Adrian Garside

…that Utility Warehouse Discount Club are not always cheapest for gas and electricity.

No, they’re not, but then, they don’t say they are.

What they do is average out the costs of the big six, make sure they are lower than the average. Then they make sure they are also cheaper than British Gas for gas and your local electricity supplier.

So, what UWDC achieves is to be consistently amongst the cheapest compared to the big six.

This means you don’t need to worry that in 6 months you are going to find that you bought a cheap deal, just before they put the prices up.

In 2008, when energy prices skyrocketed, all the energy companies put their prices up by about 30%. Except one, and during the following month many (very many indeed, I heard, but i can’t verify) customers switched to the cheaper company. Who then put their prices up.

Now, if you go to the utility comparison site run by …ahem, The Leading Consumer Magazine… which I assume to be the least commercial and run a comparison (for this comparison include customer satisfaction) you see UW have 75% satisfaction. The next, with 66%  is EBICO – a not for profit energy supplier who, on my home’s figures is £3.30pa cheaper.

There are some other suppliers cheaper still – now, think about this – UWDC barely make a profit on customers who take just energy. EBICO say they make none.

But – then there’s a question. How can other companies be cheaper? Well, they can’t be planning on making a loss forever, the shareholders wouldn’t like it. A cynic may suggest that they must be planning on gathering customers, then hiking their prices…

Just a note for my Utility Warehouse customers:

They have sent me this e-mail:

Lower energy prices are coming soon

In line with our “Triple Value” guarantee, we will be reducing our energy prices for both residential and business customers from 1 April. All customers will benefit from lower gas prices, and in some cases they will benefit from lower electricity prices too. Full details will be published soon.

The Triple Value guarantee means they monitor the prices of the big six energy suppliers. They guarantee to be competitive with them – so at the cheap end of the table. Plus they guarantee to be cheaper than British Gas and Cheaper than your local electricity provider

48p per gallon discount off petrol?

see this blog post –

With 3p already scheduled for extra tax on fuel from April, petrol will be £1.20 per litre soon.

Petrol prices have sneaked up to £1.15 per litre – and as it can be made acceptable as a ‘green’ tax -  petrol prices will surely rise on March 24th.

So, what do you do?

Well, I have been getting about 11p a litre discount at Sainsbury’s  – I guess you may want that too. This is for the money geeks, but here goes.

Firstly, I buy my shopping in Sainsbury’s – not all, but I make sure I get a £50 load every now and then. This gets me the 5p per litre discount.

I pay with my Utility Warehouse Discount Club Cashback card – this isn’t a credit card – you have to load cash onto it before you can spend it, but it’s accepted by all places that accept Mastercard. I also claim my Nectar points.

I get my petrol, I also pay with my UWDC card and claim my Nectar points.

For everything I spend at Sainsbury’s (and a load of other shops) UWDC give me  5% cashback as well – this is refunded in the form of a credit on my gas/electricity bill each month.

So, I get:

5 p per litre discount offered by Sainsbury’s

5% discount on my petrol and shopping offered by UWDC

Nectar points on both

cool huh?

If you want this deal, contact me -  01489 784022 – I’m an official distributor for them. Your gas and electric will also be a tad cheaper than with most of the providers.

This was on Working Lunch earlier…

BT have a package that includes free evening calls – that has been calls after 6pm. It has changed to 7pm, so keep <<phonaholic family member’s name>> off the phone for another hour.

Someone who makes a 20 minute phone call each day during this hour could see their phone bill increase by £80 per quarter!

Alternatively change provider – I run a business from home, making calls all day and into the evening. I usually pay around £20pm for my phonecalls (and that’s mostly 0871 numbers that the lovely banks have set up for their call centres now in order to make me pay to listen to hold music….grrrr).

I’m sure you won’t mind me making a shameless plug for my services – if you want me to look at your utility bills, call me. Today I saved a customer £89 per year just on his electricity bill by switching to Utility Warehouse. I know that it’s easy to ignore, but if you gave me £89 and I didn’t give it you back, you’d be cheesed off. Actually – I’d rather have the £89 – if you could mail it to me at the usual address!

