Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

troubrs

newgirly wrote: »

Bad news with the meter readings. We are around £480 ish short that I have to find. We have gone from using £1.51 a day in electric march to end oct. To using £5.78 a day from 1st nov to today. I'm very confused and have worked out the figures myself and checked with npower twice and it is correct!

The only new thing is dh's 2x new work computers and the heated airer, however the airer is supposed to be less than 5p ph and I have stopped using the dryer completely so must be saving us money. The kids are having extremely long showers which has been causing a lot of door banging and shouting on my part recently, so I have told them to stop that or no theme park days out this year.

Its jut so frustrating , I would'nt mind if I hadn't been sat flipping freezing for the last few months with the heating off all day. Its not fair!

My electricity bill has gone through the roof too & we don't even use electricity to heat the house. So I bought a cheapish (£5) meter from Maplin. 1st thing, I was astonished to find my old upright freezer used mainly for storing bread, was costing me £130/year to run vs my new one in the kitchen which was costing just £34p.a. Similarly an outside old fridge for drinks was costing £56 vs the fridge freezer I replaced both with costing £42. getting rid of old freezer & fridge & replacing with a new fridge freezer immediately saves me £144 p.a. I also found out my TV in the conservatory I don't use much was £30 p.a. cheaper than the one we had in the lounge.....so we swapped them over. This £5 gadget has already helped me identify the 'leccy guzzlers' & I'm gradually unearthing more as I move it round the house, hopefully we should start to see the results soon!

newgirly

I don't think my income from onepoll surveys will help much with the huge bill, put it that way Missoptimistic :rotfl:

The shock has worn off a bit now, I am determined for it not to be paid from our new savings/op target. So I'll use the council tax free 2x months, plus a bit of the holiday budget. Next month will have to be another super tight one again.

We are going to alton towers for 1 night in easter (we have to go now as I arranged to collect the new passes there, so can't not go now) and we were going to stay at the alton towers hotel for a treat but now it will have to be premier inn again!

I'm taking the boys to mums tonight to watch the football, and will get dinner cooked for me, the food budget is still in the black just about, but is not going to last until 27th I'm sure although it must be a big improvement on normal spending.

oops forgot: no surveys, 60p op

RevolvingDoor

troubrs wrote: »

My electricity bill has gone through the roof too & we don't even use electricity to heat the house. So I bought a cheapish (£5) meter from Maplin. 1st thing, I was astonished to find my old upright freezer used mainly for storing bread, was costing me £130/year to run vs my new one in the kitchen which was costing just £34p.a. Similarly an outside old fridge for drinks was costing £56 vs the fridge freezer I replaced both with costing £42. getting rid of old freezer & fridge & replacing with a new fridge freezer immediately saves me £144 p.a. I also found out my TV in the conservatory I don't use much was £30 p.a. cheaper than the one we had in the lounge.....so we swapped them over. This £5 gadget has already helped me identify the 'leccy guzzlers' & I'm gradually unearthing more as I move it round the house, hopefully we should start to see the results soon!

Oh wow, that is interesting.

ajmoney

I check our gas and electricity usage tomorrow, it will be interesting!

CathT

Sounds like it is definitely worth taking the to check the energy consumption of certain appliances. Our DD has recently gone up but I haven't switched to a new deal as am totally confused which is the best/cheapest. Hope you manage to identify your energy guzzlers NewGirly.

stedwell

Mine has gone up too - gas that is and I can't work out why as we too have been freezing!

newgirly

testing.............

newgirly

Strange , the post I did this morning has vanished.

Had a lovely day out with best friend today as it was her birthday, lunch at pizza express. The only things I bought were from the xmas budget wool for a scarf and a mug.

Lots of people seem to be having issues with much higher bills than usual for gas/elec. I spent hours going through the kwh's etc and rang n p*wer twice (sometimes you get different info from different staff members) and we have definatly used more , however I have found out that our deal ended on 6th dec and the new supplier didn't start until jan and the price went up by a LOT for those few weeks, thank goodness that I changed supplier , but next time I will allow a couple of months to change over not the 4 weeks that I did allow.

surveys 15p, op £1.40 today

ajmoney

ajmoney wrote: »

I check our gas and electricity usage tomorrow, it will be interesting!

Just made a note of our usage and submitted it online. The small numbers were whizzing round the gas meter when I looked so my question is does everyone else's do this? Problem it has been quite cold here so we have wanted the heating turned up a bit although Mr AJM is learning as the other day he said he would put a warmer layer on before turning the heating up and is bringing the blanket down more frequently. I may mention to him about the meter earlier but the heating had not been on long so maybe it was while it was starting up. We tried to turn the heating down lower in the rooms we don't really use but it just made the house a bit cooler in general, I might try again though.

Anyway I should be using my own thread to rant so sorry x

newgirly

Hi aj, our gas meter is an old one with only 4 numbers and the last one moves really slowly so i'm afraid I can't help Have you got a electric usage thingy (sorry can't remember the name :rotfl:) yet?, ours was free from eon a couple of years ago, sometimes you can get them from suppliers even if you are not with them, it might be worth a look.