Adrian Garside

photo credit: Tom Anderson

I’ve been in ultra money geek mode today.

I’ve bought postage stamps on my Utility Warehouse cashback card through Viking Direct.

I get a 5% discount on my purchase – but that’s not all!

For added geekiness I bought about a years supply of stamps because there is a postage price rise in April as well, they go up from 41p to 46p for 1st class stamps….if you are buying several hundred, that is a big saving to bank!

VAT rises to 20% in January.

Utility Warehouse are going to absorb this rise to keep their costs ultra competitive.

However, they are adjusting some of the package, the main change seems to be:

If you pay for your landline phone calls  (I don’t think any of my clients do) the peak hours are being adjusted to 7am – 7pm in line with other providers.

Many energy companies promote ‘Green tariff’s’ and as a conscientious person you will no doubt have considered these, even if basic economics has driven you to a cheaper provider.

The thing is, if getting your gas and electricity in a green fashion is important to you, you have to bear in mind 2 things.

The major providers are obliged by law to invest into green and renewable energy  methods and they do so, no doubt to the minimum level they can get away with.

The energy you are provided with is not separately allocated – it is identical to the energy you getn other tariffs, just you pay a tad more.

So, if you really want your energy to have some green credentials let me mention Good Energy and Ecotricity – both of whom source all their energy in a renewable fashion and your custom will have a meaningful contribution to Britains renewable power generation.

photo credit: 111 Emergency

In the September issue of … one of the leading consumer magazine’s… they have reviewed Broadband providers this month and awarded 4 of them ‘Recommended Provider’ status.

Utility Warehouse, Zen, Be and O2 were the 4 to recieve the award.

The criteria assessed were value for money,  connection speed and reliability, and customer service.

Apart from great service, reliability, value for money and speed, Utility Warehouse Discount Club can also save you money on your household shopping and petrol, as well as on their gas, electricity, landlines and mobiles.

photo credit: smemon87

I’ve just heard on Radio 5live that EDF are putting their electricity prices up by 2.6%

This seems a bit out of the blue, I wonder if they are the 1st in a trend?

2.6% isn’t a very big increase – although I guess that may depend on which of their tariffs you are on. You choose, out of this lot:

Annual fix version 1

Annual fix version 2

Annual fix version 2 (original)

Annual fix version 3

Annual fix version 3 (up until Jul 2010)

Annual fix version 4

Climate Balance

Eco 20:20

Eco Manager

Energy Assist

Energy Discount Plan

Energy Discount Plan Version 2

Energy Discount Plan version 3

Energy Saver

Fixed Price 2015

Fixed Price until 31/7/2010

Green

Online s@ver version 1

Online s@ver version 2

Online s@ver version 3

Online s@ver version 4

Online s@ver version 5

Online s@ver version 6

Online s@ver version 7

Online Version 1

Online Version 2

Online Version 3

Online Version 4

Online Version 5

Online Version 6

Price Guarantee 2010

Price Protection 2010

Standard

That’s just their electricity tariffs…

If you are with EDF and have been for more than 6 months, what are the chances that you are on their cheapest rate? And if you are on their cheapest rate, how long do you think that will remain the case? And, don’t think I’m picking on EDF, they are not the worst.

Wouldn’t you prefer to be with a provider who’s old customers are on the same tariff as the ones that join this week?

Contact me, I may be able to save you 2 things – money (obviously), and the headache of swapping provider every 6 months.

Sky News report that BT are putting their Land Line call charges by 10% and putting the line rental up by 50p from the beginning of October.

The cost of connecting a call will rise by 1p and the daytime rate is rising from 5.9p to 6.4p per minute.

They have reassured us all that it’s OK because many customers are on all inclusive packages so won’t pay the extra call costs and they need to do this to raise money – that seems an oxymoron – one the one hand they imply that most bills won’t rise, on the other hand, they must as this is a revenue raising exercise.

It’s no surprise that pretty much every ‘non BT’ telecoms company describes their bills as a ‘percentage cheaper than BT’.

So, if you’d like to see if you can save money by switching, and  having your bills set up in a different way give me a call.

