Quarter of the way there and full speed ahead

elantan

Mara_uk7 wrote: »

Do lots of checking El, The feed in tarriffs are being steadily reduced on solar. If you decide to go ahead, make sure you get yourself locked in before the next drop happens. Cant remember when that is, but read something about it in the newspapers recently. We have a wind turbine and were lucky enough to get locked in really early. It pays MOST of our electric bills plus generates a small profit quarterly. Hubby actually enjoys the windy days now instead of whinging about the weather !

Thanks Mara, was reading that the house has to be credited a D or above I order to get the most out of the FIT so that's deff something we need to consider and find out more about, we're just at the start of learning tbh but I'm finding it interesting so far, my kinda interesting as well ... The kinda interesting most people eyes glaze over at but where I ask loads of questions lol

I was actually thinking about wind turbines myself ... Could u poss give me some of your experiences about it? As the solar wouldn't be generating anything at night I was wondering if I could change to wind to offset the energy consumption at night time, is this possible? Is there a way to store wind energy? I noticed solar technology isn't quite there yet

Ultimately I am wondering if there is a way we can reduce our outgoing costs so that once we are mortgage free we can slowly start to build up a buffer so that we can think about retiring early, part of that buffer would be to reduce costs ... If I could pay initial outlay just now and have the things in place for when we retire that should help with budgeting at retirement ... I that makes any sense

elantan

procdolydin1985 wrote: »

Happy New Diary El Wishing you all the Best on your continuing journey and here's to the next "Quarter" proving to be as good for you Angel xx PS ... I've remembered to subscribe this time

Hi, welcome to my new diary, they arnt that exciting as im a bit boring but they are greatly helping with my journey and hopefully helping others along the way

I'm sitting here scratching my head ... Have you had a previous incarnation ? No need to announce any previous name but I'm just wondering as you mention subscribing this time

Either way it's great to have you here and I look forward to chatting more

elantan

Well today I had a good wee sleep then discussions with the family about the solar panels etc so have some more stuff to work through tonight

Mr el gets paid today (15th) so as soon as the money is in the bank ill be transferring over to where the money needs to go, we landed up £315 over last month YIKES not sure how on earth that happened and it hasn't happened before so I have to start ensuring it never happens again

We can't afford for it to happen anyway as we have a holiday to save for so I will have to put my foot down more ... I'm still puzzled as to how it happened ... But it did and we haven't managed to pay nearly as much off as I wanted to or to have any emergency savings or even any extra savings for when we have 5 week months hmmmm got a lot of planning to do I think


Edited to add :
Have been thinking about what I overspent on, we have had a family birthday and we landed up spending money in b@q as well as extra in food and also some makeup

So at least I can trace it ... Just wish we didn't spend it

elantan

Woooo hoooo just sold two more books, so will need to get up early to post them I'm making £36 nearly on one of them :-)

taxi73

that's great news

Mara_uk7

OK Wind energy !

We have a 5kw Evance turbine, cost almost 30k to get it erected and hooked up to the grid. Will pay for itself in 5 years or less, and after that any generation is profit. We are on a feed in tarriff of 29.3p / per kilowatt exported to the grid. As well as paying for itself , it has reduced our annual electric bills by 75%. When the wind is blowing and we are not using much power, our digital meter shows a reading of RED (reverse Energy direction) which shows that we are exporting power.

There are other turbines out there, but OH researched reliability and settled on this one. We are lucky (??) to live in one of the windiest areas of the country !
Dont know where you are, but the company who erected ours are based in County Durham, and were brilliant to deal with if you want a recommendation. (PS the banks were very keen to lend money for renewables projects ! )

Im sure there would be a way to store generated energy in a battery, but you would lose out on the feed in tarriff if you did that.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

elantan wrote: »

Woooo hoooo just sold two more books, so will need to get up early to post them I'm making £36 nearly on one of them :-)

Morning El, that's excellent news on the sales front :T:T

Tilly x

gallygirl

elantan wrote: »

Mr el gets paid today (15th) so as soon as the money is in the bank ill be transferring over to where the money needs to go, we landed up £315 over last month YIKES not sure how on earth that happened and it hasn't happened before so I have to start ensuring it never happens again

We can't afford for it to happen anyway as we have a holiday to save for so I will have to put my foot down more ... I'm still puzzled as to how it happened ... But it did and we haven't managed to pay nearly as much off as I wanted to or to have any emergency savings or even any extra savings for when we have 5 week months hmmmm got a lot of planning to do I think


Edited to add :
Have been thinking about what I overspent on, we have had a family birthday and we landed up spending money in b@q as well as extra in food and also some makeup

So at least I can trace it ... Just wish we didn't spend it

And THIS is why I don't think spending 7k on solar is a good idea. You've just remortgaged to relieve some of the pressure on you and Mr El. Neither of you are in the best of health. I think you'd be wrong to do it right now. The £315 you've overspent is on life, not on anything exceptional, and as you've said, you don't have any emergency savings to call on.

In my opinion the panels are a WANT, not a NEED. I know you're thinking ahead, but I think you need to sort out the here and now 1st. There will be time enough in the future for things like that, and the costs are coming down all the time.

Sorry, I know I'm a voice in the wilderness here but it made me feel uncomfortable to be honest El. Hope I haven't upset you with being so blunt.

GG x

elantan

Mara_uk7 wrote: »

OK Wind energy !

We have a 5kw Evance turbine, cost almost 30k to get it erected and hooked up to the grid. Will pay for itself in 5 years or less, and after that any generation is profit. We are on a feed in tarriff of 29.3p / per kilowatt exported to the grid. As well as paying for itself , it has reduced our annual electric bills by 75%. When the wind is blowing and we are not using much power, our digital meter shows a reading of RED (reverse Energy direction) which shows that we are exporting power.

There are other turbines out there, but OH researched reliability and settled on this one. We are lucky (??) to live in one of the windiest areas of the country !
Dont know where you are, but the company who erected ours are based in County Durham, and were brilliant to deal with if you want a recommendation. (PS the banks were very keen to lend money for renewables projects ! )

Im sure there would be a way to store generated energy in a battery, but you would lose out on the feed in tarriff if you did that.

thanks very much for the info Mara deff gives me something to work on, i think though that at this time a turbine is out of our reach although we do live in a very windy place ourselves so you never know... maybe in future it might be worth our thinking about, i wonder if there are any co-operatives that get together and buy turbines? that maybe more within our reach in a few years time ...hmmmm

i am trying to think of ways that would make our retirement more affordable, the two ways to do this are to increase our income in retirement and to decrease our outgoings in retirement, with energy being an ever increasing cost being able to offset this bill ( or even eliminate) i think it would make affordability for early retirement more feasible

still just kicking ideas around at this time but not discounting anything if that makes sense

elantan

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

Morning El, that's excellent news on the sales front :T:T

Tilly x

it was study books again Tilly, this time hypnotherapy books deff worth our while selling on amazon, dont get me wrong i wish they would all sell fast but it seems to be a slow drip feed and maybe that is the best way, the amazon fees can be a bit yowch but at the end of the day it's all money in the pot