I'm a simple emigrant and changed the electricity supplier

After moving to Germany I lived in a studio-type apartment-hotel: everything was included in the price, you simply pay one amount every month and don’t bother. Then when moving to a regular apartment you have to do everything yourself. In my case, that’s rent plus utilities, which are automatically debited. Separately, contracts for Internet, electricity, and for TV and radio fees. I didn’t change the Internet contract, and it’s almost impossible to opt out of paying the TV and radio license fees: they are mandatory even if you no longer know what a radio is and don’t have a TV. But I’ve been changing electricity providers for the third time in two and a half years in the new apartment. All because many providers offer good discounts to new customers, and later the magic fades and they hit you with “standard” prices – higher by about 30-40%. To understand how much you will have to pay, look at two numbers in the tariff details. First, the base price (Grundpreis): the monthly minimum payment; second, the price per kilowatt-hour (Arbeitspreis). Only then can you also check the advance payment, because it may seem attractive, especially if you have under- or overestimated your expected consumption. But don’t be fooled: at the end of the year there will be a settlement, and then they may require a top-up of hundreds of euros — this is where the main trap lies. This is especially important if you plan to choose a tariff once and for all. I always look at the available tariffs on Check24.de. And it seems to me that they have tricks there too, and if your current tariff is expensive, they offer worse conditions. Next we calculate: approximate electricity consumption can be looked up for your last year, say 2000 kWh/year, then with Grundpreis: €10 and Arbeitspreis at 35 ct/kWh we get €820 per year. It turns out that the advance payment is about €68 per month. At the same time, a consumption of 2000 per year is a lot for one person or even two, so in our example you will almost certainly end up with a nice refund at the end of the year! For the especially busy there are even services like SwitchUp or Verivox, which will switch tariffs for you, but I didn’t use them; I prefer doing it by hand. #useful #money