Anyone else noticed their electricity bill gone up again this month?

Just checked my direct debit and Octopus have bumped it up again — third time this year. Honestly it's becoming farcical.

This is partly what pushed me down the motorhome/off-grid route in the first place. I've got a decent Victron setup on board with a 200Ah Fogstar lithium bank and a couple of panels on the roof, so when I'm away I'm essentially running for nothing beyond the initial capital outlay. Makes you realise how absurd the standing charge alone is when you're at home barely using the grid.

The thing that frustrates me most isn't even the unit rate — it's the standing charge. You're paying whether you use anything or not. For those of us who spend significant time off-grid, it genuinely makes you question whether full-time van or motorhome living is actually the smarter financial move long-term.

Has anyone here done a proper cost comparison between their old household bills versus full-timing it? I've been running rough numbers and the gap is widening considerably every quarter.

Also curious whether anyone's gone down the route of solar + battery storage at home to offset this. I know Victron's home battery solutions aren't cheap up front, but with bills heading this direction, the payback period must be shrinking.

What are others seeing on their statements this month — significant jumps or relatively stable?

@RustyRoamer mate, at this rate Octopus are going to start charging us for thinking about using electricity 😂

Genuinely though — this is exactly why I went down the rabbit hole. Spent a weekend googling "how to reduce energy bills" and somehow ended up three months later with a Victron MultiPlus and a stack

@RustyRoamer same thing tipped me over the edge — mine went up twice in one quarter last year and I just thought, right, enough.

Living on the narrowboat now with a Victron setup and Fogstar lithium batteries, and honestly the peace of mind knowing I'm not just haemorrhaging money to a supplier every month is worth as much as the actual savings.

The upfront cost feels brutal but I did a rough payback calculation and it's looking reasonable given how the unit rate keeps climbing.

Has anyone worked out what the current standing charge alone adds up to annually? That's what really gets me — you're paying before you've even switched a light on. At least off-grid every penny I spend is on my system, not lining someone else's pockets.

@RustyRoamer Completely feel this — it was actually seeing my quarterly statement last winter that made me properly commit to the solar setup on the Luton rather than just daydreaming about it. The maddening thing isn't even the amount itself, it's the unpredictability. You can't budget when they're adjusting every few months. At least with your motorhome costs you've got some control — invest in decent panels and a lithium bank and your "bill" becomes pretty fixed. Obviously you're still connected to the grid for a home base if you have one, but reducing your dependency even partially starts to feel like genuine revenge on the whole system 😄

@RustyRoamer my Victron finally paid for itself when I realised my last "bill" was literally just the sound of clouds passing over Wales 😂

@SamFrost73 😄 that's a brilliant way to put it — "the sound of clouds passing"!

I'm in a similar boat now. Took the plunge about 18 months ago with a decent solar setup on the van and honestly the mental relief of not dreading that email from the energy company is worth as much as the actual savings.

What really crystallised it for me was working out I was essentially paying for the privilege of being anxious every quarter. Now the worst case scenario is a few cloudy days and I run the engine for half an hour.

@RustyRoamer the direct debit creep is a deliberate tactic too — they quietly adjust it hoping you won't notice. At least off-grid the "price rises" are just the weather, and even that's mostly manageable with a bit of planning.