First Home - MoneySaving attempts!

alipops1986

Afternoon ALL :j

Moved into my first ever house last Wednesday and have been keeping upto date reading on here in an attempt to keep down my bills!

I have electric and gas, currently in the process of swapping to British Gas. I haven't used any gas as i'm not having heating on obviously. Shower is electric, takes in cold and shoots out hot water and i just boil a kettle for washing up. I wash up once a day, sometimes twice just depends and i have one shower a day.

I try my best to keep things off standby and make sure plugs are switched off when not in use. However, i am concerned that my electric bill is going to end up massive?

Food wize: i've done really well, despite having to buy necessities my wkly shop came to £46 in tesco, including things like brush and pan, washing basket and other stuff i won't need to buy again or forever!

What else can i do?

Ali X

juliapenguin

Congratulations on your first home! I hope you'll be really happy.

Are you on a water meter? If so, keep an eye on your consumption. I'm in a brand-new two bed rented flat and we've used 5 cubic metres of water in 5 weeks - that's two of us and we've not been particularly trying to save water. Our neighbours, on the other hand, have used 26 in not much longer than 5 weeks :eek: and they are in for a shock when the bill comes. We only noticed the other day when we were checking our own meter, and I think I'll warn them - they're Chinese students with not brilliant English.

I'm sure you'll have read all the advice about not spending too much on cleaning materials - I've got mainly laminate floors, for example, and I just use a microfibre mop with plain water - the mop head thingy goes in the washing machine afterwards and the floors look great. I clean everything with washing up liquid or sometimes Stardrops, but most things are fine just cleaned with water as long as they're not greasy. Most people are obsessed with killing bacteria, but unless you've got tiny kids about I don't think you need to worry.

Lecture over :rotfl:. Have lots of fun in your new home.

Julia x

Pink.

Hi alipops,

Welcome to Old Style and well done on the changes you have made so far. This is a good thread to get tips and links that will help you to get started with Old Style moneysaving:

Tips and Quick Questions on “How To Start Being Old Style”

I'll add your thread to that one later.

Pink

clutterydrawer

Hi

Something which helped me when i first moved out was to keep a diary of everything I spent. then when I had no money left i could look back and see where it had all gone! I'm not good at maths either so after a bit i set it up as a spreadsheet to calculate it all properly.

good and congratulations on getting your own place

cardiffmatch

Hey Ali!

I'm living on my own for the first time ever as of the 1st August... I bought my place a couple of years ago but have always rented rooms out - so we're in similar boats as I'm now having to really save the pennies!

I spent very many hours looking through all the thousands of excellent hints and tips on here but realised I was going to spend hours learning how to save cash but no time doing it! Therefore I've decided to concentrate on moneysaving in one room at a time. Kitchen this week - and I'm posting my (small) steps on here a day at a time.

We could swap notes!

Good luck,

CardiffM x

picklepick

Hi well done on being frugal!!!

im not too sure that boiling a kettle is more efficient that using hot water heated by gas using a combi boiler? I could be wrong though! We have an electricity monitor in our lounge that tells you how much electricity you're using and displays it in monetary terms as per month or per day. Perhaps if you are concerned you could try and track one down. We got ours from the electricity company. We're with southern electric. Boiling our kettle sees it shoot up everytime u plug it in... scary!! We've cut back on our tea consumption i can tell u!!

Just as an aside aswell... Chinese students in this country are invariably from very rich families. i think it costs them something along the lines of £15,000 a year in tuition fees to come to study as an undergraduate here yikes!! and more like £25 grand for postgrad courses.... *shudders*

alipops1986

Thanks everyone!

I have indeed ordered a water meter, got a few more weeks to wait though i believe. Hopefully switching to British Gas for electric and gas might well help too.

I keep running totals of what i spend as well, mainly as i use my Tesco Credit Card and then pay it off in full once the statement arrives to rack myself up some vouchers for my shopping.

At them moment, i think the only part which is making me nervous is the thought of my electric bill! Everything is my house is pretty much ran on electric, least i'll be saving as i've not got the gas on!!

debtfreein4years

your electric bill sounds like its going to be fine. i live in a 2bed and my last quarters bill was £150 and im expecting this quarters to be around the same and thats for gas and electric. in the winter im expecting that to go to around £250 a quarter as obviously the central heating will be on for a little bit. im home all day and have tv on for around 10 hours, sky box, laptop on for around 8 hours plus cooking etc.

take weekly/monthly meter readings and input them regularly onto the bg website so that you can keep an eye on exactly what you are spending. i pay £60 a month and will not have to increase my dd proving i keep an eye on the central heating usage in winter. last winter it was on 3 hours a day so this winter will be the same, maybe a bit less depending on how cold it is.

on a water meter i pay £22.50 a month and that way to much, but would rather have a credit balance in case anything happens and i get stuck for money one month.

if you dont have access to an outside line to dry your clothes i would recomend getting a clothes horse rather than using a tumble dryer. also with a washing machine if youve got a quick wash or a daily wash option use that when you can as most of our clothes just need a freshen up as they arent dirty.

sainsburys baisic cooking trays are really good value and last. asda's arent as good. not sure about tesco's. ikea has some great value & quality bedding and furniture thats reasonble. obviously you need to look but its there. the kitchen stuff is really good value as are there towels. ok the towels are a bit pricey but i moved out 2 years ago and they havent lost there colour or fluff and they will be going strong for many years to come.

umm thats all i can think of at the moment

enjoy your new house!

Mags_cat

On the *how much power am I using?* front, I am with Scottish Power Online and they run a handy little graphical thingy that lets you see the daily average power consumption however (in) frequently you put in your readings. The other companies may well do the same, it's a useful way to track your consumption.

I've got a two bed flat, with gas central heating and I pay them £45 /month for both gas and electric and I'm always in credit, even in winter - though the balance does go down then obviously as the heating's on.

Water-wise I pay about £26/month (with a meter).

Have a grand time in your new place and enjoy your independence :T