Spring is in the air and as the nights get lighter, families who have struggled through the winter will be looking forward to lower energy bills for the next few months.
The clocks go forward this Sunday - March 26 - and this marks the time when many households aim to switch their heating off for the summer, but energy experts are urging people to think twice before following advice on social media which could plunge them into another winter of misery, with experts cautioning against well-meaning tips on Facebook and Twitter discussion pages devoted to budgeting.
Last summer, the internet was awash with self-styled experts advising householders to just pay for what they used, as families who had not given energy much thought until the cost of living crisis turned to social media to try to understand why their energy direct debit payment was higher than the amount they were using. And who followed the advice to cancel their direct debit payment in the summer may well have found their decision came back to haunt them in the colder months, when their bills were much higher than they would have been paying had they stuck to their original direct debit payment.
