the daydream fund challenge thread

alfie_1

rhiwfield wrote: »

Goodness Alfie, £2000 quid a year for leccy :eek::eek::eek:. We're about £900 annual credit on our leccy after FITs. OTOH, with your gas cooker and gas C/H only costing £260 a year thats a real bargain, but I'd have expected 4x as much!!

I guess that we're paying about £1400 a year for our heating atm (for a fairly big house) and if we go down the ASHP route that should come down to about £1,000. That would be offset by RHI payments of £1300 ish, meaning we'd be in house energy credit of c£1200.

Mind, we dont keep many outside lights on

my fuel bill started 6 years ago at £198 -500ltrs ...its now £335 -500litres !! but it would cost me minimum £26,000 to put in electricity. thats providing the mighty "national park" big wigs allowed me to cross a field !? then i would have elec bills ? im used to it now..
also with the gas being a combi boiler it only heats water as we need it. so no expensive emersion heater...

rhiwfield

Choille/Downshifter, just read a secondhand Sunday Times and it reckons that Jan & April increases in VAT & duty will add 8p a litre to petrol/diesel costs. And Brent crude futures hit $93 a barrel today :eek:
I'm not harping on about energy costs for no reason, I want to be able to continue living in the countryside on a limited income and that means being smart about energy costs, starting with cutting down energy requirements. As you said choille, insulation, insulation, insulation. After that it's using energy wisely, then sourcing energy in the cheapest way possible, which may mean accepting incentives to decarbonise energy used.

Downshifter, when it seems that events are conspiring against you, maybe you have to change the parameters. If oil becomes a problem, reduce your reliance on it if you can, thats what I'm trying to do I guess you wouldnt really be happy with town life?

Lir, at my last house we converted two outhouses into utility room, but despite lots of lagging deep cold used to freeze pipes. Then we'd be in the house and hear running water in house pipes, to go out to find utility room swimming in water. Put an outside loo in one room, insulated it and rats set up home in the insulation. Six foot drifts one winter and DW sends me to shops 3 miles away (on foot) to get potatoes and lemonade :eek::eek:. Fit and young then but on way back I did wonder whether I'd make it home!

On a different note, heard next doors hens this morning (owners just away on hols) but saw no signs of visitors tracks in the snow. So went down and saw empty feeder, frozen water, pop hole open and two sorry looking chooks. All sorted now, hens ok and designated relief keeper in charge, but could have been very unpleasant. It was a case of send 3 & 4 pence, I'm going to a dance

rhiwfield

alfie_1 wrote: »

it would cost me minimum £26,000 to put in electricity. thats providing the mighty "national park" big wigs allowed me to cross a field !? .

Alfie, what a pain, can see why the leccy is so expensive, and if you went down the offgrid renewables route you'd need a heck of a battery back up system.

downshifter

While obviously I agree about insulation you need to create enough heat in the house to keep in in the first place. Although I know I have grown accustomed to much colder temperatures over the past few weeks, I cannot get my living room above 4-6 degrees despite double lined curtains, double glazing etc etc. Obviously we don't use it, at least the kitchen is warmer. But the costs of heating just one room are astronomical and living in the country means that I am about to resign my little job as the petrol costs now mean that I will be out of pocket. I already do enough voluntary work thanks, and have planned my supermarket shop for the day I'm working in town. Will have to rethink that now, sometimes I feel my whole life is ruled by the price of petrol!

A rented house means that my choices are limited, and like others, living in a National Park restricts use of wind power even though I live on top of the windiest hill in the world I reckon!

Anyway, have just taken my car up to the lane and walked back home, it's glorious out there, clear and crisp and intensely cold. I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles - oh ye-ah! (The Who, 1967)

Ds

choille

Alfie we got quoted £5,230 & I got it down to £1,600 & managed to get a grant for £800 after a haggle - so never take the first quote.
We have a limited supply - but that will change when someone builds a house nearby & then it will be upgraded but I'm not bothered as we hope to utilise our waterfall. I have an agricultural rate which has a standing charge grrrrrrrrrr, but use little elec. All we have is lights, 'puter & Telly really.

We try & live cheap but we have had expense with animals - we certainly don't make money off them - cost us too much really.

I've never owned a tumble drier, hair dryer or owt like that. I do a fair bit of cooking on the wood burner & dry clothes around that, boil kettles etc - when it's on. We have our own water supply & drainage - mind you just now that's frozen so it's a matter of getting water out of the burn - stream I suppose you call it. We cut our own hair - each others, haven't been to a hairdressers in a over a decade. We have a mobile phone for emergencies only a very cheap one bought years ago that we get top ups for - possibly spend £30 a year on that, probably not as much as that - we have never been as squint as we are now & I don't understand it.

