Martin Lewis urges Brit to act now to save money on bills | Personal Finance | Finance

Martin Lewis has offered vital guidance to Brits to help them avoid overpaying on their forthcoming energy bills, particularly as the energy price cap is set to rise on October 1.

Energy regulator Ofgem is increasing the price cap by 10 per cent from October 1. Under the new energy price cap, the typical annual dual-fuel bill paid by direct debit will be £1,717.

The price cap, which is adjusted every three months, affects 28 million households in England, Wales and Scotland. To ensure people are billed correctly, Mr Lewis, a renowned money-saving expert, has advised those not using a smart meter to submit a reading on or around October 1.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain today (September 26), Mr Lewis said: “If you don’t have a working smart meter, you should be doing a meter reading at some point around next Tuesday. You could do it now, you could do it a few days after. Here’s why.

“There is the old price and the new price (of energy). If you don’t do a meter reading, they are assuming how much of your usage was on the cheap price, and how much of the usage was on the more expensive price, so they could assume more of it was on the more expensive price than it was.

“If you do a meter reading, you draw a line and you are going to get the correct amount billed to you, not too much at the higher level.

“You could do it a few days before, a few days after, you just want to make sure you are not running a few weeks over because they will be able to assume you have used more at the higher rate. I’m not suggesting they do it deliberately but it is done by algorithm and the algorithm could work against you.”

Between 1 October and 31 December, gas prices will be capped at 6.24p per kilowatt hour (kWh), and electricity at 24.50p per kWh.

That means a dual-fuel direct debit household using a typical amount of energy, external will pay £1,717 per year, a rise of £149.