Well i just received my latest bill from Manweb/scottish power, and apart from it saying my account is in credit, they wanted to put my monthly payments up to £63 from £53, which was ott anway but i left it due to winter to build up credit. After i'd calmed down i did some price comparisons and found that for me British Gas where the cheapest.... My bill is now down to £32 a month and on top of that i'll get dualfuel discount and paperfree billing discount and discount for swappig to them.... my advice is, if you havent done it yet, check and compare prices for the best deal.... www.uswitch.com or even the gmtv website can help.

68 Darling 68

i stand corrected !

So, Jonah, you saved £36 Pretty good that matey!!

Chiccy, what you gonna spend the spare cash on?

Gonna do some digging round with my bills and see what I can save

yeh... that A MONTH TOO !!!!!!!!!
its well worth spendin that half hour or so to do this !

......especially when your in work....

nuvver baby nuvver baby

I can see Jonah now, leaving lights on, windows open with heating on etc to get the bill back up to £68


...shoes may not induce such panic

thanks for the advice stuy !!!!

Be aware?

I don't think its a British gas thing, but ive heard of these pit falls?

1) You can join xx company and they Hold Down your bill for the first 12 months, then bring it back in line after that, so you experience a huge increase.

2) When they calculate this years, taking into account price rises etc.. You can see a typical £20 per month increase, because say year before last year you probably were in credit and your monthly bill was lower than normal.

2006 = £26 (Higher as you're payments didn't reach the Annual Bill 2005)
2007 = £22 (low as you were in credit)
2008 = £42 (No Longer in Credit, Fuel Prices Have Gone Up)

If you look at the Year Totals for your Bill you can see
how your under one year and over the next but never on the money.
That's why we feel it so bad after a in credit year.

What was the site you used for your comparisons Jonah ?

tried uswitch.com and confused.com.... and also rang british gas with my bill to hand so i could quote figures to them..

Ay dats not too bad... last time Manweb came to read my token meter, they increased the charge. Bear in mind am singlke, living in a flat, and my price is around £35 a month for electric atm.

So for a family, £68 wasnt too bad in all honesty. Although I do believe I am on a much higher tariff then I should be with Manweb; used to put about £5 in every 8 days, now its more then £5 every 5 since they last red the meter (late 2006) and I was never in debt on the old tariff, in fact they owed me £90 in the end.

Must phone up and give them a reading, might be in credit.

yeh, but, oue hose ant that big, all lights bar 2 are energy saving bulbs, nothing gets left on standby apart from the sky of a night, no lights get left on etc.... we are really careful after they fooked up the bill, wouldnt admit it and then had the cheek to want to raise the bill from £40 a month to over £90 !!!! even when i was in credit !!!!

Heh... got a bill through today from 27th March 07 to 28th Feb 08...

It said I had gone from 2560 units to 5888 units as an estimate, and that I owed them £87.89. I checked the meter and it only says 4013 unit's, so much much lower then their estimate, in fact they have more than double over-estimated my usage...

So I phone's them up with a reading, and I am £91.47 in credit!

I have booked an engineer to replace the meter on the morning of the 14th to a new key meter instead of the current card meter (apparently I have been due this upgrade for some time), so when he come's out, he will take the reading, and I will either go on to a lower tariff, or I can request a refund in the form of a cheque.

Needless to say... its nice to find out that after they expected me to owe them nearly £90.00, it's actually them who owe me £90.00 lol!

Oh an over the last 11 months my electricity usage has been £340.00 minues the £90.00 they owe me, so £250.00... not bad, but still, for a single person, in a single bedroom flat, who is very energy saving concious, it's quite a high amount at just under £25 a month.