Anyone on Scottish Power’s Capped Price Energy July 2010, EDF’s Annual Fix v3, and British Gas’s Price Promise June 2010 will see their deals end this month. But E.On’s Price Protection 18, Fixed Price 3, Energy Saver v5 and Energy Saver v6 all end on July 1.

Without checking to get a new deal, these customers will go directly onto each firm’s standard tariff, which will cost them as much as £165 more each year.

Save yourself £348 a year

However, swapping to the best online tariff could save as much as £348 a year.

Switching online can take a serious swipe at reducing your energy bills within five minutes. For example, a family of three living in a four-bedroom house in Kent will be paying £1,420 on their energy bills each year on the British Gas standard tariff.

But switching to the E.On FixOnline v8 deal will save them £314 a year, reducing their bill by more than a fifth.

If that family was currently on British Gas’s Price Promise June 2010 fixed tariff, they would be paying £1,491 a year for their energy, and switching to the E.On FixOnline v8 deal would save them £385 a year, a saving of £32 a month.

But the amount you can save will depend on where you live, as much as how much energy you use. So you should check now to find out how much switching your energy provider could save you.

The Scottish Power Online Reward Energy customer in Cardiff is paying £1,031 a year, while an equivalent customer on the same plan in Nottingham is paying just £842 a year for their energy.

But it is not alone in charging customers over the odds because of where they choose to live. EDF Energy, charges its highest prices in Bristol, Brighton and London. Here, customers on the same plan will be paying £959, £945, and £939 a year, while those in Nottingham will pay £865 a year.

Residents in the East Midlands are getting the cheapest deals, paying £855 on average, while those in the Swalec region – which includes Cardiff – face the highest prices in the UK.

But you don’t have to put up with it. Using the Totally Money energy switching service can save you an average of £243 by making sure you get the best deal, no matter where you are.

For example, a couple living in Cardiff in a two-bedroom house on the Scottish Power Online Reward Energy plan will be paying £1,150 a year on their energy at present. But by switching to the E.On FixOnline v8 plan, they could drop that to £1,026 – slicing £124 a year off their bill.

You should regularly check your energy tariff is offering you the best deal, as it can save you hundreds of pounds a year at the click of a mouse. So start switching now.

*Source: uSwitch.com

But if you are with one of the more expensive providers anyway, there is no guarantee you could make the best savings. Instead, using the Totally Money energy comparison service means you could save an average of £243 on your gas and electricity bill right now.

For example, a couple living in a two bedroom house in Exeter on Npower’s standard tariff could save themselves £316 a year by switching to Npower’s Sign Online v.18, which happens to be the cheapest tariff available to them right now.

Save up to £316 (based on a couple living in a two bedroom house in Exeter)

The average household energy bill is now £1,194 a year, and given these Price Protection 2010 customers have been paying £820 a year, this rise is going to hurt. But you can get a much better deal, whether you are coming to the end of a fixed deal or not, with our energy comparison service.

Big savings to be had by switching

For example, a couple living in a three-bedroom house in Kent with British Gas supplying both electricity and gas on the standard tariff would be paying £1,257 a year. But by switching to the Eon FixOnline v8 they would pay £987 – saving £270 on their annual energy bill.

The savings to be made will vary depending on where you are living. But for sure, you can save a packet by switching your electricity supplier, whether you are leaving a British Gas fixed rate now or not.

Change your habits to save money

There are other changes you can make which will all add up too, like only boiling enough water in your kettle to make the tea you want right now, and turning off items, such as TVs and DVD players, that are usually on standby. All of these can add up to significant savings over the year. But by far the quickest way to save is to switch energy suppliers.

* uSwitch

The real cheaper deals are simple to find by comparing prices online where you get a whole of market comparison on all available tariffs, not just the ones the big six energy companies want you to see.  We have calculated the average household can slash their bills by more than £300 a year. Don’t get swindled, get saving. Here are five more top tips to keep your energy bill low :

Keep more of your money to yourself

Energy companies love holding onto our cash – they make around £40,000 in interest per day on the £450m around 5m of us have generously put into their coffers by overpaying on our direct debits. So ask for it back. They have to give it to you.

Watch the tariffs

It really pays to simply keep an eye on the tariffs available, to keep your energy bills as low as possible. A quick search on the energy comparison tool takes seconds. The switch itself takes no more than a few minutes.

For a family in Kent using EDF Energy as a supplier for both gas and electricity and paying £900 a year by direct debit, shows they could save £210 – more than a quarter of their bill – just by switching suppliers to npower’s Sign Online v.18.
The amount will vary around the country depending on the deals being offered, and also because of how you pay the bill.

