Did you get your electricity bill yet? Was there a hike in the bill?

Yes, people are advised to do that, but you'll never guess. I've been with the same insurance firm for almost 20 years. People will think I'm trolling now Ha Ha.

The reason I don't change is really really simple. The firm I deal with have a bricks and mortar location in town and you can't beat sitting down in front of someone and hammering out the best options for you. Personal approach and build relations over the years and all that.

There's no 'drop down' menu for "come on Johnny, are you seriously going to charge me that?" on any website I've seen.

If they ever close offices, I'll switch to a firm with a bricks and mortar presence.

In fact, I'll give some advice for free here - whenever you are handing money over, to no matter who to no matter where and no matter how, always make sure that somewhere there is a door you can walk through, knock on, wait outside, or kick down depending.

Yeah - what they mean is you get the SAME 5% discount every year. After the first year you lose the headline 32% or whatever discount and go onto the standard unit rate with a 5% discount for paperless and DD. Hence the reason I dropped them and switched to EI this year.

i.e For the first 12 months I was paying 14.76cent a unit (a 32% discount on their standard rate when I signed up)

After 12 months I went to their standard unit rate of ~23c a unit less the 5% discount for DD and paperless billing.

When I rang to get a better deal they told me they only did better deals for new customers - so I checked out my options and switched to EI who offered me ~17c a unit ===== for 12 months of course. Probably have to do the same switching again next year but since it only takes a few mins I'm happy to spend the time to save myself the money.

I tend to agree about bricks and mortar offices but I think you are confusing an insurance broker with an insurance company? I doubt but I could be wrong, that any of the insurance companies still have high street offices?

Some examples of how you can save on insurance:

1) Got a quote from Chill.ie who are an online broker, for house insurance a couple of years ago - cheapest was Zurich for €558. I then rang Zurich directly and got it from them for €468 just by cutting out the middle man.

2) Axa sent us a renewal for our car, quote was €663 - I put my details through their online system and quote was much lower, so rang them and told them this. They immediately dropped the renewal to €447.

3) Each year, use an online comparison like Chill to check the competitiveness of your renewal, if you can get it lower elsewhere, ring your insurer and give them a chance to match it otherwise take your business elsewhere!

That's my 2 cents... :)

just checked, it was €102 last year, €178 this year - a difference of €76😯 we're doomed

For nov/Dec mine was €317. 4 bed home with wife and 2 kids, electric car, air to water heating, and use immersion to heat water for showers etc. Just year was €280 for same period, so little over 10% increase.

How come Sean Fleming TD gets roasted for telling people to switch and shop around, but boardsies do not? hmmmm

dont know or care who Sean Fleming is but i do know that i saved money by shopping around

Word of warning, if running a washing machine while asleep make sure your smoke alarms are working. Washing machine fires are a real thing and they are one of the most likely causes of fire in a house.

If you are not changing your electricity company every 12 months you are overpaying, its as simple as that. Gladly its one of the easiest things to switch, unlike banking for example. When Ulster Bank close down later this year there will be carnage with people trying to switch bank and loads of direct debits, standing charges, etc.

Electricity bill is usually around €300 but the latest one was €500. Seems a lot in a house with 3 people (and empty much of the time).

Excellent!

Have you no access to read it yourself? Any time Ive let bills go estimated by not reading the meter their estimate is always a fair bit off. I thought I read somethng before that the ESB are supposed to read meters four times a year but they definitely dont in my area anyway. The only way to be sure you are getting the rght bill is to read it yourself and submit it.

A mate who is a fireman was telling me washing machines and dishwashers are common causes of fires in a house. I used to run them when asleep but dont any longer, as he said you could get away with it for 10 or 20 years but the more you do it the more chances you are taking

Just suggested this to the wife. Shes not impressed. Not impressed at all. Says she'd be mortified if someone came over for coffee and she produces a flask of preboiled water and would I ever cop on. 😂😂😂. Oh well worth a try.

Yea, Mrs WA is going to query it with them.

I have a continuous reminder in my phone to read and submit the meters every month so if we are overcharged it won't be by a lot. I only started doing it a year ago and sorry I didn't think of it earlier.