Here

I was talking to someone about their Home Contents insurance and they asked if it covered their mobile phone.

Now, most things I know the answer to, and actually, for almost everything, the answer is yes, where contents insurance is insured, however, I had a funny feeling about mobile phones – perhaps something in one of the very very many product training sessions I have sat through has sunk in.

Anyway, the first thing I did when I got home was call my own insurance company – NO was the answer. I kind of expected that, last year when I went swimming in the sea with my boys with the phone in my pocket, I didn’t even think of calling my home insurance people, but had it been my camera I’d have phoned them right away.

But, I didn’t stop there, I phoned around a few other companies, some cheap, some expensive (who would choose expensive?) and others said YES.

That’s a little learning curve for me – and when you are renewing your household insurance, you may want to be alert for this.

In the event, you might not want to claim anyway, most insurance companies offer ‘no claims discounts’ and for some phones it may not be worth making the claim.

or

TOP TIP : although 02, my phone provider had tied me into an 18 month contract, after 9 months I was eligible for a handset upgrade – and that was how I dealt with my drowned phone. 9 months into this contract, I will get another new handset and my current handset will become a spare…so my lack of insurance doesn’t bother me much.

There’s an article in the Sunday Times yesterday about energy prices – mainly about EDF increasing their prices. Increasing is a bit of a surprise when the wholesale price of gas and electricity fell 50% last year.

The Sunday Times recommend shopping around and many people will, which is good. And many people won’t because there is a feeling that whoever is cheapest now will be most expensive in a few months so there is no point.

And then there is the old chestnut that the banks use – obsolete accounts – old tarrifs that don’t get the cheaper costs – so Npower has launched 14 versions of it’s online tarrif since Feb 2006. Those on earlier tarrifs are paying £229pa on average more than later tarrifs.

If you are the shop around every 6 months or so, that is good, but beware, most providers are introducing exit fees.

My own recommendation when shopping around is to grab your latest bill, look at the unit costs. Compare these with the unit costs of what you are offered. Then you know for real if you are getting a better deal.

If this seems too much of a hassle, try a provider that is constantly in the cheap range. I moved to Utility Warehouse about a year before I became a distributor for them.

I find that for Gas and Electricty they tend to be consistantly amongst the cheapest and not at the expensive end of things.

And, if you take 4 services – gas/electic/phone and Broadband – the savings are excellent, especially if you normally have a phone bill above £25pm – I work from home and use to have hideous phone bills, but now they are negligible.

And since I am a distributor for them, and they don’t appear on comparison websites, please contact me – it’ll help to have your latest bills handy. If they can save you money I’ll tell you. If they can’t, I will too.

One of the companies that I recommend – Utility Warehouse – are offering a £100 off your bill after 12 months of being a customer.

They provide gas/electric/phone and broadband and you need to take 3 services to qualify for this deal.

They don’t appear on comparison websites, so you need to do this on a manual calculation – actually, what I mean is – I do the manual calculation – there’s no reason why you can’t, but I do it every day so it’s easier.

However, the rule of thumb I find is that if you are with mainstream suppliers and your total bills are over £100pm I can usually save a noticeable amount.

So, if you transfer today, you should save each month and also get a further £100 off your bill next November.

That’s cool isn’t it!

…2010

The Utility Warehouse are enticing new customers by offering a £100 cashback for customers who take gas/electricity and telephone/broadband through them.

The £100 comes as a discount off your bill in the 12th month – so probably November/December 2010.

That seems ages away, but you’ll appreciate it next Christmas. Taking into account their Triple Value Guarantee you will probably save money in the meantime as well.

I have become an Authorised Distributor for their services, so have all their price lists here – if you want me to check the unit prices they charge against your current suppliers I can do that for you. No point having higher bills for a year to get the discount.