Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

rising_from_the_ashes

Morning everyone

Cheryl - thanks for the info on the loo rolls, might take a chance and see if they have any left tomorrow.

SP are a nightmare. I have an online account and over the year my usage balances out but 'cos I switched in Nov (09), I'm always in debit around now as not had the "luxory" of the summer months to build up a cushion. I've just had an email saying my direct debit is being revised from £61 to £97 which is a whopping £432 extra per year.

I've sent them an email saying that this is ridiculous - what really frustrates me is that they provide usage charts so you can see your consumption over the last year, and if they actually bothered to look at it themselves, they'd see that I obviously use way less in the summer and that it does actually balance out.

Surely that's the whole point of paying this way!

Does anyone know if I can refuse to pay the extra amount? I've offered to put it up to £65 but really can't afford £97 per month!

Enjoyfinancialchallenges - I'll keep an eye out for some containers. The council accidently delivered some more recycling boxes to me this week and thought they might do!

It's really frustrating as there is a bit of land behind my house (called a bund). It was part of the planning conditions of the estate being built as a buffer between this street and the next one. It's totally enclosed by houses on every side and is just lying unused and overgrown.

It's owned equally by the 60 houses in our street but none of us are allowed to do anything with it - I'm sure I'm not the only one who's thought of chickens/veg plot and with the lack of allotments I wish there was something that could be done as it just seems such a waste.

Midwinter - pants to the charity shop. How shortsighted of them, instead of being able to guarantee both pairs being sold, they've got rid of one and are stuck with the other!


Not a good start to the day, just tried to order dog's medication online and it's out of stock and a note attached "can't specify delivery date as supplier out of stock". Only enough left for about a week, can't buy elsewhere online as prescription uploaded with this company (and not transferrable).

May end up having to buy at the vets but it's extortionately expensive £68 (compared to £26 online).

Have a good day everyone!:D

HowlinWolf

Morning all. I submitted my meter readings online yesterday and got instant confirmation that we are still 51 in credit. This is good but not as good as just after new year when we were 67 in credit. Slightly concerned that it's been warmer in the last 6 weeks and we've been in the house less.
Cheryl I remember you mentioned something about how you calculate your voucher spends. Do you knock any vouchers off your grocery budget so that the money is then saved or do you use it as extras. We have some M & S vouchers left from our wedding, a Mr M 5 voucher a Mr A 5 voucher and a Mr S 40 voucher coming. I also intend to "sell" and old camera and a couple of mobile handsets to M & S in exchange for vouchers and am thinking that I might count these as spends on the grocery budget and thus save the equivalent but I wonder whether I am being a bit over optimistic.

cw18

HowlinWolf wrote: »

Cheryl I remember you mentioned something about how you calculate your voucher spends. Do you knock any vouchers off your grocery budget so that the money is then saved or do you use it as extras.

I enter spends to my s/sheet as if I didn't use the vouchers, and then transfer the equivalent amount from the relevant budget to my sealed pot and use it for treats (wants rather than needs) at the end of the year. (I do the same with the staff discount I get at work)

So if the pre-voucher cost for food is £43 and I have a £6 voucher, I mark it as a £43 spend against groceries and drop the £6 into my sealed pot.

HowlinWolf

Thank you Cheryl.

cw18

My alarm went at 7:30 this morning, and I decided not to get up
Got a text message from a company (reminding me a bill needs paying) at 8:15 which woke me again, but I rolled over and went back to sleep until 9am
I then drifted in and out of sleep until I forced myself up at a shameful 10am
Guess the extra hours I'm currently doing at work (contracted for 29, worked 39 up to last Sunday and have done 37 this week) are finally taking their toll - and it looks like I'm set for 37 again this week and probably 37.5 the week after, after which I have a week off

Had a couple of brews before re-reading my g&e spreadsheet and putting a call into Sc0t P0wer - only to get a message that the queueing time was between 34 and 51 mins, but if I pressed a button they'd "hold my place in the queue and call me back" (which I did - I guess a lot of people have been told their payments are going up and are phoning to complain, as I've never had this before).

