No doubt some of you have smart meters, possibly with apps, and no doubt some of you love lying on the floor staring at your meter with a torch, a scrap of paper and a slide rule.
However, what are your current running costs. Prior to the cold snap but recent enough to have been hit by the hikes) our dual fuel bill had risen to circa £65-£70 per week, and last week it was £101 for the week. We don’t blast heat out more than necessary, and tend to heat just one room in the evening. We live in a double glazed 3 bed semi. We don’t cook things that take more than maybe 1hr tops in total (breakfast&lunch included), and don’t run a tumble drier.
How does this compare with your current running costs?
October was £143.03 on the month
November was £191.17 on the month
December is at the moment averaging £11.34 per day which when multiplied by the 31 days of December will be £351.54
Unfortunately the scales are for cost and there’s no option to convert to kWh or any other SI unit. As much as I’ve got little else to do with these idle hands, I’m not inclined to plough my way through the old bills and spend time on excel to create a chart. So, these two from Bulb’s app will have to suffice. Similar distributions, as expected, but the vertical scale has had to be changed (grrrrrrr)
I am on a pay as you go, I took a meter reading at 6-45 am this morning,I had £63- 22p in my meter, I will check the reading same time tomorrow, then I will know exactly what I’m using in 24 hours.
We are in a 4 bedroomed house and currently our direct debits are £68 for electricity and £55 for the gas per month. Even though we are in credit by £480 with the gas, they are telling us the dd for gas will increase to £76 in January. We are still in credit with the electricity by £130 and they say we are spot on to the end of March 2023. We do try to be as careful as we can and turn off radiators in unused rooms.
We are with octopus too .
The bills are frightening and like Dex we are careful our house is small ( 3 beds ) we don’t have a tumble dryer and we hardly ever use the oven or dishwasher .
While my electric bill will go up, I had to chuckle at this.
I would have to go outside in the dark to read my meter with a torch and it is at shoulder height. I have only needed to read it twice in the past forty years, the first time when they installed a new meter for my off peak hot water to make sure they read it right and more recently when the meter reader misread the meter and my bill was twice what it should have been.
My bill is virtually the same every quarter all year round, give or take $10 (ie when I have a lot of visitors using the shower)
I do wonder about that. My kids who live in Canberra with its bloody awful climate also have relatively stable bills year round, though much higher than mine. They use their air con to heat the house in winter and cool it in summer so their quarterly bill is much the same year round too.
Actually that is a very sore point at the moment. We have coal and gas to spare most of which is exported. WA when they issued licences to mine gas said that 15%had to be reserved for the state market. None of the other states did this viewing it as discouraging investment and interfering in the market place.
Now the Federal Government is imposing a cap on the price of gas for the domestic arguing that the gas belongs to the people and they should not have to pay world prices. Guess what? the gas companies are now claiming it will discourage investment blah blah.but the legislation will go through.
Coal is a more difficult proposition for the federal government the threat of a domestic price cap has the states up in arms saying it will hurt their revenue and they need to be compensated for a price cap on the domestic price.
Why the difference between gas and coal I don’t know but I agree with the government that we should not be paying world prices for our own gas and coal just because of a conflict in Europe. I think Australia is second only to Russia as a gas exporter.
That is truly amazing.
I’m in a one bedroom flat … no hot water system , no washer nor tumble dryer and it costs £3 per night for one storage heater (on Economy 7) … so it’s 90 quid a month just for heating one room if we have it on. No way am I running the three heaters I have else it would be £270.00 just for heating.
Last two months before the cold snap hit … £90.00 a month.
I’m expecting Decembers bill to hit £200.
Sounds complex and political @Bruce. But in terms of availability, you paint a picture of being plentiful which I’d imagine explains why your bills are way lower than ours.
I’ve turned off all upstairs rads and have kitchen and hall on low and lounge on high so 3 rads to heat . I’m putting heating on for 2 or 3 hours first thing then turning off central heating i then put on gas fire onto number 1 or 2 to maintain heat in lounge . I’ve curtained over the stairs with voiles which keeps heat in lounge for slightly longer rather than heat landing . I’m using around £4 a day . My house is 3 bed 40 year old terrace with good loft and wall insulation .
@susan_m … that sounds very very good.
Mind you … having come from a gas/electric property and moving into ‘electric only’ flat I’ve really noticed the difference.
Electric is just plain more expensive.
Those night storage are expensive to run
I wouldn’t want them , mind you my friend lives in 2 bed semi with all electric heaters and her place is chilly as she will only run 1 elec heater a few hours a day . It’s awful isn’t it .
