It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

Sea_Shell

ukdw said:

Audaxer said:

Sea_Shell said:

I'd say we're not frugal users, just live in a modern well insulated house, with an old style gas boiler with a hot water tank.

That's good that you have such low costs with an old style boiler. We changed to a combi boiler about 5 years ago to replace an 18 year old boiler and water tank. The new boiler is more efficient and works better for us as a couple, although the charges have gone up a bit recently to £93 per month. 

We changed from an old 30yr+ boiler to a combi boiler a few years ago at our previous house and I was amazed how much gas it saved - over 45%.  I liked the infinite hot water you get with a combi boiler too.
The only concern I had was the number of times during day that the boiler has to fire up to heat hot water for hand washing - most of which just ends up sitting in the pipes and cooling down again. 

Our hot water only comes on twice a day, and only needs 15-20 mins to heat a tankful.    We'll flick it on again, if I've had a bath, and that's it.

It comes on at 7am and again at 11am to top up.    First thing for our showers and breakfast washing up (no dishwasher!).    We eat our main meal at lunchtime, so once we've washed up, then that's all we need for the day, except washing hands, and there is always plenty for that.

Once when we had an overnight powercut, there was still enough heat in the tank for a shower, albeit a luke-warm one....but better than cold!!

thriftylynny

Such a lovely inspiring thread Seashell ( i've just caught up with reading the whole lot !!) please can i join in for a bit of company seeing as i have a partner (a long story ) who has not the slightest idea at all of squirrelling away nuts & has stupidly almost dug the whole lot of his up.....so no good discussing financial planning there?!! The exclamation marks are for emphasis btw ! As for me i'd like to think i'm on the same wavelength as you guys (but with a smaller store of nuts!!) that i am managing to preserve quite well i think ...i did achieve early retirement so does that qualify me ?!!

Bravepants

We live in a Victorian terraced and have a Baxi back-boiler behind a gas fire in our dining room. Our kitchen is tiny, I believe the Estate Agent's term would be "Galley" kitchen , so if I had to ever get a new boiler I shudder to think where it would have to be fitted. My MIL had a new boiler in her semi-detached and they installed it in the corner of one of her bedrooms!

Sea_Shell

thriftylynny said:

Such a lovely inspiring thread Seashell ( i've just caught up with reading the whole lot !!) please can i join in for a bit of company seeing as i have a partner (a long story ) who has not the slightest idea at all of squirrelling away nuts & has stupidly almost dug the whole lot of his up.....so no good discussing financial planning there?!! The exclamation marks are for emphasis btw ! As for me i'd like to think i'm on the same wavelength as you guys (but with a smaller store of nuts!!) that i am managing to preserve quite well i think ...i did achieve early retirement so does that qualify me ?!!

Glad you're enjoying it.   It's nice to know I'm not just rambling on to myself! 😉

DH and I are firmly on the same page financially, which does make things easier.

Scrudgy

Bravepants said:

We live in a Victorian terraced and have a Baxi back-boiler behind a gas fire in our dining room. Our kitchen is tiny, I believe the Estate Agent's term would be "Galley" kitchen , so if I had to ever get a new boiler I shudder to think where it would have to be fitted. My MIL had a new boiler in her semi-detached and they installed it in the corner of one of her bedrooms!

You can investigate external boilers you can position on the outside rear wall of your terrace, might be an option for you. I moved my indoor oil boiler outside and it made a big difference to us as it was floor mounted and gave us a whole new utility room cupboard back. You can get gas external boilers also.

thriftylynny

Yep , i'm very much on my own page , whole book in fact Seashell, but i just get on with it & refuse to scrape by on just SP in 4.5 years time , hence the somewhat novice financial plans that i have in place at present, which are not looking as if they will make me rich anytime soon .

Amateurretiree

Our boiler is in our loft . We have a decent loft ladder and the loft is boarded out for when it has to be serviced etc. 

frugal90

i have to say I am impressed at your numbers, is your 4 bedroomed house heavily insulated or even passiv?
We have 2.35 KW solar PV and divert in the summer to the water tank, we also have a wood pellet boiler and a multifuel stove.

Our costs are:

elec£65 per month- £780- we have 5 freezers- large vegplot/polytunnel - need to replace the old ones with more energy efficient ones
wood pellets-£250
multifuel stove: £400, combination of dried wood and smokeless

so total £1430

 annual rebate from solar pv about £1000- still got another 17 years to run-
annual rebate from renewable heat incentive £2200, finishes in 1 years time, been good while it lasted and has paid for the installation

Sea_Shell

frugal90 said:

i have to say I am impressed at your numbers, is your 4 bedroomed house heavily insulated or even passiv?
We have 2.35 KW solar PV and divert in the summer to the water tank, we also have a wood pellet boiler and a multifuel stove.

Our costs are:

elec£65 per month- £780- we have 5 freezers- large vegplot/polytunnel - need to replace the old ones with more energy efficient ones
wood pellets-£250
multifuel stove: £400, combination of dried wood and smokeless

so total £1430

 annual rebate from solar pv about £1000- still got another 17 years to run-
annual rebate from renewable heat incentive £2200, finishes in 1 years time, been good while it lasted and has paid for the installation

Nothing special about our house, it's a 1991 build.   We had the cavity walls done, and we have thick insulation in the loft.  We have uPVC windows.  We have a conservatory, but that's kept shut up mostly this time of year (with external rated patio doors).   It really is ordinary!  No solar, woodburner etc.

Just bog standard gas central heating, and a gas hob.  We have a gas fire too, but that's just for show (or emergencies).

There is no black magic at play here!!😉😉

thriftylynny

If/when i move house again i will always make sure the heating system actually works! When i purchased current home during the winter months day one of moving in it didn't work having been assured by the vendor it had been regularly serviced etc., should have smelt a rat when my solicitor said Mr so & so was getting stressed about finding the service certificates , wouldn't have minded but i paid full asking price plus cash sale ! As vendor had only moved up the road i knocked on their door on moving day telling them i couldn't get it working , reply was ..well it was working when we left !! Engineer round & lo & behold not fixable & me 3k lighter for a new combi boiler .