In a report, produced with the Centre of Economics and Business Research, the typical UK household is now left with just 163 pounds a week to spend after essential bills are paid, down 8.4% in a year. But in some areas of the UK, household spending power has dropped substantially lower. In Northern Ireland, the typical spending money is down by 18 pounds to a paltry 76 pounds a week, while in Yorkshire and Humber it's down to 88 pounds, in the North East 100 pounds and in the West Mids 108 pounds. And there are warnings of worse to come.

These days there is an astounding amount of tariffs and the unique customer speak utilised by these firms and the use by some firms of two tier pricing and other suppliers of daily rates, all this makes for a nightmare to calculate the cheapest gas and electricity in my area and the very same goes for you too. Of course there are other elements to look at for instance the overall performance of the firms a excellent truly independent source for this is Which? magazine.

The cost of gas and electricity is increasing no matter who your supplier is and the recent energy summit which involved the Prime Minister, David Cameron, the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, consumer groups and the Big Six suppliers have instilled no confidence for the consumer that things are getting far better.

Rising wholesale power rates,our power usage and the governments green energy policy all combine to mean that energy rates may well still rise in the future.

A further consideration is the many schemes such as paperless billing, dual fuel, on line tariffs, and direct debits all make the decision making incredibly fuzzy in reaching a selection.

Simplified bills and tariffs would at least give the consumer a fighting chance. Firms such as Which? recommended provider Utility Warehouse do just that, with a standard tariff, fixed tariff and feed-in tariff.

To interpret all the details and calculate out the actual costs is an extremely time-consuming, and a stressful process to work out. Then to apply that to what is on offer to you in the marketplace for the greatest dual tariffs can again be a extremely in depth procedure. A point to note is that the ideal tariffs are discovered with the smaller firms not the usual Big 6. You will also uncover that the smaller much less widely known organisations fair far better on all elements of their customer service.

I wanted to attempt and definitely get to the bottom of what we as buyers can do to get the best deal in the existing industry, particularly as the government is providing little assistance, Ofgem, the regulator appears toothless and power providers are not going to give up their profits without having a fight

If you send through meter readings when asked by your supplier and promptly, chances are that your bill periods will be roughly the same every single year which makes comparing less complicated and much more accurate as usage varies all through the year, primarily for gas.