2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

Cherryjack

Hi everyone, have missed you all.. im sorry i fell off track :-/ and i tried to read the posts and catch up.. but have about 50 pages.. eekkss.
I had a baby girl on the 16th of january and i went crazy on buying her clothes and have been bidding too much on stuff for her from ebay..:-(( not got myself in a bad way.. but need to get on track again.
Ive also been entering so many comps that ive neglected my budgets etc...
xxx

SAVVYJADE

Morning all,

Nice mild day and sun shining, might get some washing out on the line!
Few more e*bay items to post, glad things are selling!


Have a good day all

findingmyfeet

morning all,
well my morning is not off to a good start, just had a letter saying that we are going to have a water meter installed in the next few weeks and we were previously informed about it- well this is the first we have heard about it!!! so please anyone with a meter how careful do you have to be inusing your water i dont want huge bills. We only pay water not sewage as we have a septic tank so water bills have been reasonably low. 6 months of the year theres just me and DH but the other 6 we have DD and DS getting into the bathroom is a trauma when they are home!! we dont waste water but how drastically will i have to cut back?
We use the washing machine, dishwasher once a day, baths, loos and a spot of garden watering for the greenhouse etc ?

silvasava

Congratulations Cherry & welcome back.
Savvy - no chance of any washing drying outside here - its dull & 'dimsal'
Finding - we havn't got water meters here (yet!) but I must admit I've heard some horror stories. I can only suggest things like a brick in the loo cistern, only using full loads in the DW & WM. & using the shower instead of a bath. I'm sure other posters will be able to give you up to date advice.

cw18

findingmyfeet - I've been on a water meter since September 2001.... the first 9 months in a rental property, and almost 10 years in this house.

When we moved into the rental they wanted to set my payments to almost twice what I'd been paying via water rates which horrified me. (Previous property was a 3 bed mid-terraced ex council house, so a relatively low rateable property). After some negotiation (basically me threatening to come off a monthly payment scheme) they agree to set payments just a couple of ££s above what I'd been paying, on the proviso that if (they said 'when') I owed them a 'significant amount' after 6 months I'd settle up and increase payments. When we moved out of there my credit balance had increased by about £30.....

So it was then time to change payments to this place, and they wanted to double them again. When I asked how this could possibly be the case (given they now had a 9 month record of our useage on a meter) I was told it was because we had extra bathrooms !!!!! After me getting stroppy (yes we were going to have a cloakroom and en-suite we'd not had before on top of the family bathroom we'd always had, but there were still only 4 of us going to be using them and we didn't plan on flushing all 3 toilets when we'd used just the one ) they agreed to hold the payments steady. I've never ended a billing period owing them money yet

There's only me living here now, but I'm only paying £13.04/month which I don't think is any more than I used to pay when on a rateable system (if as much). My parents have swapped to a meter in the last couple of years (three of them in a 4 bed-detached property as my youngest lives with them), and whilst I don't know what their bills were/are my Mum has said it's saving them money. The general rule of thumb is that it's worth having one if there are less people in the house than there are bedrooms.

As to what I do to 'save' water......

I've installed two water butts for my garden. I'd have done this anyway, as I believe rainwater is better for plants than processed stuff and it's only foodstuffs I'm growing so prefer to stay 'natural'.
My toilets should be modern low-flush ones given the age of the property, but I've still put special 'blocks' into them (free from water companies)
(I also admit I don't flush every time - if I've no company I'm very much an "if it's yellow let it mellow" girl)
I don't run my washing machine much as I always make sure I have a full load before putting it on - probably average 2 loads a week, but it can actually be a week with nothing then a week with 2 followed be a week with 3 or 4.
I don't wash my pots after every meal - or even every day. I wait until I've enough to make it worth filling the sink with water (so if I'm reheating a batch-cooked meal I'll have a minimal number of pots and pans and probably won't bother that day)
I always shower rather than take a bath - but that's just as much because I don't actually enjoy a bath as anything
(and my chap was shocked at how quickly I can get through a shower)
I rarely wash my car as the garage do it for me when it goes in for the annual service but I'll do it in the next month or so in order to get all the winter gunk off it - especially from under the wheel arches.
By rights (in order to conserve water) it should be done with a bucket and sponge, but I have to confess I use a pressure washer..... I don't actually feel guilty about this though, as I just look at the cost of putting it through a car wash (which makes me go :eek: )

