Save money on your utilities

katykicker

I am a work from home Mum from Essex.
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Darcey

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Hi Katy
Being a singleton I found that by using a water meter I saved hundred on my water bills....I probably pay a third of what I did when I wasn't on the meter.

Re gas and electric. I was with the very well known one for gas which was becoming more and more expensive every time I received a bill I could not understand why it was so much as I had a light usage but apparently that's what I had to pay! I got fed up of them and looked into switching and fixing. I ended up switching the gas to the same provider for my electric on a dual fuel tariff. This was fixed for two years so I knew the price wouldn't go up per unit in that time, not only that but the price was so much cheaper than my previous provider. I think it was by a few hundred a year at least! Anyway that deal comes to an end in March and there was no exit fee so I've recent switched to another provider - still part way through the process which is very easy and just a case of sitting back and waiting to hear when you need to give a meter reading. This other provider will have saved me £11 a month more than the last provider. This deal is for 18 months fixed and I get £30 cash back BUT there is a £60 exit fee so if you do wish to exit nearer the end of the deal then I suppose you could say the £60 exit fee is really a £30 exit fee if you take into account the £30 cashback. I have to be honest and say that all this has probably been helped with the fact that I had a new combi boiler installed two years' ago which is supposed to be energy efficient. But I would recommend the comparison site to check out the best switch. I am with Cheap Energy Club which lets you know automatically if there are any cheaper deals than the one you are on. I'm ringing the praises of switching right now but I am only part-way through the process and hoping it will run smoothly as last time but it was a very easy transition from what I recall!

Broadband - not such great luck - I'm with V where it seems I have to have a package or if I just want BB then it's more or less the same prices. I find them quite expensive to be honest and they do tend to put the prices up quite a lot over time. The best deals they give to new customers. However they seem to be pretty reliable with the service. TBH I've not tried to haggle with them recently but I don't think they give in much, plus I'm only on the basic package.
 

Chammy

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We're big on energy saving and saving by switching.

Gas and Electricity - we recently switched provider after our last decided that we used our annual energy consumption in July alone and doubled our payments. We had to fight them each month with meter readings and no matter how many we gave they still noted estimates. On top of the switch, saving the obvious overpayment and then some we also got £50 in cashback :D

Water - we lived in a small 2 bed many years ago and were paying £33, when we moved to a 3 bed they wanted us to pay £45 a month which we thought was ridiculous so requested a water meter. We've been on/around £19 a month ever since.

Broadband - now we can, we're in the lucky position of Aaron working for BT so our broadband is free (just pay for line rental and a lower rate for TV services). We have to signup as a normal customer so got £120 in cashback for that too ;)

All our bulbs are energy saving, we use the smaller flush on the loo and it might sounds disgusting but we'll shout out before flushing to see if someone else wants the low - a bit more civilised than the whole "if it's yellow let it mellow". We try to get energy efficient appliances with a minimum of an A grading and we charge phones in the car where possible ;)
 

Darcey

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Chammy said:
We're big on energy saving and saving by switching.

Gas and Electricity - we recently switched provider after our last decided that we used our annual energy consumption in July alone and doubled our payments. We had to fight them each month with meter readings and no matter how many we gave they still noted estimates. On top of the switch, saving the obvious overpayment and then some we also got £50 in cashback :D

Water - we lived in a small 2 bed many years ago and were paying £33, when we moved to a 3 bed they wanted us to pay £45 a month which we thought was ridiculous so requested a water meter. We've been on/around £19 a month ever since.

Broadband - now we can, we're in the lucky position of Aaron working for BT so our broadband is free (just pay for line rental and a lower rate for TV services). We have to signup as a normal customer so got £120 in cashback for that too ;)

All our bulbs are energy saving, we use the smaller flush on the loo and it might sounds disgusting but we'll shout out before flushing to see if someone else wants the low - a bit more civilised than the whole "if it's yellow let it mellow". We try to get energy efficient appliances with a minimum of an A grading and we charge phones in the car where possible ;)
I hope your last provider isn't my new one [member=277]Chammy[/member] - would you mind giving a clue please so I know to be super alert when checking bills? I'm with the one whose initials sound like they are telling you where you to go!
 

Chammy

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Erm, yeah that's the one [member=340]Darcey[/member]

In all fairness, the first year we were with them they were great. It's when we moved to our previous house that the problems started so hopefully you'll be fine.
 

