Winter Heating Costs and Help

FeistyPigeon
FeistyPigeon Online Community Member Posts: 346 Empowering
in Everyday life

Hi Scopies,

Not been spreading my wings for a while but wanted to remind you all about contacting your energy providers for help with your energy bills. I'm with Octopus, they've got a fund called OctoAssist. I think most of the other energy companies have got similar schemes - you can search on their website menus for something like "help if you're struggling to pay". If you're like most of us, on low levels of income or benefits with few savings, you should qualify for help.

This is what happened to me with Octopus:

  1. I filled out their "budget" form they provide to apply for help. The form asks for estimates of things like how much you spend on food, essentials etc. At the end it calculates how much you have left over. They then look at your completed budget and get back to you.
  2. A day or two later a friendly chap phoned up from Octopus. First thing he did was check my tariffs and moved me onto their cheapest ones. Next he put £100 credit on my energy bill - yum! And then he arranged for a heated blanket to be sent to me through the post (which was great as Scope didn't get round to sending one last winter). The heated blanket arrived really quickly the next day and is lovely, you wrap it around you in the evenings while watching telly, very cosy.
  3. The Octopus bloke also said I should qualify for £150 warm home discount and to let them know if I didn't, and to contact them again in the spring if I was still struggling.

I was honestly surprised how helpful they were. If you haven't tried this route folks, it's well worth the effort. £100 is not a lot I know towards the entire energy bill, but with the help of others like Scope it all adds up.

Most importantly, try to keep warm this winter folks, and look after yourselves as much as you can. xxx

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