Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Sun_Addict

I think in your position I’d leave the money there for now so you’ve got a buffer for winter. You could always claim some back if it starts getting too high. Sadly I’m down to my last £97 in credit 😢

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

Hi foxgloves
I'd leave it there too.  I'm about £150 in credit at the moment.  
That is a great price for a hair cut!  My DD2 is having her hair dry cut next week at our (basic) salon & i'm expecting it'll be about £12 and she has long hair so it'll just be a case of snipping off the dead dry ends 
I haven't been outside today, other than to put out the bins and bring them back in; far too hot for a delicate pale skinned person like myself
love Deni 

foxgloves

Thanks everyone for your comments. I've been discussing it with Mr F today & we've decided that leaving our credit balance in place is the best course of action. In any other circumstances, I'd have initiated a rebate & requested a DD reduction, but we are living in weird uncertain times & energy/fuel prices are one of the key issues at the heart of it. So, your advice has been taken, agreed with & we are going to let that credit balance absorb rising gas & electricity prices for as long as it holds out. Once it has depleted, I'm sure our monthly DD will be increased very swiftly, but for now, we plan to leave things untouched & see how long it lasts in the current crazy climate.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Saturday Savers,
Pleasant day, but v little to report on the money saving front:
*Energy account discussion/decision as above.
*Picked lettuce, rocket & spring onions from the garden.
*Couple of fridge use-it-ups to avoid wasting.
*Mr F updated his half of our Personal Spends spreadsheet.
*A bit of energy saving from getting 2 baths from 1 fill of hot water & doubling up bread baking by making a loaf & batch of rolls together. Rolls frozen for packed lunches.
*Transferred bottle of spare milk to empty container & froze.
*Mr F came to the honourable conclusion that he doesn't need two steaks tonight (!) which means that two have gone in the freezer for another meal.
No exciting frugality here today - just those small regular habits which help us make the most of our money. ......but they're important. In the same way that constant frittering built our debts back in the day, these kind of ongoing regularly repeated good habits now help us build a bit of emergency & future savings. I often think of all the money I wasted pre-LBM & honestly, I may as well have rolled it up & ignited it! But even £££ idiots ("Quidiots?") can reform their ridiculous ways. The lovely Mr F & I are certainly proof of that.
Wishing everyone a nice evening,
F x

marionmgcars

Just finished a blanket and toy for a baby gift - wool from stash so shopped from home 👍

foxgloves

Fab use of your stash #marionmgcars. Mr F now thinks he should have a crochet sheep on his desk! I've told him he can whistle as I've got loads of projects lined up..
I think a handmade blanket & toy are a lovely new baby present.
F x

weenancyinAmerica

#marionmgcars - I love your sheep toy.

EssexHebridean

Aww Marion your sheep is super-cute! 

I agree with everyone else about the energy credit too - the only way I’d be taking credit out at this stage is if I were then to transfer it directly to a savings account earmarked for future energy costs, and ONLY future energy costs. As I think you know we are also in the “no increase to DD” group at the moment - a combination of UW deciding that we couldn’t possibly be right about our use when we joined them (spoiler alert - we were) and us being happy to pay a little more anyway, again because of the current climate. We self imposed a £50 increase on ourselves as I have been paying that to a savings account called “electricity buffer fund” - the £150 council tax money also went there. At the moment however, while we are still with UW I’m saving that for nothing as they are still claiming they can’t apply additional payments made manually to our account! (It will be fascinating to see how they will manage to apply the payments for the £400 grant!)

May have to borrow “Quidiots” I think - that’s a fab term! 

For now we are continuing to try to find further small energy saving wins, and very much trying to keep an eye on the pennies elsewhere, too. 

Suffolk_lass

Last summer, Scottish Power auto refunded my credit balance and  then I found out about an account setting where I could elect not to be refunded or to be refunded above a customer-set threshold. As we have an electric aga that we turn on on 1st Oct and off when we go away at Easter our winter usage is approx 6 times summer usage so I like there to be a buffer. I also did not want the DD to rise above £200 so I manually increased it to £198 per month and I have paid in £100 or £200 over the winter when my meter readings showed we were in deficit. So you could take that occasional top up route in the months when things are not quite so squeaky, to stop the DD increasing (I always find the DD increase is based on a flawed algorithm that seems to increase in £40-50 increments. 

foxgloves

Thanks, @EH & @Suffolk_lass, Yes, the top-up scenario could indeed be an alternative route re energy accounts & I found that an interesting idea. I think we will keep building the credit balance until October & then we'll start to get more of an idea what the tariff rises really mean in terms of our monthly use. It's difficult to get a firm idea atm with no heating being used. It's also possible that we'll reach some kind of 'too much credit' threshold from our provider's perspective & will be offered a partial rebate or lowered DD. Will keep monitoring it closely.
F