The company I recommend isn’t a supplier – Utility Warehouse Discount Club (UWDC) use the bulk buying power of their membership to negotiate better deals. So, your utilities will be provided by a mainstream supplier, but at a cheaper rate.

They also have the same pricing plan for all their customers, so you won’t be caught in with a ‘fishing rate’ then find it’s expensive again in 6 months, UWDC have no minimum contract and rely on keeping their customers through good pricing and good service and innovative money saving ideas – like ‘the clubhouse‘ and ‘findmethecheapest.co.uk‘.

So, Angela Ripon was on the BBC this morning making a point about utilities.

They state that the same company will offer different rates in different parts of the country – so, a provider will offer worse rates
in it’s natural territory, than others.

The reason is that in a company’s natural territory most people will use them regardless, they don’t need to be competitive to keep
customers. So, were I to do a price comparison for me, ‘Southern’ would never be the winner.

So, the obvious course of action is to shop around, but people just don’t. They often say things like ‘No, I’m happy with my gas, it never
goes wrong’. Well, yes, but for the same gas, or the same electricity, you could pay less.

So, why don’t people shop around?

Well, there is the thing where company’s will attract you with a good deal the after a while you won’t be on a cheap deal any more and
it was a waste of time. There are company’s with 30 tarrifs or more.

So, if you aren’t interested in shopping around every 6 months, the other strategy is to choose a company with just one tarriff for all
it’s customers, including the new ones. A tarrif that is pretty cheap – cheap enough to attract the new customers, although maybe not
the very cheapest at any one time.

photo credit: tipiro

Visit this website.

http://clubhouse.utilitywarehouse.co.uk/index.php?m=discounts&a=listMerchants&set=a

Click on your favourite retailer… you see can the discount you receive for online shopping. The discount is recieved via a credit to your gas/electricity bill, if your bill is with Utility Warehouse Discount Club.

You see there is a link saying ‘find me the cheapest’ – well that will shortly be a price comparison search engine that will search for your product and highlight the ‘normal internet price’ and the Utility Warehouse price…

If you use a Utility Warehouse cashback card, with some retailers you get a bigger cashback…but you get the basic cashback whatever card you use.

cool huh! Now, are you tempted to become a customer yet?

I have mentioned the Utility Warehouse Cashback Card before – you load it with cash, then when you spend money on the card at certain stores, you get 5% of what you spend as a cashback on your utility bill. (You can spend money on the card at any place that accepts Mastercard, but the shops below have the cashback arrangement)

B & Q have been added to the list of stores.

The list is:

Argos, Sainsburys*, Sainsbury’s Petrol *, B & Q , Comet, Boots, Burton, Debenhams
Domino’s Pizza, American Golf , Dorothy Perkins , Earnest Jones, Evans , Goldsmiths, H Samuel Homebase, Halfords, House of Fraser , JJB Sports, Leslie Davis, Marriott, Miss Selfridge
Mothercare, New Look, Outfit , River Island , TGI Friday , Thornton, TopMan , Topshop,
Virgin Experience, Wallis

So, if you reckon that you could spend say £600 in a month between those shops, Utility Warehouse would credit
your bill with £30…that’s alright isn’t it!

* Sainsbury’s – you can still collect Nectar Points.
** Sainsbury’s Petrol – you can still collect Nectar Points and if they do the offer of 5p per litre off for spending £50 in store, you also still qualify for that.

I mentioned N power in a blog a while back, they appear on the price comparison site run by ‘the Leading Consumer Magazine’.

They were noteworthy for having 39 separate tariffs and also a 25% customer satisfaction rating. This was remarkable because the product they supply is standard – the gas is the same gas, the electricity is the same electricity. All you are doing by choosing a provider is to choose a pricing plan and call centre.

Anyway, Ofgem issued a directive that all tariffs must be reflective of the true costs of supplying the gas or electricity – they expected suppliers would have to move customers off the expensive tariffs onto the cheaper ones…

N Power looked at this backwards to the way intended. Apparently they moved a whole load of customers off some old cheap tariffs onto the standard rate tariff. LOL, you have to admire their style.