Having lived alone for over 25 years I am very aware of keeping a tight rein on what I'm spending - especially on essentials.
When choosing which supplier to go with, price is usually the guiding principle for most people.
Second tends to be how well customers rate the company via Trustpilot or Which? Usually defined in three ways, how good the service is, how quickly & nicely they answer the phone and how they handle issues & complaints.
The third is how easy it is to switch from current supplier to the new one.
No one wants a big hair do over the whole process and it's this that often puts people off getting a better deal.
If you're worried about understanding your bills, or how to read meters or what a smart meter is, we have another journal about all of this here.
What most people do is use comparison sites like USwitch or Compare the Market who can give you some great info - although perhaps a tad too much info making it a few hours work trying to wade your way through it all.
Worth noting is that the companies who pay these comparison sites to advertise on are often not the best options for you but the ones that are advertising the most frequently or have the biggest advertising budget.
The four biggest price comparison sites - Compare the Market, MoneySupermarket, Go Compare and Confused.com - spent a massive £110 million on advertising last year, according to exclusive research by Nielsen for This is Money.
Let's take a look at average usage, this is the data that all energy companies use to give you a quote if you don't have your actual usage to look at.
This of course can vary depending on how often you're at home, how much you crank the heating up when it falls below 16*, if the rescue dog needs the tv on all night for company and how many lamps you like to have on (all of them) for a warm cosy glow.
So you can get the gist of where you're at by these standard rates.
But how much will a one bed flat cost you?
It's the million dollar question at the moment because energy prices have increased to the highest in years (gas hasn't been this expensive since 2005) and will very likely be higher still come September 2021.
The price cap increase will be revealed next month and effective from October 1st.
More on this in another journal here but suffice to say when the capped price is announced, most energy firms will react and change their pricing structures accordingly. Fix your rates in the next 4 weeks would be my suggestion.
Today, using my UW quotes for these sizes of property here is a guide.
The low usage is in the region of £800 a year = £66 a month
The medium usage is in the region of £1149 a year = £95 a month
The high usage is in the region of £1590 = £132 a month
Don't forget Kwh are the units of measurement for each unit of energy used. (Kilowatt hours)
So if the unit rate is 20p for example, multiply your annual usage @1800 in a low consumption property, to give you your annual cost £360.
Then the daily rate, the standing charge is another say 23p a day x 365 days per year = £84 a year.
So you might like to do your own comparing using this detail instead.
As the prices are pretty expensive it is definitely worth looking at ways to reduce how much you're using.
I'll be covering key ways in which you can use less in every day life in another journal - if it saves you £100+ a year just to be sensible it's got to be worth it.
Now, where are my candles...?
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