Don’t just go for who you know

Smaller companies are now coming into the market, and they can be some of the cheapest providers. Electricity is the same, no matter who produces it, so don’t be scared to go with a supplier you have not heard of. Our switching service gives companies a review rating, so you can benefit from other people’s experience.

Pay by monthly direct debit – but not too much

Energy companies love direct debit payers – that is how they build up such vast surpluses. But in return, you will usually get a discount. So take the benefits, but avoid the drawbacks by insisting any excess the energy company has is returned to you regularly. Or you can ask to have the direct debit reduced.

Watch your usage and give meter readings

Using power meters and not leaving electrical items on standby will all make a difference to your usage.

Giving a meter reading regularly prevents guesstimates too, so if the company does not ask you for a reading, give it a reading anyway, at least once a quarter.

Some companies, such as Npower with its ‘Go Save’ alert service for customers managing their accounts online, will remind you to send a meter reading online, which saves hassle and time and money in a phone queue. Even better, you never pay more than you need to.

More than 11m households have been told they owe an average of £153 more than they should because of discrepancies between estimated bills and ‘real’ bills from their energy suppliers*. Energy companies have been voted the most likely to get their bills wrong, even ahead of HM Revenue & Customs*. Incorrect bills have gone as high as £400, so be sure you are being charged properly – send accurate readings regularly.

You could be waiting up to two months on average to get that money back too, so take some action now if you are being badly treated by your supplier. Switching providers could not only help you get the right bill, it can save you even more, up to £240 on average, so what are you waiting for? Just make sure you get that overcharge sorted out before you leave your current supplier.

Pros: As an example, someone living in Manchester, paying by direct debit and spending £250 a quarter on gas and electricity on EDF’s Standard tariff £197.84 a year by switching to the Npower SignOnline v 18 tariff. Once you have been with Npower for 12 months and paid continuously by direct debit, you will receive a discount on your bill. The account is managed online.

Cons: You have to manage the account online, which means you need to have an email address in place to do this, although this will not be a problem for most people. You will have to have your bills sent to you online, and you will need to provide meter readings when requested. If you leave the tariff before June 30, 2011 you have to pay a £20 ‘break’ fee for each type of fuel you get through the contract.

Any exclusions? Anyone without an email address.

Alternatives: EDF Energy Online S@ver Version 6. This is also an online account, but would save you £192.41 a year over the standard EDF tariff. Until June 30, 2011 it will guarantee to be at least 2% lower than EDF’s standard tariff. You would have to pay a £25 fee for each type of fuel you have if you leave before this date.

Further reference: Switch energy suppliers Related: Latest utilities news

*source: uSwitch.com

The average standard annual bill is still around £1,150 – £1,200, but the cheapest online tariff is around £900. The potential savings from comparing and switching is huge. Doing this takes a few minutes and could save you hundreds.

Last month we blew the lid on the scandal of how energy companies are sitting on £1.3 billion of your money. Want to get some of your money back? Read on…

Millions of us have been overpaying on our energy bills, and the providers have built up a nice £1.3 billion cushion in their accounts at our expense – so what are you waiting for? Ask for it back now, and get the benefit before the summer.

Two in five overpaying in Britain’s coldest winter for 30 years
An unbelievable two in five householders are overpaying on their energy bills, with the average amount owed reaching £124.34. One in 10 of us is owed as much as £500.

Who is at fault?
One in three think energy companies deliberately keep their bills complicated to make it hard for us to see what we are being charged. Yet the same number of us fail to check our meter readings when we get a bill. This simple step can prevent you from being charged more than you should for your energy. It only takes a minute, and will save you a packet in the long run.

Don’t be shy, ask for your money back
One in five of us have not even bothered to ask for our money back, around half just let the balance ‘rectify itself’ and one in 10 people are too embarrassed to ask for their overpayments back. Or they can’t be bothered.

Is this you? It is your money, they have to give it back to you, so just ask. If you want to wait until you have cleared the last bill for the winter, then ask for any money back that is outstanding after March. Your bills will go down in summer, so get that money into your bank account – rather than leaving it in your energy provider’s account – so you can benefit from the interest.

Get a better deal for your energy
Whether you get your money back or leave it for your provider to even things out, you should pay less for your energy if you can. The big six providers have all cut their bills now, but it is at the end of the winter so you benefit less. Even with the cuts, there are much better deals out there.

So compare utility prices to get a better deal. For a homeowner in Edinburgh with Scottish Power and paying £100 a month for both gas and electricity on the company’s standard tariff could save £290.52 a year by switching to EDF Energy’s Online S@ver Version 6. It does not matter where you live, you can usually save around £250 on average by switching.

