Setmefree's Diary: MFi5 journey

EssexHebridean

That's excellent - it must be a real boost when you get a windfall like that to add to the quest! You're doing well on the energy cutbacks too - you've inspired us to join in so we're tracking electricity use now - like you no real scope to cut back on gas (plus only Mr EH can read that meter so it's not so easy to track!). Thanks for getting me going on this one!

poppyoscar_3

Well done SMF2!!!!

I'm going to start tracking my energy as of tomorrow - I'll measure a normal (work) week and see what I can cut back on. The obvious one is the laptop! LOL!!

i'm going to unplug he phones when I'm out too, and the router. More energy saving lightbulbs too.

My DD is currently £20 a month for electricity and £30 for gas, but that was based on estimates before the price hike, and on pretty unknown usage, so will probably have to be adjusted.

You've inspired me though!

PO xx

Little_Mama

Well done on that OP! :T

LM

evab_2

fantastic overpayment, that must have been lovely to pay on mortgage!

SuiDreams

Wow fantastic over payment congrats. You seem to be doing so well. We've found that we still have loads of stuff we got last christmas, the plan is to sort through it and see if there is anything we could give to other people and get rid of the rest, we don't have room to store things we don't want.

StuartGMC

setmefree2 wrote: »

Expenses
1. CAR - had to pay out £250 to have a seal repaired. - BOO. The car also needs a new set of tyres soon. On a positive note the new solar panel we bought seems to have sorted out the problem we were having with the battery.

Good to hear this despite the lack of sunshine!
Remember, daylight hours will decrease now for the next 4 months (it is pitch dark at 0500, so already increasing electric costs for me as that is weekday wake up time) so do keep an eye on it, and also the maximum elevation will be lower. You may want to be sure of parking position and angle of solar cells to keep current flow up in coming months.

2. FOOD - Strarting a new challenge this month to try to reduce our food spend. Currently spending £10.73 a day. I also want to reduce the amount spent on alcohol *cough*....moving swiftly on...

We're at £10.06 including alcohol... but I have been trying to cut back on the ale, and unfortunately the 72bottles of free wine (we used up Airmiles once scheme was dropped by NatWest - could never find anything "worth" using them on) are nearly depleted. I'm worried this will increase our spend for the three of us. However, a little is good for you....

6. ENERGY- For this time of year we are down 27% on electricity:j but have used the same amount of gas - so no reduction there. We only use gas to heat water at this time of year so the scope for a reduction is small. The real challenge will be not to turn the Central Heating on in September

That's a great reduction on electricity spend, well done! :T
Electricity for us seems to be one area we need to improve on, as it is 5186kWh per year and costs about the same as the 14229kWh per year gas we use.....

These savings plus the OP must be a great boost to report to the family on your mutual progress.

setmefree2

StuartGMC wrote: »

Good to hear this despite the lack of sunshine!
Remember, daylight hours will decrease now for the next 4 months (it is pitch dark at 0500, so already increasing electric costs for me as that is weekday wake up time) so do keep an eye on it, and also the maximum elevation will be lower. You may want to be sure of parking position and angle of solar cells to keep current flow up in coming months.

Hi

You're right - Mr SMF2 says he was checking the input and a cloud went across the sun and the power went right down (....this was July when there was some sun:D). So it's parked away from shade in full sun now. We tend to use our car more in the winter - carting our kids 2 and fro from this and that...also less likely to walk and cycle in the winter:p....

All the Best

setmefree2

StuartGMC wrote: »

We're at £10.06 including alcohol... but I have been trying to cut back on the ale, and unfortunately the 72bottles of free wine (we used up Airmiles once scheme was dropped by NatWest - could never find anything "worth" using them on) are nearly depleted. I'm worried this will increase our spend for the three of us. However, a little is good for you....

Good Luck with this - we're trying to reduce our spend on booze. It's going quite well so far....weekends are hard though:o_pale_ I'm trying to just drink on Saturday....but Friday I'm like Pavlov's dog....I feel like I deserve a drink 'cos it's the end of the week:rotfl::rotfl:

evab_2

My car is happily sitting in the drive quite often these days but do use a couple of times a week, town is only across the road and will be walking with dd to school as much as possible (typical, just started raining so hope it stops before lunch time when i pick her up!)

Last filled up the car on 28th July and only needed to put in more yesterday, so fuel consumption is brill at the mo.

abouttimetoo

setmefree2 wrote: »

Hi:hello:,

We got real lucky this month and made whopping overpayment of...............£13,000:j:jSo the SMFs only *cough* owe £131,628 and will go sub £130k in September hopefully.

:T :T Wowee, you are doing so well, looking forward to your sub£1139k missive