No Magic Money Tree....

Katieowl · 12 December 2017 at 6:15PM

VfM4meplse wrote: »

I know nothing about pet food, but I do know that keeping track of every receipt on a .xls spreadsheet for the first 3 months of 2017 was a valuable exercise. Combined with setting a monthly target of NSDs, this really worked - but I should say that it was relatively easy as it’s just me to consider.

At the end I added a column for “want / need” and I was still able to incorporate little treats from the chazzer, in the form of books.

I shall resurrect on 1st Jan 2018.[/QUOTE

I'm wondering how detailed to make this spreadsheet, I've got all the various food categories separate and put columns like cheese, milk, snacks (not guilty I don't eat crisps) meat etc?
A bit of me thinks, especially at first, it might be useful to see the details. Need want is a good idea though! I need to figure out how to do another column without throwing the sums out, cos I forgot petrol!

C_J · 12 December 2017 at 7:01PM

Katieowl wrote: »

I'll try that, there are two butchers in town, when I asked for bones for broth for dog one of them was proper sniffy, so I never tried the other one. Good Idea. Think I have seen that meatloaf recipe. I have all the gadgets, including a mincer so that would be a doddle.

The first butcher I went to was sniffy too, and it very nearly put me off. However the second butcher I tried, in a small neighbouring market town, was completely geared up for selling meat for dogs (and was a dog owner/lover himself). This shop isn't the most local one to me but I make a point of going there every month to stock up (for us as well as for the dog) because they were so friendly. The difference in attitude was remarkable, so hopefully you will find a butcher who is equally helpful on your next attempt!

beautiful_ravens · 12 December 2017 at 8:40PM

Tell us more about the electric & heating costs and the rayburn...how much oil do you buy? How much on logs? When is the electric heating on? etc

skogar · 12 December 2017 at 9:41PM

Sounds like you have already had some good suggestions. One of the local farm shops sells meat for dogs (they have there own pigs so it's pork) at sensible prices so it may be worth asking round. I've tended to find that places you normally shop at can be really helpful but I suspect you would do less well if it was somewhere you didn't normally use.

When I did the writing down all spends - I did it in a notebook rather than a spreadsheet I wrote down all spends. The weird thing I found that the fact that I was going t have to write it down made me assess if it was really needed before I bought it.

Sounds like there may also be some areas that you could cut back on a bit on the food spending e.g. cheaper brands / not organic etc. even if it is just a short term thing while you build up the safety buffer to keep you out the over draft.

Again this was just for me so relatively easy to keep track.

Is it any cheaper to buy direct from natures menu rather than through the local shop. I know they do home delivery.

Katieowl · 12 December 2017 at 9:45PM

beautiful_ravens wrote: »

Tell us more about the electric & heating costs and the rayburn...how much oil do you buy? How much on logs? When is the electric heating on? etc

OK.
Rayburn is only on over winter months. We try and hold out for Halloween to put it on, then it stays on until March/April depending on how cold it is. I put £100 a month aside to pay for oil which we get maybe two deliveries of @ around £300-400 a time. Fund gets dipped into for inevitable emergencies. Rayburn when on heats hot water quite efficiently. I only have to boost it occassionally. It drives the damp out of the cottage and provides a little background heat.

We don't have a general central heating system, but the Rayburn fires a couple of heat sink radiators upstairs.

So we usually get one load of logs a year, we also burn briquettes in the log burner. Load of logs around £100, get through about 3 - 4 bags a week of briquettesm which are about £6/7 depending on what we can get. We only put the fire on late afternoon when it's cold. But again it's central in the house and the heat radiates.

The annex was being used as B&B and when the small electric system was put in, we figured if it was on, the customers would be paying for it....well that didn't work out, man of the house uses it now, toughs it out without heating on, I think it needs some heat, as its getting damp but he and DS use the shower in there in preference to the bath, and we ONLY put the water on to heat as required, but OMG does it make the gadget whizz round. (I have an OWL Monitor and also one of those things that monitors KW use)

Apart from that, we are running two freezers, a large fridge (work related) Electric oven on most of one day a week (baking) plus cooking for us rest of the time, dishwasher, washing machine tumble drier (wales - do my best to use the line/rayburn), two TVs and various lappies, chargers etc, I have an electric oil rad on very low in a damp corner of my room, but I always turn it down to the bare min. I've got low energy bulbs where I can, but I do find the cottage dark, so need them on daytime when I'm working, also use mixer/blenders etc in kitchen.

ALSO man has a WORKSHOP with woodwork machinery and tools but is adamant it doesn't use much electricity - I'm not convinced.

The electricity bill is horrendous, everyone I tell thinks I must be paying for a couple of other houses :rotfl: but I have turned everything off and it does stop moving?