Further reference: Switch energy suppliers Related: Latest utilities news

If you are adamant that you want to be environmentally friendly with your energy choice, then consider Ovo Green Energy

Pros: Compared against British Gas standard tariff for dual fuel for central London, paying £140 a month on energy – Ovo’s Green Energy tariff will slash the bill by £219.90 for dual fuel.

Cons: If you are not adamant about saving the environment, there are bigger savings available. First Utility’s iSave v3 would cut this bill by a whopping £367.62 – nearly £148 extra back in your pocket.

Alternatives: E.On’s Go Green would save this householder £6.02 a year if they stuck to their green guns. If you wanted to ditch your green credentials, you can make bigger savings. British Gas’s WebSaver 6 would save this customer £353.74 a year on their dual fuel bills.

Further reference: Compare utility prices online Related: Latest utility news

<<< Back to Money Saving Alert

This week the last of the big energy providers announced price cuts for gas of up to 9%. That’s the headline that has been getting all the press, but the truth is that a much more significant price war has been waged for the last six months. If you really want to save, online tariffs are where the real savings can be made.

The average standard annual bill is still around £1,150 – £1,200, but the cheapest online tariff is around £900. The potential savings from comparing and switching is huge. Doing this takes a few minutes and could save you hundreds of pounds.

Last month we blew the lid on the scandal of how energy companies are sitting on £1.3 billion of your money. Want to get some of your money back? Read on…

Millions of us have been overpaying on our energy bills, and the providers have built up a nice £1.3 billion cushion in their accounts at our expense – so what are you waiting for? Ask for it back now, and get the benefit before the summer.

Two in five overpaying in Britain’s coldest winter for 30 years

An unbelievable two in five householders are overpaying on their energy bills, with the average amount owed reaching £124.34. One in 10 of us is owed as much as £500.

Who is at fault?

One in three think energy companies deliberately keep their bills complicated to make it hard for us to see what we are being charged. Yet the same number of us fail to check our meter readings when we get a bill. This simple step can prevent you from being charged more than you should for your energy. It only takes a minute, and will save you a packet in the long run.

Don’t be shy, ask for your money back

One in five of us have not even bothered to ask for our money back, around half just let the balance ‘rectify itself’ and one in 10 people are too embarrassed to ask for their overpayments back. Or they can’t be bothered.

Is this you? It is your money, they have to give it back to you, so just ask. If you want to wait until you have cleared the last bill for the winter, then ask for any money back that is outstanding after March. Your bills will go down in summer, so get that money into your bank account – rather than leaving it in your energy provider’s account – so you can benefit from the interest.

Get a better deal for your energy

Whether you get your money back or leave it for your provider to even things out, you should pay less for your energy if you can. The big six providers have all cut their bills now, but it is at the end of the winter so you benefit less. Even with the cuts, there are much better deals out there.

So compare utility prices to get a better deal. For a homeowner in Edinburgh with Scottish Power and paying £100 a month for both gas and electricity on the company’s standard tariff could save £290.52 a year by switching to EDF Energy’s Online S@ver Version 6. It does not matter where you live, you can usually save around £250 on average by switching.

Fuel debts are up by a third

Wholesale gas prices reached £1 per therm in 2008, but have fallen back to around 38p, according to energy specialists McKinnon & Clark. Wholesale electricity prices have gone from £90 per MWh to just £37 – both falls of around 60 per cent. So annoyingly Energy bills are up while the energy companies enjoy bumper profits. Could there be a better reason to check that you’re not paying more than you have to? You can save an average of nearly £250 by getting the best deal available to you by comparing the whole of the UK energy market.

Phone debts up by nearly a third

Another household bill is causing real debt problems for many – Citizens Advice has helped nearly 19,000 people who are struggling to pay phone debts. It is going to get worse too, as from April 1 BT is changing its calling charges, and the time of its free evening and weekend call plans. From then, calls made between 7pm and 7am will be free, rather than 6pm to 6am. How many people make calls in the early morning. So do some research to get a better deal on your home phone. On the Primus Home Phone Saver you can get free evening and weekend calls to local, and national landline numbers with a line rental of £9.15 a month. Just to compare, making a 20 minute phone call each day between 6pm and 7pm is currently free on the BT off-peak charging plan. But from next month, it could add £80 to your quarterly bill. BT’s standard call rate is going up from 9.3p a call to 9.9p from April, and daytime calls will rise from 5.4p a minute to 5.9p a minute.