Got a call back after about 45 mins, and explained to the chap I'd received an email stating I was due a hefty increase on my D/Debit as of 1st March - yet my latest statement (generated a day earlier) said the lower amount would be taken on 1st March and there was nothing showing in my 'account activity' since the drop I negotiated in November. At this he offered to 'negotiate' in order to keep the payment as low as possible.

So I started by asking how my current payment is split between gas & electricity (doesn't look that far out to me, but will monitor it), and what the current balances are on the two sides (in credit on the electricity by £81.03, and in debt on the gas by £38.09 which doesn't seem bad given what I've used in the 85 days on the bill). I then pointed out that (against the same period for last year) I accepted my gas was up 6% but that my electricity was down by 43%.

It appears I must have asked for and quoted the right figures to give me the right to negotiate heavily, as once he'd given me these and had a quick look at my account he immediately offered to leave my payment as it is for now :T

But I do need to go back to generating a bill more often so that I can monitor it more closely, as I don't want to end up heavily in debt when my next review comes around. Until last November I was doing it every 4 weeks, but stopped doing it at that point as I couldn't be bothered to read my meters in the dark and wet!!! Think I'm going to start doing it on that basis again, but I suspect I may have to relent and let them increase it slightly in about 6 months so that I'm not in a debt situation on the account at this point next year which would give a hefty increase with no real room to negotiate

miss_empty_piggy

I had a call from Scottish Power just before xmas saying that I needed to input meter readings. I did this, and then the automated voice on the phone stated that my DD would be £146.00 per month!!!!! I phoned them and spoke with a real person who managed to get it down to £112.00 per month. Was absolutely distraught as I am a single mum, I have a coal fire and would literally run down the kitchen as soon as the heating kicked in. Had it on for about 3 days continually over the winter as had frozen pipes throughout the house so really needed to heat the house. Boiler went bonkers and has now gone a bit weird. Am hoping to get it serviced this week (as well as try to sort out my fire as this keeps billowing out smoke so have stopped using it - despite it being cleaned just before xmas as well). I just can' seem to win. But the scottish power people really annoyed me. I think I will have to go and check my account before they put it up again.!!!

cw18

HowlinWolf wrote: »

Morning all. I submitted my meter readings online yesterday and got instant confirmation that we are still 51 in credit. This is good but not as good as just after new year when we were 67 in credit. Slightly concerned that it's been warmer in the last 6 weeks and we've been in the house less.

I got an email in the past week saying that prices 'went up' on 25th November, and that they're applying the increases retrospectively - so if I'd had any bills since then (which I haven't, due to having stopped generating them every 4 weeks), then this latest bill would have also had to cover the increase in cost on those. If you're in the same situation that would mean this latest bill looks a fair bit heavier than it really should be......

cw18

miss_empty_piggy wrote: »

But the scottish power people really annoyed me.

I have to say that I've been with them since moving into this house at the end of May 2002, as the builders set all the properties up with them, and have never had a major problem with them

I've always managed to negotiate on my payments (not always to the low point I'd like it, but always less than they were asking for), but this was the biggest increase they've ever asked for - if not in terms of £/month then certainly in terms of %age. I'm currently paying £43/month, so £15/month increase is almost 35% extra - and given they were prepared to let me drop to £41.50 in November I thought it totally inappropriate :mad:

HowlinWolf

cw18 wrote: »

I got an email in the past week saying that prices 'went up' on 25th November, and that they're applying the increases retrospectively - so if I'd had any bills since then (which I haven't, due to having stopped generating them every 4 weeks), then this latest bill would have also had to cover the increase in cost on those. If you're in the same situation that would mean this latest bill looks a fair bit heavier than it really should be......

The really worrying bit is that we're on a fixed rate until July! I can't work out where we've gone astray really. DH did leave the heating on all night once (we normally only have it on 4 hours a day) but I don't think that can account for all of the additional usage.

cw18

HowlinWolf wrote: »

The really worrying bit is that we're on a fixed rate until July! I can't work out where we've gone astray really. DH did leave the heating on all night once (we normally only have it on 4 hours a day) but I don't think that can account for all of the additional usage.

The other possibility that springs to mind is timing of payments....

I assume you pay on a monthly D/Debit (as you have a credit on your account), so if the bill covers 6 weeks I'd guess there's a high chance you've actually only made one payment in that timescale. If that is the case, then how would your balance look if you add half a payment to it?