Slash your utility bills by up to £170 a year.

For most people expensive energy bills are a given; an unfortunate but necessary part of owning or renting a property. However, by taking the time to compare the cost efficiency of your provider with other utility suppliers in your area you could end up saving up to £170 a year.

Switch on the big savings

Switching your energy supplier isn't as time consuming and complicated as it may sound as there are a number of impartial energy comparison services around that will do all the hard work for you, these include ukpower.co.uk,simplyswitch.com and uswitch.com to name a few.

Energy comparison services work by comparing your current energy costs with those quoted by other gas and electricity providers in your area. They use a complex calculation, taking into account any standard charges and potential discounts along with your actual usage, to illustrate any potential savings on your current bill.

Visit one of these sites and all you’ll need to do is enter your postcode and an estimation of either your annual, or monthly, gas and electricity usage and they’ll be able to recommend both the supplier and tariff that will save you the most money. What’s more you’ll also be offered the option to switch there and then so that you can start to make savings straight away – what could be simpler?

To really make the most of these services it’s a good idea to have a reasonably accurate idea of your current gas and electricity usage so access to a recent utility bill definitely comes in useful. If possible try to enter your usage in Kilowatt/hours as this provides a more accurate estimate than cost. However, if you don’t have an energy bill to hand there are still savings to be made as most comparison sites offer estimation tools to help you calculate your likely usage.

Move supplier in one simple step

If you, like many people, are put off switching energy supplier by the belief that it's going to cause you a whole lot of hassle that you just don’t need, you may be pleasantly surprised.

In reality switching energy provider couldn’t be simpler as your newly chosen supplier will do all the leg work for you. From notifying your existing provider about the change to filling in all the paperwork; all you'll need to do is provide them with a meter reading to finalise the switch then sit back and watch the savings add up.

What's more, as all of your pipes, cables and meters will stay the same there won't even be an interruption to your supply. This means that for relatively little effort the potential savings are huge.

Get more money for less effort

Once you have switched to the cheapest possible energy supplier there are other steps you can take to reduce your utility bills even further and rather conveniently these take even less effort on your part.

For instance, most providers offer significant discounts if you opt to pay by direct debit as financially this is less 'risky' for them. Paying by direct debit is also easier for you as the money is automatically taken from your account each month meaning that you don’t need to faff around writing cheques or making over the counter cash payments – in essence a win - win situation!