Ofgem confirmed the energy price cap reduction on February 25, with the typical annual bill for a household paying via Direct Debit for both gas and electricity set at £1,641 under the new cap. This is more than £200 below last year's cap. According to Daily Express - Finance, Martin Lewis described this as a perfect time to get off the energy price cap, noting that all bills are getting cheaper.
He explained that the cheapest fixed energy tariffs are currently 14 percent cheaper than the price cap, and from April, fixing now could increase the differential to 15 or 16 percent cheaper, saving about £200 per year. This is because some policy costs have been eliminated or shifted to general taxation, affecting all bills, though it is unknown how many households are currently on the price cap versus fixed tariffs or what specific policy costs were changed. 30 and a Second Class letter from 87p to 91p, as reported by Royal Mail.
Something strange is happening to energy bills on the 1st of April. All bills are going to get cheaper, which means this is the perfect time to get off the energy price cap.
55, and Martin Lewis noted that stamps marked '1st' or '2nd' are valid forever. According to Daily Express - Finance, a viewer described buying £10,000 worth of first class stamps for their business in 2022, using 80% of them, with the remaining stamps now valued at over £5,300 due to price rises, though it is unknown if there are restrictions on bulk-buying stamps or what impact the increase will have on Royal Mail's revenue and service delivery.
Why do I say that? Well, I'm going to take the simplest solution which is fixing, where you lock in a rate for a year. Currently, this is the rate of the energy price cap, and the cheapest fixes are 14 per cent cheaper. On the 1st of April, the energy price cap - which is the default bog-standard tariff you're on if you've never switched or you came off a fix and didn't do anything - is going to drop by an average 6.7 per cent. But all tariffs are going to drop too, and fixes are going to drop by, well, potentially 7 per cent to 9 per cent depending on your usage. So, whilst the cheapest fix is currently 14 per cent cheaper than the price cap, from April, if you fixed now, you'd actually see the differential increase to probably 15 per cent or 16 per cent cheaper than the price cap, which is about a £200 savings per year. This is because some of the policy costs that we were paying for on our bills have either been got rid of or shifted to general taxation, and that comes off all bills, not the price cap. So this is a great time to compare, fix, and ditch what I tend to call the 'pants cap'. And for far more details and help and exactly what you need to do, have a listen to the podcast.
Stamps. Prices are rising up to 6%, 10p on a First Class letter stamp, you can stomp down on this, all you have to do, is go buy your stamps now as long as they say 1st or 2nd on them, they are valid in perpetuity. Perpetuity means forever, you may as well buy them now when they’re cheaper. Going to be sending Christmas cards this Christmas? Buy your stamps now.
Following Martin’s comments on stamps going up, we bought £10,000 worth of first class stamps for our business back in 2022. We’ve used 80% of them and only have 1,900 left, however, their value is now still over £5,300 with all the price rises, our most profitable investment in the last four years!
I was just going to say they must be using large letter stamps for them to be worth £5,300 but I enjoyed the calculation.