financial advice

[Bob]

alright, so i got a letter from the gas company today offering me the opportunity to enroll in a "fixed price option" in which i will pay a fixed price per therm of gas between november and april. if i don't enroll, then i pay whatever the market price will be for those periods

the offered fixed price is $0.7903 per therm

the current market price is $0.7703 per therm, which, as you can see, is lower than the fixed price. but according to the gas company (who i'm sure has my best interests at heart) the price is subject to unpredictable fluctuation and may either decrease or increase during the winter

i have no idea how to figure out whether or not this is a good idea, what would you do

[Guy Incognito]

alright, so i got a letter from the gas company today offering me the opportunity to enroll in a "fixed price option" in which i will pay a fixed price per therm of gas between november and april. if i don't enroll, then i pay whatever the market price will be for those periods

the offered fixed price is $0.7903 per therm

the current market price is $0.7703 per therm, which, as you can see, is lower than the fixed price. but according to the gas company (who i'm sure has my best interests at heart) the price is subject to unpredictable fluctuation and may either decrease or increase during the winter

i have no idea how to figure out whether or not this is a good idea, what would you do

if you have previous bills where you didnt pay fixed rate and work the average out and whether its better to do fixed or not as its going to be a seasonal thing. i dont know why i am giving advice, the wife looks after the bills in our house

[Bob]

that's a good idea. i didn't start taking care of the bills until spring/summer though so i don't have any winter bills to look back on. i guess this information is probably on the internet somewhere though

[Adam]

I would say not a good deal. Gas prices, in the UK at least but I assume they are close enough to world markets have fallen recently and from what I can remember are expected to be not historically low but low enough throughout the winter (the recession has cut the price of gas as less is being used so more is available type of circle which reduces the price).

I assume the gas company knows this and is just trying to live off your fears to guarantee a regular unpredictable income from as many customers as possible.

I deal with all the bills generally.

[NicRN77]

I did the fixed rate one year when I was living in a real old house. It was a good idea because the windows were very drafty and the bill could sometimes be over $300 a month. I ended up saving money in the end as the gas prices went up quite a bit that winter. I think that was in 2007?

[jabumbo]

^ you are talking about the budget payment i think?


i thought all gas companies locked in a price for the year regardless, so your current price would be better.

i got a thing telling me that if i switched gas companies, i would get a 7% cheaper price for a year. but thats all they said. i didn't do it

[Adam]

I'm sure you guys (as in americans) have a similar system to us. If you really want to save money on your energy you need to change companies a couple of times of year.

For the UK, sites like moneysavingexpert.com help with that.

But the way I do without having to check out who is the cheapest is see who is paying the most cashback to switch. Quidco.com (for the UK only - but some1 must do an equivalent) pays cashback when you change companies. It works that use their affiliate link and they'll give you some of the profit they make from the sale. Basically you can make a couple of hundred £'s per year by switching companies that makes up the difference if they are the cheapest are not because sometimes its impossible to tell with the thousands of tariffs available.

I have loads of tips on saving money but I find most people won't continue to monitor their spending once I give them advice and slip back into their ways of paying the price you see. If you look at it in the sense of that if gives you a couple of grand pay rise per year when you put all the tips togethers, people sometimes see it differently (basically I mean you spend a couple of grand less without changing your lifestyle).

[lolkat]

i heard bob threads were classic but this one is fucking boring except now that im here its exciting so whatever