ETA British Gas want £140 a month of me at the moment, I am in credit with them, but if I try and adjust the standing order, it says that they want to put it up to something like £180 to make sure I'm covered at the end of the year

skogar · 12 December 2017 at 10:12PM

Katie,

Electric wise it's the applicances that heat things up that will use the most energy so would probably look at those first to try and cut down usage. Tumble drier may be difficult as it's winter. Can you prepare any of the meals in bulk and then freeze and just microwave (if you have one) to save on oven use, same with the baking - can you plan it so you bake a large batch of things.

Which work out cheaper the logs or the briquettes? May work out cheaper to get say 2 loads of logs rather than the mixture.

mardatha · 12 December 2017 at 10:56PM

Oil is the dearest way to heat a house Katie, and you are running a lot of appliances as well. If you could use the Rayburn to heat & cook with - or the log burner to heat & dry washing with... double tasking, you know? Then that would help. Might it be possible to shut off half the house in winter and live more compactly in one part of it ? That would cut down the bills.
EDITED: one of the ways I really got my elect bill down sounds silly and trivial - but it really made a difference. I bought a stove top kettle and got rid of the electric one. I use Calor gas to cook with and it didn't seem to use up the gas any faster, but it def reduced the elect units used.
I also got rid of the tumble dryer and instead I dry clothes in front of the stove overnight.
And we got rid of the fancy American fridge freezer and went for an A+++ Bosch instead. That cut down the bill too.

Katieowl · 12 December 2017 at 11:07PM

skogar wrote: »

Katie,

Electric wise it's the applicances that heat things up that will use the most energy so would probably look at those first to try and cut down usage. Tumble drier may be difficult as it's winter. Can you prepare any of the meals in bulk and then freeze and just microwave (if you have one) to save on oven use, same with the baking - can you plan it so you bake a large batch of things.

Which work out cheaper the logs or the briquettes? May work out cheaper to get say 2 loads of logs rather than the mixture.

Mmm I do bulk cook for us, and also use slow cooker quite a bit, and microwave leftovers. The hob is bottled gas too. Use about two of those a year. Oven is used for work, I bake for a living, so ultimate batch cooking

for us indoors I am a massive fan of the traybake. I've struggled to get to grips with the Rayburn, but Man tinkered with it last year and it's working a lot better, on the low setting it functions well as a slow cooker, and you can use the top to simmer a pan.

Good point about the Briquettes/Logs. Will set Man on that, I would have thought if we could bulk buy either it would be cheaper - we do have room to store.

mardatha · 12 December 2017 at 11:16PM

If you could just try and double-task with one applicance doing two jobs then that might help. Bigger/ older houses with Rayburns are notorious for burning money x

Katieowl · 12 December 2017 at 11:23PM

mardatha wrote: »

Oil is the dearest way to heat a house Katie, and you are running a lot of appliances as well. If you could use the Rayburn to heat & cook with - or the log burner to heat & dry washing with... double tasking, you know? Then that would help. Might it be possible to shut off half the house in winter and live more compactly in one part of it ? That would cut down the bills.
EDITED: one of the ways I really got my elect bill down sounds silly and trivial - but it really made a difference. I bought a stove top kettle and got rid of the electric one. I use Calor gas to cook with and it didn't seem to use up the gas any faster, but it def reduced the elect units used.
I also got rid of the tumble dryer and instead I dry clothes in front of the stove overnight.
And we got rid of the fancy American fridge freezer and went for an A+++ Bosch instead. That cut down the bill too.

My new fridge and one of the freezers replaced this year are A+++ rated so I might claw a bit back on that in the next few bills.

There's only oil or electric as a choice of fuel I'm pretty rural. I'm being inunddated with cold calls from people trying to give us a free (oil) boiler, and I have said to Man that maybe Rayburn needs to go? But the thought of trying to reinstall heating is pretty daunting. When we moved in nine years ago there were TWO Oil tanks, one supplying a defuct central heating system, and another running the Rayburn. Oil was a lot more expensive then and the thought of filling two tanks a year was sufficient for us just remove the old boiler, when we did the renovation for the annexe, clearly no one who ever lived here has worried about the bills!!!

I have one of those "cheap to run" heated drying racks, but the gadget that monitors the usage, showed that while it did only cost 7p an hour, it was on for Aaaaages and was actually costing about 50p a day and taking a couple of days to dry stuff :O the drier is cheaper. I'm trying to use the Rayburn more, but I could bring the other clothes drier in when I'm not cooking and throw it in the kitchen, will see if thats doable.

I don't think we could use less of the house, it's not huge, we aren't heating two rooms anyway.

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