Households feeling the strain from the past few years of eye-watering energy prices should soon feel some of that financial pressure lift as energy bills fall by around 12 per cent from April. But not everyone will feel the full effect of this price drop if they forget to do one important thing this weekend.
The energy price cap, or the maximum amount your energy supplier can charge you per unit of gas or electricity, will fall to £1690 a year for the average household. In the North West, for Direct Debit payers, this will mean paying roughly 7p per unit of gas and 29p per unit of electricity, excluding the standing charge.
On the Martin Lewis Podcast, the eponymous financial guru said that this drop in the unit rate is why people who do not have smart meters should do one thing this weekend to make sure that there next energy bill is as low as possible - take a meter reading.
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Speaking on his BBC podcast, Martin Lewis said: "This is primarily for those who pay by monthly direct debit, people who don't have a working smart meter.
"The reason you need to do it is because the price is going to drop on April 1. If you don't do a reading for say, two months either side of that, then it will be up to the company to decide how much of your usage was at the expensive rate before April 1 at the cheaper rate after April 1.
"Now, I'm not actually saying they will deliberately get that wrong, but they will use an algorithm, they will try and get it right. They may make a decision that's in your benefit or they may make a decision that's not in your benefit. I would suggest that making sure that it's accurate is the safest thing to do.
"Which is why I would recommend that anyone who doesn't have a working smart meter who pays by monthly direct debit does a meter reading at some point in the next week."
