Managing your prepayment meter through winter.
Topping up your prepayment meter in the winter can feel a bit more expensive. Why? Because you’ll probably be using more energy than in the summer. As a prepayment customer, you’ll realise how quickly your money can run out of the meter, which is why we have come up with a few tips to help you save pennies in your pocket. Not sure what a prepayment meter is? As the weather gets colder our energy use goes up. Therefore, it is a good idea to prepare for your increased winter energy use ahead of time. If you don’t already, we recommend topping up all year round, so that you accumulate credit during the summer that you can spend on that extra winter energy. Plus, it’s important to remember that even when you are not using energy you’ll need to pay the standing charge. So, making a habit of topping up regularly will ensure you stay on top of your payments. Life can be unexpected, and saving what you can spare will offer you added security in case you use more energy than you plan over the colder months. Budgeting for winter is not the only way to help manage your energy. You can also try our energy saving tips to reduce your winter bills.
Plan, plan, plan.
The main thing you need to do to save energy this winter, whether you’re a prepayment customer or not, is to plan. Plan on what you need to make your home winter ready. You also need to be planning on how you can help minimise topping up so much, by improving your energy efficiency in your home.
Emergency help.
The biggest worry for prepayment customers is running out of credit when everything is closed (i.e. Christmas). But never fear as E.ON Next, (and most companies), have an emergency top up system in place. You have access to £5 emergency credit that can be used when you are running low on either your gas or electricity meter. This becomes available when you reach £2 on your gas meter or 50p on your electricity meter. At E.ON Next you can activate your emergency credit by entering your key or card and pressing the red button ‘A’ for gas or the blue button for electricity. If you do use any emergency credit, you will need to pay it back the next time you top up your meter before you are able to add any additional credit. This means you will need more funds than usual to add credit to your meter. This is automatically collected via your meter when you top up next.
We are always here to help!
We don’t want you to go without electricity or gas, especially during those long colder winter months, so if there’s a problem with your meter, we’ll send an engineer out. Want to find out more information about our prepayment meters, or have a question? Head over to our prepayment pages and prepayment help to get the answers you need.
Switch to a smart prepayment meter.
Are you a prepayment customer who fancies going smart? You could combine both the flexibility of a pay as you go tariff with the convenience of a smart meter. Switching to smart means you can top up ANYWHERE! Learn more about the smart combination.