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We can win but we need to change the way we think about our energy supply. As a nation, many of us stay loyal to our Energy suppliers without a good explanation. We comment on how much last quarter's bill was or how much the direct debits has just gone up yet our attitudes towards switching plays right into the hands of those suppliers who simply aren't giving us the best deals. Our most common reaction to energy switching is to switch off and pretend we didn't hear anything! We are either too scared to switch suppliers now in case for some reason their own supplier becomes cheaper in time or simply can't be bothered. We think nothing about driving an extra few miles to find a cheaper service station to fuel our cars, which probably saves us nothing as we've just wasted more fuel getting there and possible caused minor damage to the engine by sending all the rubbish from the bottom of the tank through the engine, would we make the same efforts to save money on our Gas and Electrity? Don't be ridiculous! My take on all of this is simple, due to our ignorance and laziness, the big suppliers are laughing all the way to the bank. Millions of us have switched some form of monthly outgoing beit Mortgages, Mobile Phone bills, Home and Car Insurance - even Banks. Surely we can't be that lazy or ignorant - can we? We all strive to get the best deals when we buy a car or even when we go to the supermarket, so why do we insist on paying too much for our Energy. It would be easy to blame suppliers for higher prices but with such a high volume of loyal customers, it's our fault that we are not getting the best deals because we are not voting with our feet. There are loads of better priced suppliers out there and they have great customer service too, but it's so much easier to just moan about the prices and do nothing. 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 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 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.
Article Source: http://www.financemanual.com
You can contact Lewis Taylor at his free energy price comparison site and you can use the free service to switch suppliers. Don't reprint this article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.
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