Thursday 26 January 2012

Average figures

Interesting isn't it, what the national average is in comparison with us people who consider themselves frugal.

I have been shopping about on uswitch and moneysupermarket.com today to get my gas and electricity settled (taken me a month, but I needed to get used to things.). It started out by giving me a choice of 3 buttons, low user, medium user and high user. I duly pressed low user and continued putting in my answers. It then, is it's wisdom gave me prices starting at £750 a year. Now, this couldn't be right could it? In my last home, I had my usage down to a fine art and was paying £33 per month for them combined. Anyhow, after a lot of messing about I did the sensible thing which was to work out how much gas and electricity I actually use a year and it came out as 1300 kwh for Electricty and 3350 for gas. This is a preceise figure of how much I used in 2011. Now I realise that I am in a different address now, but the needs are similar, I don't leave lights on or heat unduly etc. so I am hoping that the usage will be similar. That gave me the figures of, guess what, £33 per month.

I find it very interesting that their idea of low user is using exactly twice what I use.

Perhaps they should add some categories to their choice such as:

high user
medium user
low user
very low user
very very low user
very very very low user
saving the planet user
not wasting a penny user

etc

5 comments:

  1. Excellent! Aim for twice as good as the national "best"!

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  2. That's interesting. I don't know if you've read The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn, but she made the same point.

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  3. that post made me smile......I also find when the utility companies try to put you on monthly equal payments they always work it in their favour not to consumers.

    Good post,

    Gill in Canada

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  4. haha that made me giggle, your right though, national averages are sooooo far out for people who really care about their outgoings, when i read the average women spend on clothes, hair, make-up and the like i cant believe it! loved your new snowy pictures btw, no snow here as yet and im in scotland atm!

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