Why shopping at Tesco will cut your energy bill

Where you buy your groceries can make a big difference to your energy costs.

The sun is out, and summer is on its way. As a result, energy bills have fallen way down the priority list for many of us. After all, it’s not like you are going to be using your heating anytime soon, so why worry?

This is a mistake though, as cheap deals are disappearing fast.

Rising bills

A succession of energy suppliers have ditched their cheapest deals of late. nPower has scrapped its Go Fix 5 tariff, replacing it with the Go Fix 6 which is 4.2% more expensive on gas and 8.5% more expensive for electricity.

It has followed British Gas, First Utility, OVO and Green Energy, all of whom have raised tariffs in the last couple of weeks.

It’s all down to rising wholesale costs, blamed on the uncertainty in the Middle East and the Japanese nuclear explosion. Energyhelpline.com has warned that prices may rise by as much as 15% by the autumn, while Centrica (the owner of British Gas) has made clear that customers should expect higher bills in the winter.

So clearly now is exactly the time to move to a better deal before you have to ramp up your energy use. And one new initiative means that where you buy your cornflakes can help you cut your bill.

Making use of your Clubcard

Energy supplier E.ON has announced a new partnership with supermarket giant Tesco which will allow customers to use Tesco Clubcard vouchers to pay portions of their energy bills.

E.ON has long offered Clubcard points to customers for the money spent on energy with the firm. However, now you’ll be able to use your Clubcard vouchers to pay off your bill! What’s more, the value of your vouchers will be bumped up by 50% when used in this way.

So for every £10 of Clubcard vouchers you put towards your bill, £15 will be deducted from your bill.

At the moment it’s just a pilot scheme, and will run until August, so before the peak months of energy use. But it’s still absolutely worth considering, particularly if you are a regular Tesco shopper.

So how can you increase your Clubcard points collection?

Shopping at Tesco

It should go without saying that the simplest way to build up a stack of Clubcard points is to do your grocery shopping at Tesco. I live in the town where Tesco has its headquarters, and so am surrounded by Tesco stores large and small. As a result, it’s inevitable that the vast majority of food shopping I do takes place in Tesco.

For the grocery shopping you do in store or online you collect two points for every £1 you spend.

Of course, it’s not just your food that you can sort out at Tesco – the firm has fingers in every retail pie, with an opticians, broadband, home phone, mobiles and clothing all falling under the Tesco umbrella, and all offering you the chance to earn points on your spending.

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However, it should go without saying that you should shop around for the best deal for you, rather than simply sign up to Tesco’s services just for the sake of getting Clubcard points!

DVD rentals

One clever way to earn plenty of Clubcard points is to take advantage of Tesco’s DVD rental service. Like many of you, I use Lovefilm for my DVD rentals and have no complaints.

But Tesco DVD rental is run by Lovefilm anyway! So you can enjoy the usual Lovefilm service, but collect Clubcard points along the way, with two points for every £1 you spend.

Get recycling

Do you have an old mobile phone that you don’t need sitting in your cupboard, collecting dust? Why not make a few quid by recycling it? There are loads of different sites that offer this, including sites like Mazuma Mobile or Envirofone.

However, if you recycle your phone with Tesco, you’ll not only get a Tesco giftcard of up to £200, but also as many as 200 Clubcard points.

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You can also recycle ink cartridges for 50 points a cartridge.

The Tesco Clubcard credit card

However, my favourite method for ramping up Clubcard points is the Tesco Clubcard credit card.

This is a fantastic card if you’ve got a lot of spending coming up, as it offers a whopping 13 months of 0% interest on purchases. That isn’t quite the market-leading deal it used to be (the M&S Credit Card offers 15 months interest-free on purchases), but more than a year of spending interest-free is still a pretty sensational proposition.

However, it’s the ability to earn Clubcard points on all of the spending you do on your card, irrespective of where you do that spending, that is so attractive.

With the Tesco Clubcard credit card you earn one point for every £4 you spend. As with all reward cards of this nature, it’s a good idea to put as much of your usual spending on the card as possible.

But that’s not an excuse to spend even more than usual in order to collect more points!

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