articles on personal finance: Personal-Finance

Can we win the Gas and Electricity price wars by switching suppliers?

We can win but we need to change the way we think about our energy supply.

Our attitudes towards switching suppliers leaves us open to exploitation by the huge Energy companies who have our misguided articles on personal finance loyalty. We aren't happy with the situation yet we do nothing.

The moment we hear anything to do with cheaper energy suppliers and switching our gas and electricity, we hear alarm bells ringing which drowns out the sound of the good information which might be coming to us. Are we too lazy to switch or just plain ignorant to the benefits?

None of us are too lazy to stretch a few more miles out of the fuel tank as we drive around looking for a cheaper service station, articles on personal finance of course we've probably just wasted fuel in getting there and caused minor damage to our cars by pulling debris from the bottom of the tank through the engine. Why is it that we would go through such efforts to save money and still do nothing about our energy bills?

Due to our laziness and, in many cases, ignorance, the big guys who supply our gas and electricity are getting richer and richer. We've all shopped around for various insurance, better deals on our Mortgages, lower mobile phone contracts and many of us will even switch banks to get the best interest rates. If we are a nation of strong consumers, then why do we continue to burn our money by sticking with expensive energy suppliers?

It's not the articles on personal finance fault of the suppliers, if they have millions of customers, why should they drop their prices? The fact is that there are better deals out there and many of the lower priced suppliers have high levels of customer service too. We constantly moan about the price of our gas and electricity and yet we still refuse to budge.

What seems to be stuck in our minds is that when the market was deregulated, armies of door knockers were mobilized and sent out in their hundreds to catch articles on personal finance us just as we sat down for our dinner. By switching our suppliers with them we might have a brand new Bentley on our drives go off for a 3 month cruise around the Carribean! Ok maybe not but you get the idea. People were writing into TV's Watchdog in their masses complaining about how they haven't saved any money or they haven't received a statement for 9 months and just got hit with a huge bill. Nowadays, there are very tight regulations that energy companies must adhere to in order to satisfy it's customers.

This gave us all a perfect excuse to do nothing, We could be blissfully happy knowing that we could do nothing and not feel guilty about it. Of course now we haven't got that excuse, Energywatch keeps a close eye on things for our piece of mind and still millions UK households waste £millions every year by articles on personal finance not switching to cheaper suppliers. One comparsion I can note from recent times was a gentleman who had never switched before, he saved £330 a year. If that was our insurance quote or mobile phone bill, we'd be patting ourselves on the back for a job well done. According to price comparison sites such as Money Angels, many of these cheaper suppliers actually offer a better level of customer service too.

So, can we win from the Gas and Electricity price wars? Of course we can, we just have to do something about it ourselves and stop waiting for a miraculous price decrease that may never happen. My advice is switch now and if another company offers a better deal, switch again and again, and again. We are only ever have to give our suppliers 28 days notice so take back control and be a more assertive consumer.
Author: Lewis Taylor