroom semi detached house. i have a wife and 2 young kids. my monthly electricity bill is about £60 per month. this seems average when compared to friends

dmxdave

declanh wrote: »

dmxdave,
I dont think this is a reliable method for a lot of devices. It may work for things that have VERY constant output but it does not work at all (even closely) for those which are variable.
For example, my pc which has a 480w power supply actually uses about 115watts (ive measured this with a maplin appliance energy meter (see here http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343&doy=5m1&C=SO&U=strat15)

similarly my 280w sony av amp draws about 99 watts.

I would imagine this calculation would perhaps work much better for things like electric kettles.

Thanks Declan, bought one on EBay for £15 inc P&P Great wee unit

attritioner

From HDUK, this item looks useful. Like the one mentioned earlier in the thread but apparently available from B&Q (instore) for £29.99

See original HDUK post here.

declanh

attritioner wrote: »

From HDUK, this item looks useful. Like the one mentioned earlier in the thread but apparently available from B&Q (instore) for £29.99

See original HDUK post here.

thats a very good price.
I dont think the OWL gives you totals like the efergy monitor i mentioned earlier.
Knowing how much you use per day/week/month/year I imagine will be very useful to know.

kyral

I got a pay-as-you-go meter installed a few years ago. I live in an end terrace house and there are three of us. My weekly usage is around £6.80 at the minute but it falls to around £4.80 in the summer months.

With the meter you can see exactly what electricity is costing at any given time and so it is very easy to work out what costs the most to run. The best thing I ever did was to turn the pc off when not in use.
Also I have 6 halogen spotlights in my kitchen and Ive learnt to keep these off if possible.

Ring NIE and get yourself one of these meters, there is no charge. Tariffs can be seen on the NIE website.

Dec...£31.64
Nov...£29.46
Oct...£26.12
Sept...£25.03
Aug...23.79
Jul...24.80
June..19.46

miserly_mum

ollywood68 wrote: »

my house is a 3 bedroom semi detached house. i have a wife and 2 young kids. my monthly electricity bill is about £60 per month. this seems average when compared to friends

We are in a 3 bedroom semi aswell, 2 adults 3 kids and its usually £60p/month for us too.

Bit less in summer when I dry clothes outside and don't use the tumble drier as much

Jules

Up until last week I was paying £92 a month for my electricity and with pending redundancy I knew this had to be reduced. I rang NIE to see if they would reduce the DD but no they said that this was what I used.
I then asked for the keypad meter to be installed and it was last week.

In the last week my usage has been £15 which I have worked out will be about £65 a month thats £27 a month of a saving. I am beginning to think my old meter may have been faulty, unfortunately I can't prove it as it was removed to fit the keypad.

I know £65 still seems a lot and I intend to work on this (have discovered the cooker hood uses loads as the keypad shows you what KW your using and how much it costs) but its a far cry from £92.

I would advise anyone to get a keypad meter. You can see exactly what your using and whats using it very informative.