Darcey

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Chammy said:
Erm, yeah that's the one [member=340]Darcey[/member]

In all fairness, the first year we were with them they were great. It's when we moved to our previous house that the problems started so hopefully you'll be fine.
oh dear - well at least I know to look out for this..thanks all the same [member=277]Chammy[/member] !
 

jkg-jkg

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Darcey said:
TBH I've not tried to haggle with them recently but I don't think they give in much, plus I'm only on the basic package.
On the green site "We polled 4,000 MoneySavers to see where hagglers had most success. Companies where hagglers revealed over 76% success rates included TalkTalk, Sky and Virgin."

I always haggle on Broadband and TV. I'm not in a Virgin area which is where the best opportunities for haggling are as you can play the big guys (BT/Virgin/Sky) off against each other. I am paying half what I should be on BT, and paying £50 per month for a £90 Sky package. You have to be prepared (knowing what offers others have). Tell them you want to leave, keeping in mind they typically have a special 'retentions' team that you only get to after you have got through the first customer support rep (who will try and remove bits of your package to reduce costs first). Keep your nerve - you can always back out at the last minute by saying you need to discuss it with someone first.
 

Darcey

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jkg-jkg said:
Darcey said:
TBH I've not tried to haggle with them recently but I don't think they give in much, plus I'm only on the basic package.
On the green site "We polled 4,000 MoneySavers to see where hagglers had most success. Companies where hagglers revealed over 76% success rates included TalkTalk, Sky and Virgin."

I always haggle on Broadband and TV. I'm not in a Virgin area which is where the best opportunities for haggling are as you can play the big guys (BT/Virgin/Sky) off against each other. I am paying half what I should be on BT, and paying £50 per month for a £90 Sky package. You have to be prepared (knowing what offers others have). Tell them you want to leave, keeping in mind they typically have a special 'retentions' team that you only get to after you have got through the first customer support rep (who will try and remove bits of your package to reduce costs first). Keep your nerve - you can always back out at the last minute by saying you need to discuss it with someone first.
Thanks for the info [member=4240]jkg-jkg[/member] . I was going by a recent Facebook posting where Virgin were advertising their non-fibre BB and people were complaining about the new customers getting the best deals, further into the string of replies people were saying it's difficult to get anywhere with the retentions these days and were reeling off their experiences - however I was just going by a few people's opinions and, like you suggest, I will give it a try as I think I might be able to get somewhere - it's only because I haven't bothered to try for a few years so really only have myself to blame.
 

katykicker

I am a work from home Mum from Essex.
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Thanks for sharing your experiences everyone!

I'm hoping this is an area where people can save money if they don't already know about this. We are really strict (we = me!) about keeping an eye on such things.

It is amazing how much you can save if you don't know you should try negotiating.

I save LOTS with BT just by ringing once a year and asking for a better deal!
 

Emmscullen

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Thank you for giving me a boot up the backside to finally change my gas and electricity suppliers at last I'm looking forward to starting to save nearly £100/a year
 

HighHopes

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I'm no longer loyal to any one company. Every time my Gas and Elec contract is up I'll do a price comparison to see if there is a cheaper deal to be had. That way I know I'm always on the best tariff.

However this year I want to go one step further and cut back even further.

Gas and Electricity
I really want to get a smart meter fitted. I was at my sisters over Christmas and she had her smart monitor on the kitchen worktop. It was fascinating (sad, I know!) watching how much energy was being used and slightly panic inducing every time the kettle was put on and you could see the monitor turn red :eek:

The government want everyone to be on smart meters by 2020 but I contacted my supplier a few days ago and I'm just waiting for a call back from the smart meter team to find out if they'll come and fit one for me. It's free and hopefully by having the monitor on display it will be a constant reminder to be more economical with the electricity and gas.
 

HighHopes

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Also I meant to say about water too ..

Water
We had a water meter fitted 3 months ago. It won't be compulsory for us to be billed using the water meter for another 2 years but they are going to send a comparison bill every 3 months to show what we are being billed and what we would have been billed based on our water usage.

Even though we are quite good with water, I was a bit nervous about this, as we are a family of 5 so I assumed our water usage would be more than we are currently paying for. However, we had our 1st comparison bill in and we would actually have paid £30 less based on our usage.

I'm going to see what the next comparison bill is like and we might opt to switch to the water meter early. On our water companies (Thames) website they have quite a few water saving devices that they'll send out for free (4min shower timer, water efficient shower head, etc.) so I've ordered them and I'm going to try and make sure we're not wasting water.
 

