Martin Lewis: Are you an E.on customer? Here's an easy way to cut what you pay for energy

What's trickier to compare is whether you could save more by fixing (or by waiting and then fixing later)

It's clear that this tariff will be cheaper for the next 12 months than staying on E.on Next's price-capped tariff. But that isn't the only option. Here we run through the scenarios:

• You fix your tariff now. E.on doesn't currently offer a fix that's likely to be competitive. Its current cheapest is a 12-month deal that's about 2% less than July's Price Cap. However, our current best guess, based on today's predictions of the Price Cap over the next 12 months, is that only fixes more than 5% below July's Price Cap are likely to be worth considering (and that number also depends on current predictions being right).
  
  Some other suppliers are offering fixed deals right now – a few are open to all, such as those offered by British Gas, Sainsbury's Energy, Shell Energy and So Energy, but most are for suppliers' existing customers only, such as those offered by Octopus Energy and Ovo (though you can switch to their standard variable tariffs to access the fixed deals). Only the Octopus fix is likely worth considering – but for full info on suppliers' fixed deals, plus our 'Is this fix worth it?' calculator, see Should you fix?
  
  Yet fixes provide price certainty, and if the Price Cap were to rise higher than all predictions, what you pay on the E.on Next Pledge tariff would also rise (whereas a fix would see you keep the same rates till it ended).
  
  
• You stay on E.on's price-capped tariff in the hope that a much cheaper fix comes along in a few months. There's no guarantee a tariff like this will launch in the next 12 months. However, if it does, in this scenario, you'd be free to move to it without paying exit fees. But you would have been overpaying compared with the Pledge tariff until that point.
  
  
• You take the E.on Next Pledge deal (and are willing to pay the exit fees to move to a much better deal). Paying the £25 per fuel exit fees to secure a much bigger saving down the line may make economic sense for some.
  
  However, in the scenario above – staying on E.on's price-capped tariff – you wouldn't have had to pay them. This one's very hard to predict, as whether you'd be worse off depends on a) if a tariff does come along with a much bigger saving, b) when in the 12 months that tariff comes along, and c) your usage (the unit rates are lower on the Pledge deal, so if you use more, you save more compared with the Price Cap).
  
  In the scenario of taking the Pledge tariff and being willing to switch later, if you did lose out, it'd likely be not by more than a few tens of pounds.

What you should be doing now to help yourself

Other than fixing, there are three areas to focus on...

• Try to cut your energy usage. There are lots of ways to easily reduce what you use. Try our interactive energy-saving tool, where you can click around a virtual house to find out how much appliances cost to run and how to cut back. Also, see our Energy saving tips guide, the Energy mythbusters guide for less clear-cut issues, and our Heat the human guide.
  
  
• Check you're paying the right amount. You can use our Energy Price Cap Calculator to see how much you'll pay from Sunday 1 October.
  
  
• Have you got all the help you qualify for? If you can't pay, check our Struggling to pay – energy help guide, which has info on all the cost of living support schemes.