As a nation, many of us stay loyal to our Energy suppliers without a good explanation. We comment on how much last quarter's bill was or how much the direct debits has just gone up yet our attitudes towards switching plays right into the hands of those suppliers who simply aren't giving us the best deals.

Are we all guilty of switching off as soon as we hear about a cheaper supplier or are we just that lazy? I hear some people talk of their fear of switching suppliers in case the prices are hiked up on them or their previous supplier becomes cheaper.

We think nothing about driving an extra few miles to find a cheaper service station to fuel our cars, which probably saves us nothing as we've just wasted more fuel getting there and possible caused minor damage to the engine by sending all the rubbish from the bottom of the tank through the engine, would we make the same efforts to save money on our Gas and Electrity? Don't be ridiculous!

My take on all of this is simple, due to our ignorance and laziness, the big suppliers are laughing all the way to the bank. Millions of us have switched some form of monthly outgoing beit Mortgages, Mobile Phone bills, Home and Car Insurance - even Banks. Surely we can't be that lazy or ignorant - can we? We all strive to get the best deals when we buy a car or even when we go to the supermarket, so why do we insist on paying too much for our Energy.

We can't blame the suppliers, there are some great deals out there to be had, even with great customer service figures too - but as the Great British public carry on moaning about the cost of Gas and Electricity, we still refrain from switching. After all - what could we moan about then!

I think that the problem is that when the Energy market was deregulated, the whole country was inundated by a knock at the door - just as we were tucking in to our dinner! Hardcore door to door salesmen and women (or 'Field Sales Consultants') were sent out with two missions. One was to interupt your Shepherds Pie, and the other was to convince you that by changing that little name on the top of your Gas or Electric bill - you would be rich enough to buy a Fleet of Ferari's or purchase that island in the Bahama's you've had your eyes on! Ok - an exageration but people were mislead to the point where TV's Watchdog would have enough content to run many shows relating to disgruntled customers who switched with such sales tactics. Of course there are much tighter regulations in place to look after the consumer these days and in fact, everything is now stacked in the favour of the poor little consumer yet many of us still do nothing.

This gave us all a perfect excuse to do nothing, We could be blissfully happy knowing that we could do nothing and not feel guilty about it. Of course now we haven't got that excuse, Energywatch keeps a close eye on things for our piece of mind and still millions UK households waste ?millions every year by not switching to cheaper suppliers. One comparsion I can note from recent times was a gentleman who had never switched before, he saved ?330 a year. If that was our insurance quote or mobile phone bill, we'd be patting ourselves on the back for a job well done. According to price comparison sites such as Money Angels, many of these cheaper suppliers actually offer a better level of customer service too.

In answer to the question posed earlier, we can win out of the Energy price wars, we just have to shop around and realise that it takes no time at all to switch, and if we want to switch again, we can simply do so. Suppliers only require 28 days notice and there are many companies that will take care of the whole switch for you. The key is for us all to stop complaining and do something about, only then will we all be winning consumers in the Energy price wars.