Emmscullen

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I want a smart meter too Can't wait to be able to analyse all the electrical appliances round the house
 

katykicker

I am a work from home Mum from Essex.
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Emmscullen said:
I want a smart meter too Can't wait to be able to analyse all the electrical appliances round the house

I'm hoping to get my smart meter fitted in the next month or two AND receive a mystery shop for doing it! Fingers x'd!
 

Jon

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We got one fitted

All it does or beep in the evenings but I'm too much of a man to look at the instructions and figure out why so we just live with the beeping
 

katykicker

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Jon said:
We got one fitted

All it does or beep in the evenings but I'm too much of a man to look at the instructions and figure out why so we just live with the beeping

Probably beeping when you spend over a certain amount or you're generating a huge surge of electricity.
 

Jon

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katykicker said:
Jon said:
We got one fitted

All it does or beep in the evenings but I'm too much of a man to look at the instructions and figure out why so we just live with the beeping

Probably beeping when you spend over a certain amount or you're generating a huge surge of electricity.

Probably, I blame the 10 convection heaters we run in our house........
 

pauleen

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Wow thanks for this, we are with BT as well, and i.ve never thought about phoning them, nice one.
I total agree with you, we all work hard for our money, so if i'm going to spend it i'd rather spend it on something I want, rather than a bill x
 

CubaCat

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I swapped gas and electricity supplier a few months ago via the the green site big switch. I do a comparison each time my contract ends anyway, and the big switch promotion came about just after my old supplier has raised my DD from £77 per month to £98! I switched suppliers and now pay £65 per month for duel fuel (although I wouldn't be surprised if that goes up a bit soon due to me having the heating on most of the day), and I also got £30 cashback for swapping via the the green site big switch. This reminds me, I must submit a new meter reading...

I also recently moved BB/TV/phone package from Sky to Virgin. My Sky BB kept dropping and several engineers later, it was no better, so I swapped. Got a great deal during Black Friday weekend for 12 months costing less per month than I paid for Sky, plus I'll get cashback via Top Cashback (once it's tracked) and Virgin are due to send me a shopping voucher worth over £100 as part of the Black Friday deal. As an added bonus, my BB has been completely stable and hasn't dropped once since I joined Virgin. :)

I'd love a water meter but I live in a rented property and I'm not sure if I'm allowed. Might mention it to the landlord as I'm paying over £35 per month in water bills for one adult and one child :eek:. Also, I'm sure my water supply is somehow connected to one or both of my neighbours' houses because if, say, I'm in the shower, sometimes there's a subtle shift in the water pressure and the water goes much hotter - I think it happens when they turn on their cold water tap. Is it possible for their use of water to affect mine, does anyone know?
 

katykicker

I am a work from home Mum from Essex.
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CubaCat said:
I swapped gas and electricity supplier a few months ago via the the green site big switch. I do a comparison each time my contract ends anyway, and the big switch promotion came about just after my old supplier has raised my DD from £77 per month to £98! I switched suppliers and now pay £65 per month for duel fuel (although I wouldn't be surprised if that goes up a bit soon due to me having the heating on most of the day), and I also got £30 cashback for swapping via the the green site big switch. This reminds me, I must submit a new meter reading...

I also recently moved BB/TV/phone package from Sky to Virgin. My Sky BB kept dropping and several engineers later, it was no better, so I swapped. Got a great deal during Black Friday weekend for 12 months costing less per month than I paid for Sky, plus I'll get cashback via Top Cashback (once it's tracked) and Virgin are due to send me a shopping voucher worth over £100 as part of the Black Friday deal. As an added bonus, my BB has been completely stable and hasn't dropped once since I joined Virgin. :)

I'd love a water meter but I live in a rented property and I'm not sure if I'm allowed. Might mention it to the landlord as I'm paying over £35 per month in water bills for one adult and one child :eek:. Also, I'm sure my water supply is somehow connected to one or both of my neighbours' houses because if, say, I'm in the shower, sometimes there's a subtle shift in the water pressure and the water goes much hotter - I think it happens when they turn on their cold water tap. Is it possible for their use of water to affect mine, does anyone know?

Hi [member=481]CubaCat[/member] - yes if you share a supply pipe with your neighbour you can notice a subtle difference. We get this from time to time (16 flats in a block) :) So annoying but subtle, however, once you notice something that is it noticed for life isn't it!
 

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