Customers at major energy firms including British Gas, EON, EDF or Octopus Energy are being warned not to use big appliances this weekend like ovens or washing machines.
Ofgem is set to change the price cap on Monday, July 1, to reduce the price cap by seven percent, or £118 for an average use household.
That means households on a standard variable tariff – which is still most households, because cheaper fixes are only just returning to the market recently – will pay 7 percent less for every unit of electricity and gas they use from Monday, July 1.
Ovens are notoriously expensive to run, costing anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 kWh when in use. That means running your oven for one hour could cost one to two units of electricity. But from Monday, those units will instantly be 7 percent cheaper.
Using the washing machine, the dishwasher, or running the hoover are all activities you can try to ‘put off’ until Monday to save money as these are some of the most expensive items to run in the house.
Finally, charging an electric car on Monday instead of this weekend could yield big savings, unless you’re on a cheaper Sunday tariff that lets you charge your car at a discount, as some EV focused tariffs do. But ultimately, saving as many household tasks and electricity uses until Monday could knock all of your highest usage into the cheaper days from July, which could save you a bit of money.
Of course it may be worth looking into a cheaper fix as soon as possible, because the best deals are rapidly vanishing.
Right now, there are energy fixes which promise to undercut the July 1 price cap by 3-5 percent, but they are due to disappear because energy prices are forecast to rise again by about 12 percent in October.