Frugaldom

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

mmmmm I'm doing quite well with mine then - providing I've worked it out properly:

Tax, breakdown cover, service, insurance, fuel, 2 x tyres, 1 x wiper + £20 (odds & sods eg screenwash, deicer etc) = £1,562.50 / 7000 miles = .... 22.3p / mile

ETA figures are slightly off as the car was off the road for nearly 3 months .... my usual mileage is 9.5k / year so adding the extra fuel would change the figure to 19.6p/mile (ohhhh, I really thought it would go up but I guess it's 'cos the annual figures are split by a bigger amount!)

Quick reminder on this subject - don't forget to count in the actual cost of buying the car. Without counting in these costs, you'll eventually run out of car through depreciation with nothing set aside to rplace the actual vehicle. My mileage costs include the cost of the car, based on the hope that it will last 3 years. (It's a cheap secondhand car.)

I've had a spendy, spendy time but have stocked up on plenty of pudding & baking type stuff. Very sad to see BigBrandsForLess website closing down, but I made the most of their clearance sale - it's on until 24th Feb, if anyone needs anything.

I'm still charting all the meals we eat here in Frugaldom and still making my £1 per person per day stretch successfully, despite more of the basic savers disappearing. If anyone's interested in seeing the meal list, ingredients and costs, I've started listing them all here.

Thrifty_Sister

This may be of help to those looking to make water savings.

https://www.savewatersavemoney.co.uk/freepack

natnat13

Had great frugal day yesterday, went to play farm with season ticket. It was freezing but the kids loved it! I took my fruit teabags and they keep giving me cups of hot water so I didn't have any drinks costs. £2.30 for 2 ice creams for the kids (mad, in the cold but they were boiling hot running around like mad things!)
Then got e-mail to say I'd been successful on a new bike for my son on freecycle so went and picked that up.
Today, we've all had haircuts today and my hairdresser had ordered a nappy cake (that's what I do for a living) from me so she actually paid me £5 plus haircuts!
A friend has invited me for lunch today and it's my nieces b-day party for tea, so no meals to cook! I made her some lovely bunting with her name on last night with material I had lying around.
All in all, a good week so far. Tomorrow, I think we'll go to the park, boys have a birthday party Sat, I have a present ready in my stash box under the bed.
If only every week could be as lovely and simple.

Igamogam

findingmyfeet wrote: »

morning all,
well my morning is not off to a good start, just had a letter saying that we are going to have a water meter installed in the next few weeks and we were previously informed about it- well this is the first we have heard about it!!! so please anyone with a meter how careful do you have to be inusing your water i dont want huge bills. We only pay water not sewage as we have a septic tank so water bills have been reasonably low. 6 months of the year theres just me and DH but the other 6 we have DD and DS getting into the bathroom is a trauma when they are home!! we dont waste water but how drastically will i have to cut back?
We use the washing machine, dishwasher once a day, baths, loos and a spot of garden watering for the greenhouse etc ?

No water meters here either - and thwith the amount of rain we get and the fact we 'export' it I think I would be very cross the day we do! However when it happens we will definately get rid of the bath We already have water butts for garden watering so maybe you could invest one of those for the garden.

dizzy_lizzie

Cherryjack wrote: »

I had a baby girl on the 16th of january
xxx

:j Ooh Congratulations Cherryjack :j

natnat13 wrote: »

If only every week could be as lovely and simple.

Natnat sounds like you've been having a blissful week. The best ones

x