Standing charges

I live quite frugally and my annual gas & electricity costs are just over £!000.

What galls me is that my standing charges and VAT acccount for over 40% of my annual bill at over £400 and however frugal I try to be there is nothing I can do about them.

So basically I am paying British Gas over £400 per annum for me to read my own meters and for them to then bill me. No wonder their fat cats are coining it in with multi million pound profits for basically sitting on there arses!

Rant over!

Hope you feel better for getting that off your chest, Vinny. Maybe its time you upped sticks and found yourself a spot of wilderness to live off grid. You know you want to.

I live quite frugally and my annual gas & electricity costs are just over £!000.

What galls me is that my standing charges and VAT acccount for over 40% of my annual bill at over £400 and however frugal I try to be there is nothing I can do about them.

So basically I am paying British Gas over £400 per annum for me to read my own meters and for them to then bill me. No wonder their fat cats are coining it in with multi million pound profits for basically sitting on there arses!

Rant over!

P is in total agreement, nodding his head frantically and ranting along with you. He says if you google 'why are my energy standing charges so high' it spells it out for you. I haven't  looked but he says it a government thingy to allow the energy companies to recoup network costs and supplier failure costs.  The IOW flat costs an arm and a leg just on standing charges. You're not ranting alone. But think of the savings you get from not buying vegetables  

I highly suggest you don’t try getting a new electric connection anytime soon. They really tray to shaft you then! If we lose the agreement we are about to have with the electric company. We will be looking into going off grid!
Not going into any more detail. Because I’ll rant and it won’t be polite. So I’d have to ban myself!

Hope you feel better for getting that off your chest, Vinny. Maybe its time you upped sticks and found yourself a spot of wilderness to live off grid. You know you want to.

Funny you should say that veggie! I've been looking at small detached houses in the Outer Hebrides,(cheap and out of the way!)  one bedroom park places and even motorhomes. Upping sticks at my age is a big comittment and to go completely off grid  in a tiny home is another option I've l also ooked at.

£1000 a year must mean you hardly have the heating on. My boys are now living together and both working from home... they see the bill rising super fast and wondered how their monthly use is over £200! They are turning the heat off in the day and sitting with hot water bottles in the backs of their chairs.

There was no mains gas where the little house down west was and the boiler ran on oil. Cost a fortune to fill the tank BUT there were no standing charges for oil, unlike gas, when you have to pay them however little you use.

There was no mains gas where the little house down west was and the boiler ran on oil. Cost a fortune to fill the tank BUT there were no standing charges for oil, unlike gas, when you have to pay them however little you use.

I never thought of that veggie! Same for wood for the woodburner I suppose,no standing charge there either.

Same could be said for bottled gas,solar power, wind power, hydro power from a steam? although the setup costs would be high in those instances.

We’re on oil in our temporary house. It’s a bugger when it runs out. And 500lt is the minimum you can buy. No gas on the island apart from bottled

£1000 a year must mean you hardly have the heating on. My boys are now living together and both working from home... they see the bill rising super fast and wondered how their monthly use is over £200! They are turning the heat off in the day and sitting with hot water bottles in the backs of their chairs.

My main source of heating is the woodburner with 50% of the heat coming from wood I have scrounged. The only time the heating goes on is when I have a shower or bath. I have a gas fire in living room which is rarely used because I am rarely in that room. My back room (Chillout room) has the woodburner in it which heats that room plus the kitchen. I have also put up curtains on my open plan kitchen/diner so that if I want to in the depths of winter I can curtain off the back room and get it really toasty with Kato and I hugging the woodburner!