Martin Lewis fan explains how they slashed their energy bill to just 62p

14 September 2023 , 09:28

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This week's MSE success story came from Aileen who manage to cut the cost of their energy by following one of Martin's tips (Image: Jonathan Hordle/REX/Shutterstock)

A fan of Martin Lewis has shared how they helped slash their energy bill to just 62p - saving them overall £230 a year.

Aileen wrote in to the MoneySavingExpert.com team to explain how her tenement block of flats was set to pay £38 a year each in standing charges. This would cover just the cost of running the entry phone to the building, even though the phone uses less than one unit of energy.

Standing charges are a fixed daily amount you have to pay for energy, no matter how much you use. Energy companies use the money made from the charge to pay for things such as the upkeep of the electricity and gas grids. The current daily rate for electricity is 52.97p while for gas it is 29.11p.

Aileen told the MSE team that she had come across the "No Standing Charge" tariff in one of the weekly MSE emails. Aileen then switched her tenement flats over to this new tariff and this helped cut the overall energy bill for covering the entry phone from £230 down to just 63p.

She said: "Thanks to your weekly email alerting me to the zero standing charge tariff, you saved our tenement block of flats from paying £38/yr each. As the entry phone is on a separate meter and uses virtually no electricity, the recent hike in standing charges meant that our bill would have been £230/yr for using less than one unit. Switching brings that down to 62p... every little helps."

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Of course, this saving from Aileen is only related to standing charges. Aileen and her neighbours will all be paying separate bills to cover the cost of gas and electricity used in each of their homes - which means their overall bill will be a lot higher.

The energy tariff highlighted by Martin Lewis in his MSE email and blog post was from the energy provider Utilita. It's currently available as a priority for new prepayment meter customers however, some paying their energy bills by direct debit can also switch to it.

Under the tariff, customers are charged a higher rate for using up to 2kWh of energy each day. They are then charged a lower rate for the remainder of the day.

Ruby Flanagan