General Chat

My folks have both their gas & electric with BG, so i know they are gonna be asking me to help find an alternative supplier .........

But, cos i only have electric myself, i have no idea what other suppliers can do both or do they all do both ? ? ?

McAnne

Try this site

http://www.uswitch.com/

Angela

Haven't used it myself, we have oil ch (!!!!), but have heard it mentioned on the radio.

I was thinking about geo-thermal heating systems not long ago...but it wouldnt be worth it for me, as my fuel costs are negligible.

I cant undeerstand why its not standard in all new houses, though.

We are stuck with bottled gas so are over a barrel with the suppliers!

I'm with Swalec - easy warm for the over sixties - also my central heating service. I can use as much gas and electricity I want for a payment of £93 per month - also have my phone with with them - the phone is a separate account. Don't know how that squares with other companies but I'm sticking with SWALEC now

Unfortunately Anita, I dont really think it matters who
you are with sooner or later (I think sooner) the price rises will catch up.

Reminds of me when I was a child, ice on the inside of the window, coats on the bed, and wearing a cardi to bed.

Cx

Thanks all - i'm not ignoring your input - just busy trying to copy files over for new PC :O)

The peeps who said wear an extra jumper gets paid..................................................wait for it
a MILLION POUNDS A YEAR.

It is little help citing big profits as first of all £1billion is not a huge amount of money for companies the size of BG, though it sounds a lot to us.

Secondly, £1 billion spread across 20 million households, only amounts a meagre £50. So whilst it would be of some small comfort to many of us, it is does precious little help when many bills are going up by this amount each month, and would not solve the problem, as some are inclined to think.

An injection of £10 billion of funds would be needed, the equivalent of one tenth of the entire NHS budget. This is how bad things are.

I really don't know what the answer is, but we are looking to ways of making economies where we can.

We are fortunate to have a wood burning stove in the lounge so this has been cleaned and serviced and are stocking up with as much free fuel we can get, so hope this will help a bit next winter.

Anne try Martin Lewis's money site, he provides links to a few different sites where you can compare prices, some of them give cash back if you switch.

British Gas have this:-

Essentials Tariff
We want to offer our lowest standard gas and electricity prices to customer that need it most.

If you don't have a bank account or are on supported by government benefits you can still access our cheapest standard gas and electricity prices that other customers paying by direct debit enjoy.

How do I sign up?
Please call 0800 072 7100°


Who is eligible for Essentials?
Disability Living Allowance
Attendance Allowance
War disablement pension*

Disablement Pension**
Child Tax Credit †
Working Tax Credit †

Council Tax Benefit
Housing Benefit
Carers Allowance
Severe Disablement Allowance
Income Support
Income-Based Job Seekers Allowance

I am with Atlantic Gas...... I am sure they will put the price up... although they didn't by anywhere near as much as the other companies last year. I even got money (£140 for combined Gas and Leccy) back at the end of my first year last November... plus a £50 cash back for changing to them.

And that is with payments lower than the British gas monthly payments, which at the end of the year BG had charged me an overuse of almost £200 and were doubling my monthly payments.

In *real money* terms the last full year of usage I saved over £400 pounds on what would have been my British Gas bill.

Whenever any of the companies come knocking on the door, I just show them my ready prepared figures, and if they can beat that, I'll go along with them... they have never been able to, yet.

Love

Daff xxx

Thanks Eeyore - unfortunately my folks don't qualify under any of those - can't see basic 'Pensioners' mentioned eh ??

hmmm maybe they don't consider pensioners need help ...............

Martins Moneytips website is always good to get up to the minute advice http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/?gclid=CPP16MXS7JQCFQiNHgodBB1Drg

May be worth just giving them a call?

We've just swithched from BG and YEB to Npower for both and amount Npower have requested for the Direct Debit is certainly smaller than what we have been paying but........................... time will tell

To those of you living on small amount of income can I sugesst you make an appointment with your local CAB and request a Benefits checkup. Could be possible you might be entitled to more benefit(s)

Did anyone see that people in East Anglia are paying more for their gas than anywhere else in the country? Why? Shouldn't it be the same price for all?

Ann, at my house I am with Atlantic but don't use gas and only have some lights on an off for security purposes etc so not much happening there at the mo, but hope they won't put the prices up too much for when I go back.
Lizx

We switched to British Gas for Gas and Electric about 4 months ago as recommended by USwitch.

We got an email from BG this week saying :

You'll still benefit from our lowest available prices.

When you took out Click Energy 5 you made a great decision – you're benefiting from our cheapest available online dual-fuel tariff*, and because we've only just introduced this market-beating tariff we're going to hold off any price increases for as long as we can. There's no need to do anything, we'll contact you to let you know your new prices should they change.


I wonder how long as long as we can is: A week, A month, two months???