September 2, 2004
Switching
I've recently been looking at our utility bills and wondering whether it's worth switching away from our current providers for new providers (for those outside the UK, the gas and electricity markets have been deregulated and you can 'buy' gas and electricity from any licensed company).
We had a successful switch away from BT for long distance calls a long time ago (over 2 years ago). We chose to switch to onetel as they were offering calls to Canada for 5p/min at the time. This recently got reduced to 4p/min. Even so, they offered a new package which reduced the cost to a measly 2p/min but you had to sign up for CPS through them. I thought about the ups-and-downs of such a move for a little while then recently decided to go for it.
It was a thoroughly successful move. All our calls go through them now and we get cheaper rates than BT (10% cheaper I believe) + 2p/min to Canada + free weekend calls to any normal UK landline (not non-geographic numbers) + their equivalent of BT's friends and family discount which gives us a further 10% discount.
Our monthly bill has dropped from approx £25 to approx £15 without any further input or any change in behaviour on our part and neither Carla or myself have noticed any change in call quality.
This got me thinking, if I can save £120/year that easily just by switching who I make telephone calls through what else can I save money on?
The obvious candidates are the gas and electricity bills, especially as British Gas recently announced inflation-busting price rises of 12.4% for Gas and 9.4% for electricity. As we're with British Gas at the moment for Gas we should be able to fairly easily save money on that.
It seems that the best deals are available if you take both gas and electricity from a single company and they combine costs into a single "energy" bill.
Thing is, it is very confusing trying to work out which company to switch to. They all claim they're the cheapest (or course) but that's not the only factor. Customer Service is another factor to consider. I've only had to query bills a couple of times but getting things sorted quickly is important to me.
So, I enlist my trusty old friend the interweb to help me. It turns out there are quite a few websites which will take details of your current useage and turn them into quotes from alternative suppliers, a list of the ones that have signed up to the regulator's code of conduct are listed here. I guess these services make money when you switch by taking a fee from the company you switch to -- dunno.
Anyway, I tried a few of these sites and they showed I can save nearly 25% of my annual energy costs by switching supplier. This isn't the end of the confusion though, you then have to choose how you want to pay. Do you want to continue paying when you get a quarterly bill? Do you want to pay by monthly Direct Debit (this is the cheapest method generally)? Do you want an internet only tariff which means you don't get paper bills any more? All these different options change the amount you can potentially save.
So, I then decide on the company I'm going to switch to and have a look around to see if any forums are talking about them. Turns out that Martin Lewis who I've heard on Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show has a forum dedicated to people who switch energy companies and their experiences. On there I find people slating the company I'm thinking of moving to. Sigh.
I want to save the money but I don't want loads of hassle doing it...
Not quite back to square one on the energy switch but back to thinking about it now.
Anyone else out there switched companies? What are your experiences? How do you save money in your everyday life?