Sorry tohear about neighbours hens - that's pretty bad to go of & leave them, good you had the gumption to check that out as they won't last long in this.

rhiwfield

downshifter wrote: »

While obviously I agree about insulation you need to create enough heat in the house to keep in in the first place. Although I know I have grown accustomed to much colder temperatures over the past few weeks, I cannot get my living room above 4-6 degrees despite double lined curtains, double glazing etc etc. Obviously we don't use it, at least the kitchen is warmer. But the costs of heating just one room are astronomical and living in the country means that I am about to resign my little job as the petrol costs now mean that I will be out of pocket. I already do enough voluntary work thanks, and have planned my supermarket shop for the day I'm working in town. Will have to rethink that now, sometimes I feel my whole life is ruled by the price of petrol!

A rented house means that my choices are limited, and like others, living in a National Park restricts use of wind power even though I live on top of the windiest hill in the world I reckon!

Anyway, have just taken my car up to the lane and walked back home, it's glorious out there, clear and crisp and intensely cold. I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles - oh ye-ah! (The Who, 1967)

Ds

DS, FWIW I also resigned a voluntary role that was beginning to resemble a full time job with no pay or expenses but lots of mileage and pressure. All this along paid employees on 45p a mile. I get asked into some meetings with Vale council, 40 mile round trip, and at one the chair nearly flips when I ask could we do meeting via phone conference in future to save travel costs.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

I think i have only just recovered, I went for it yesturday... I actually went christmas shopping 'properly':eek:
I ended up swearing at the suprvisor in tescos:cool: as i qued for nearly 3/4 hour to pay for a special magazine of motorhead, which had a cd etc, only to be told that they couldnt sell it to me because it wouldnt scan:mad: It was clearly priced etc, but as the bar code want in their system, they couldnt sell it...... bunch of toss pots...:rotfl:

so that was a good start to my crimbo shopping....

Davesnave, I was wondering you are allways on the house buying thread... I need a bit of info...

IF a house is on the market for just under 200k, how much deposit do you need these days, and how much wages do you need to be earning? etc.

I would go and ask on the board myself, but its such basic questions... I know i will look silly over there...lol...

going into work for an hour or two, and then i am going to do a bit of pressie wrapping......oooooo such joy:wall:

troglodyte

Morning all,

Still lots of snow here, but the roads are clearing and it was only allegedly -1C last night. I could tell it was warmer as it was bearable to sit up in bed this morning :rotfl:

Fuel costs are a big issue, I think diesel is about 126p a litre here (at least it was a few days ago, could well have gone up again by now). Each time I can cycle to feed the horse instead of driving saves me about a quid, but difficult in this weather on snowy roads and needing to carry water as well.

We have gas CH (only on a couple of hours a day) and a wood burner, and solar water heating (saves a lot in sunny weather but all covered in snow ATM!) Really we should have plumbed the wood-burner in to the hot water as well but we were a bit afraid of trying to fit too many things together, 3 heating systems all connected to the same tank... We do use the woodburner to dry all the washing though (our living room lookes like the proverbial Chinese laundry several night a week :rotfl:), to cook things with lids on (since it's under the chimney breast I wouldn't want to fry there, for example, but I use it to cook vegetables, make soups and sauces - when I needed new saucepans, I carefully measured the height to make sure they would fit!). All the wood we use has been scrounged by me for free, mainly from builders - I ask around building sites and so far I have always had a positive response, so much good wood goes in the skips and they have to pay to get that taken away. Of course we get lots of odd-shaped pieces, some with nails in etc, so there is quite a lot of sawing/ chopping involved but we are fit and able to do it ATM. As for the nails, I'm afraid we just put the wood in the stove and pick/ sieve the nails out later.

Davesnave

Hello CTC, I'm no expert on mortgages, having arranged my last one in 1987!!! Nobody would give me one now.

From what little I've gleaned, I think there are some 10% deposit mortgages out there, but not at good rates. For a decent rate with a fix, you'd be looking at 20% deposit or more.

As to multiples of income, I imagine 4x would be about tops from most lenders, but you might do better with looking at joint income.
If there's self-employment involved, then accounts for about three years to prove income from that source would be helpful. Nowadays lenders look at 'affordability' rather than rigid multiples, but you can look that up as it's more complex to explain here.

These are just guesses really. There is help on this site at:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/best-mortgages-cashback

The other thing to consider is that, at present, a lot of valuers are not agreeing with the price a property has 'sold' at. For example, a house with an agreed sale price of £195k might be valued at £187k.

If that happens, there is always the basis there for a renegotiation of the price.

Hope that helps. If you have a particular house in mind, I would still go on the Forum (NOT the Debate one!) and run specific details past folk there. They like that!

lostinrates

The lamp worked! By the time I got back last night the pipes were thawed!! Phew. It also looked a bit chrsitmassy. I like a knocking shop with the glowing red.

Someone else has started laying out there. I think my cickens are confused about the time of year!