# How we saved on water, electric, cable, and council tax in London - our experience



## gliderjoe (Sep 1, 2009)

How we saved on water, electric, cable, and council tax in London - our experience

I am here with my wife only and we live in a 1-bedroom in Westminster area in Central London. Regarding the utilities, I wanted to share our experience on how we are saving a lot on these bills:

1) Water bill - Thames water is the main water supplier in London. As soon as you secure a new flat here, make sure you check to see if it makes sense to get fitted for a water meter (if your flat is not already equipped with one). As a general rule of thumb you'd save money by having a water meter fitted if you have more bedrooms than people in your house. In most cases with just a few people in your family you are probably paying too much for water without a meter. Uswitch<dot>com/water is a source to determine if you should have water read from a meter or pay the flat rate. You can call Thames water and schedule them to come out to check for free. In our case, our building does not allow water meters. So by law, Thames water has to charge us by bedroom. In the end we went from paying the flat rate £70/mo to £16/mo.

2) Check energy.lovemoney<dot>com to compare electric companies. In our case EDF came out on top.

3) Cable bill - our building has a shared satellite so we get basic cable television for free. However we do not watch TV. So for this reason we are not obligated to pay the TV license fee. We simply disconnected the line from the wall to the TV. If you do get a visit from the TV license group, simply explain this situation to them. You can even refuse them entrence into your flat by law.

4) Internet/phone - Orange Broadband is providing great internet service. I highly discourage Sky for broadband, they have terrible customer service. Check broadbandchoices<dot>co<dot>uk to compare. For phone I use Vonage which works great. Both are very inexpensive (£24/mo for internet, £10/mo for Vonage). Virgin media is starting to build out a fiber network which should be better and more cost competitive in the future.

5) Council tax - Westminster has the lowest by far, so if you can secure a flat in this area it's ideal for council tax. If you are a single occupant you receive a 25% discount on council tax anywhere in the city.


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

Interesting - on the television tax, though, when I lived in the UK (many years ago) you had to show that any television you owned had the broadcast reception disabled so that you couldn't get terrestrial signals at all. (At the time some folks were using their televisions solely for watching pre-recorded video tapes.) It's entirely possible that has changed - but somewhere online there is a procedure for what you need to disable in order to avoid the television tax.
Cheers,
Bev


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## gliderjoe (Sep 1, 2009)

This information can be found at www<dot>tvlicensing<dot>co<dot>uk (excuse the website link but Expat forum won't let me post URLs yet since I am new). It states:

"The law states that you need to be covered by a TV Licence if you watch or record television programmes, on any device, as they're being shown on TV. This includes TVs, computers, mobile phones, games consoles, digital boxes and DVD/VHS recorders.

You don't need a licence if you don't use any of these devices to watch or record television programmes as they're being shown on TV - for example, if you use your TV only to watch DVDs or play video games, or you only watch programmes on your computer after they have been shown on TV. If this is the case, please let us know, as this helps us to keep our database up to date and means you won't receive the standard letters we send to unlicensed addresses."

So since we don't need a license as we do not watch live TV, we just need to fill out a form on the above website. Once complete they shouldn't bother you for a 2-year timeframe.


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

gliderjoe said:


> How we saved on water, electric, cable, and council tax in London - our experience
> 
> I am here with my wife only and we live in a 1-bedroom in Westminster area in Central London. Regarding the utilities, I wanted to share our experience on how we are saving a lot on these bills:
> 
> 3) Cable bill - our building has a shared satellite so we get basic cable television for free. However we do not watch TV. So for this reason we are not obligated to pay the TV license fee. We simply disconnected the line from the wall to the TV. If you do get a visit from the TV license group, simply explain this situation to them. You can even refuse them entrence into your flat by law.


Yes, you only need to complete an online self-declaration form that you don't watch live TV. But this doesn't stop them from doing spot-checks to see you aren't breaking their terms.



> 5) Council tax - Westminster has the lowest by far, so if you can secure a flat in this area it's ideal for council tax. If you are a single occupant you receive a 25% discount on council tax anywhere in the city.


True, but it will probably still be cheaper to rent in less expensive areas than Westminster even if you pay more in council tax, taking into account also the commuting costs. You get 25% single household discount anywhere, not just in the City of Westminster.


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## nyclon (Apr 3, 2011)

Westiminster is also one of the most expensive boroughs in London. Yes, council tax is low but rent and property prices are amongst the highest in London. Anything you might save in council tax, you will definitely be spending to secure a property.


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## nyclon (Apr 3, 2011)

Westiminster is also one of the most expensive boroughs in London. Yes, council tax is low but rent and property prices are amongst the highest in London. Anything you might save in council tax, you will definitely be spending to secure a property.

Regarding Thames Water, we moved from an approximately 1000 square foot 2 bedroom/2 bath flat to an 850 square foot 3 bedroom/2 bath flat, both in unmetered buildings. Our water bill dropped by more than half in the 3 bedroom flat, so I don't think the calculation for unmetered flats is based strictly on the number of bedrooms.


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