With the Primus Home Phone Saver, if you made calls in the day, they would be charged at 3p a minute to landline numbers. The cost of calling mobiles is a lot more, with most at 14.8p a minute in the day, 11.9p in the evening, and 8p a minute at weekends. So make sure you are not going to be calling in the day too much, otherwise this will wipe out your saving.

Overdraft problems up by a quarter

More people are living in their overdraft to make ends meet, and that has brought a quarter more people in to Citizens Advice for help. But we can help you to help yourself. Alliance & Leicester is offering a 0 per cent overdraft up to £2,000 on its Premier Current Account plus if you apply before March 7, you will get £100 to switch too.

Its Premier Direct Account is also offering a 0 per cent overdraft up to £2,000, for 12 months, so you would not be charged for going overdrawn. You have to pay at least £500 into these accounts each month though.

Even better, Bank of Scotland’s Reward will pay you £5 a month whether you are overdrawn or in credit providing you pay in £1,000 a month. Its overdraft has 0 per cent interest too, so you are effectively being paid to borrow up to £2,500.

If you are in your overdraft, you may not be able to close your account until it is cleared, so you may need to open the other account first, use the overdraft on that account to get the cash to clear your existing overdraft, then close that account and have all of your direct debits transferred over. You could always keep the two accounts open if you want. Just don’t use the overdraft in both.

The hype tells us that around 8m households will save an average of £55 thanks to British Gas’s decision to cut its standard gas price by 7 per cent. But we can show you how to save even more. On average, Totally Money energy switching customers have saved £243.60 by switching – the maximum saving was a massive £2,190.

Energy customers need to look beyond the hype and check out the deals for themselves, because your overall saving could be much higher.

This is the third time in a year British Gas has cut its prices. Last year it cut 10 per cent off both standard gas and electricity prices, and it now claims to be the “cheapest major supplier of standard gas at average consumption – and therefore of dual fuel – right across Britain”.

But that’s the point – there are still many suppliers who can out do British Gas depending on where you live. If you use a lot of energy, you need to look at other ways to cut costs too. So follow these three tips to save even more:

1. Compare providers in your area

A quick search on the Totally Money comparison service shows that if you are living in Birmingham and pay £1,050 a year for both gas and electricity from E.On on its E.On Energy Plan, you would save nearly £186 a year for getting a different tariff with the same company. The First:utility Smart Dual fuel online saver v3 would cost £864.30 a year. Even better – and it proves the point – British Gas comes in in fourth place in the search with its WebSaver 6, at £874.01 – so you would pay an extra £10 a year for the company claiming it is the cheapest. So beware of buying into the hype.

2. Change how you pay your bills

Energy companies load your bills if you make it harder for them to get their hands on your cash. Anyone paying by quarterly cash or cheque, or pre-payment meter, will find themselves paying significantly more than those paying by monthly direct debit.

The savings for changing to the latter are significant. The best deal for this Birmingham resident switching from paying by quarterly cash or cheque to monthly direct debit would be with Scottish Power’s Online Energy Saver 9 at £796.77 – saving £253.23 a year. British Gas is pushed into fifth place.

If you can change from a pre-payment meter to monthly direct debit, then the saving would be £253.24 with Scottish Power’s Online Energy Saver 9 – but you would need to have your meter changed so you could pay by monthly direct debit.

If you are renting, or you can’t change the meter for another reason, then the best you can do is save £37.10 with British Gas’s Pay As You Go Energy.

3. Use less energy

Using an energy monitor in your home to keep a close eye on energy usage can save you as much as £75 a year, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

This can be a pain, but your bill will be cheaper – yet few of us do this.

Some energy providers will give you a free energy monitor, so you can see how much you are using by overfilling the kettle, or leaving your telly on standby. If you want something a bit more high tech, Google is now offering an energy monitoring service for the home.

The Google PowerMeter will help you monitor your electricity usage day-by-day. You can buy an AlertMe energy monitor which clips onto your electricity meter and transmits the usage to your iGoogle homepage via your wireless broadband connection.

The PowerMeter software – which is free – then lets you track the usage so you can see where you can save money. The AlertMe system costs £69 to buy, and you have to pay £3 a month for the service. Once your energy savings are taken into account, it will soon pay for itself.

Check how much of your money your supplier has

Before you do anything else, just take a look at how much of your money your existing supplier has. Currently around 5m households have more than £450million of their own money sitting in the coffers of the big gas companies alone. That’s about £40,000 in interest per day that they are earning on your money that you could have sitting in your account earning interest instead.
This is the result of over-payment on direct debit, that leads to a cushion of surplus cash building up with the energy company.

Ask for your money back

But there is no reason for you to leave too much sitting there. It is easy to get it back – you just have to ask. The energy company has a duty to return any extra money you have built up in its account, and that way it can be working for you, rather than it. However, the majority of us – four fifths – do not ask for this money back, which is a mistake.

Compare rates regularly.

It really pays to simply keep an eye on the tariffs available, to keep your energy bills as low as possible. A quick search on the energy comparison tool takes seconds. The switch itself takes no more than a few minutes.  For a family in Kent using EDF Energy as a supplier for both gas and electricity and paying £900 a year by direct debit, shows they could save £213 – a quarter of their bill – just by switching suppliers to npower’s Go Fix rate.
The amount will vary around the country depending on the deals being offered, and also because of how you pay the bill.

Consider new entrants to the market.

It’s all the same energy generated on the same grid so it doesn’t matter who your supplier is. You just need to make sure you’re with the cheapest one. Some of the new entrants are lesser known as brands but their energy is just as good as anyone elese. For example Ovo energy has just launched. You probably won’t have heard of them, but you might find that they are considerably cheaper than your current supplier. It’s always worth comparing new suppliers.

Pay by monthly direct debit

Monthly direct debit is the most cost effective way to pay, as the energy companies would prefer you to use this method, so they will give you the greatest discounts for paying this way. But beware, there is a reason for this – the energy giants are making a lot of money out of you.

Save on your bills

You can also save money on your bills by using an energy monitor to see how much power you are using, and also by making sure none of your bills are estimated.

By telling your energy provider what your meter readings are on a regular basis – at least once a quarter, if that is how you are billed – then you will only being charged for what you are actually using.

Give your meter reading online

Speak to your provider to find out the best way to tell it your meter reading, and you could save yourself some hassle. It might be possible to send the reading online, saving yourself time in a phone queue as well as money.
Npower has even launched a new service – ‘Go Save’ which is a new alert service to remind customers managing their accounts online to send an up-to-date meter reading so they are not paying more than necessary.

But times are changing, and it seems that I am becoming awfully unfashionable as a result.  People are very seriously starting to change their lives in small ways in order to make a positive difference to the environment. In between skinny cappuccinos and gym sessions, my Yummy-Mummy next door neighbour grows her own vegetables in her garden because she doesn’t like the fact fresh produce in Tesco is air-freighted in.  She gardens. In Burberry Wellingtons, no less.

And next door Yummy-Mummy is not alone. David Cameron rides a bicycle to work. Julia Roberts drives a Toyota Prius. So does Cameron Diaz. Mr Darcy (also known as Colin Firth) has founded a business in West London that promotes ecological retailing and green living.  Everyone is getting on board the green bus, and there’s nary a Birkenstock or hairy armpit in sight.

If these things don’t get you thinking, maybe this will.  Consider the fact that house prices are falling, and conservative predictions expect further falls of at least 10% by the end of the year; others expect a fall of up to 15 or even 20% in the next 12 months.  This is expected to push around 1.2 million people into negative equity, resulting in them unable to refinance due to the scarcity of 100% mortgages available in the crumbling mortgage market.  Then consider this: according to recent research carried out by the Energy Saving Trust, 70% of Brits believe energy efficiency is important when buying a home, and 45% of Brits are willing to pay up to £10,000 more for an environmentally friendly house.

These statistics got me thinking.  If you want to increase the equity in your home by increasing its value with a renovation, perhaps rather than just going for the standard loft conversion and new bathroom, consider the changing mindset of many homebuyers – and give your home a green renovation.

Making green changes to your home is becoming much simpler and affordable, especially as grants of up to £2,500 are now available from the Government Low Carbon Buildings Programme for installing recognised microgeneration products.  www.greensteps.co.uk, an excellent online resource for researching and purchasing green products for your eco-renovation, suggests making the following changes to make your home more eco-friendly:

* Install effective draft exclusion products on windows and doors
* Install effective natural insulation
* Replace your ineffective boiler with a modern energy efficient boiler
* Fit effective heating controls such as room thermostats and thermostatic radiator valves
* Install a solar hot water heating system

Furthermore, consumers are expected to see a 40% rise in energy bills during the next 12 months due to the trebling of wholesale gas prices.  As a result, more and more homebuyers will be looking for greater energy efficiency in their new homes in order to minimise household running costs.  This makes green renovating an especially good idea, and a profitable one.  I might not be all for saving the planet, but I’m quite partial to saving a bit of money.

Please note: This website, and the articles and information within it are based on journalistic research. It does not and should not be construed to constitute financial advice. Any information should be considered in regard to specific circumstances. All tips are followed at your own risk and should be followed up with your own research.  For more please refer to our terms and conditions of use.