How much to live on

tooldle

I have an EV. Limited range as it is a Smart Car. I love it. We charge at home mainly. We also have a solar system. I’ve not encountered any issues with pay chargers. Our council have installed chargers around the city (local shopping areas etc). Our council is also running a home charging trial for those who have to charge on street. The intention is to roll out ‘pavement channels’ to those who want them, just drop your cable in, plug-in both ends and charge. Other mechanisms are of course available.
My car was just under three years old when I bought it with less than 3k on the clock. I paid half the new list price. The car frequently exceeds the promised range.

Baileys_Babe

A family member with a EV home charger use the app Co charger so other people can use it, all the arrangements and fees are managed through the app. They have a few regular users who live locally but in properties where it wouldn't be possible to fit a charger, but it would also be possible for people visiting locally to book a charging slot.

I was interested in this option as we wouldn't be able to have a charger fitted at our home so this could be a good solution for us.

middlewife

I've registered on 2 sites for people to use mine but not had any takers in 3 years. The local supermarket installed 3 rapid chargers, however I would only charge cost, 29p kW, as opposed to commercial rates. I've used strangers chargers in Cornwall twice when my holiday let turned out to have an obsolete charger and was very grateful. Sorry this is turning into an EV sub thread.....

Organgrinder

Well here goes for our first overnight run.

EV charger set for 4 hours to get battery to 80% between 12.15am and 4.15am.

Dishwasher on delay to start at 1am.

Fingers crossed.

Organgrinder

Update. All seems to have worked fine. Not sure of the exact cost yet but looks like 28kwh of electricity to charge the battery.....approx 120 miles of range and all for £1.96.

For those who use overnight tariffs I'm sure this is all very routine and normal but I've never scheduled the dishwasher before. I'm led to believe the average dishwasher cycle uses approx 1.5khw. So that cost 11p v my normal 34p.

I best not delve much deeper as I'm clearly in danger of creating a spreadsheet on this!

In all seriousness, the point is about how much it reduces that elusive figure of how much to live on, and for me, without it having a detrimental impact on my life. Indeed, the opposite, how it affords spending on the nice things in life. My younger self would probably be appalled at my self discipline!

middlewife

My dishwasher takes 3 hours on economy, needs setting for when you want it to start in either 3, 6 or 9 hours, so I either set it at 1800 to come on in 6 hours or any time between 9 and 11 to come on in 3. The washing machine, confusingly, needs setting by the end time. The only time I've had issues with timed charging is when I've turned it off to use a charger during the free electric sessions, it sometimes "forgets".

Therefore, as the saying goes, always leave a little in the tank;)

Organgrinder

Round 2 tonight. Mrs O has scheduled the washing machine to come on around midnight.

My EDF app hasn't updated fully yet but it's looking quite promising.

Savvy_Sue

Feeling quite jealous of those of you who can set the washing machine and leave it. Despite numerous attempts to level the feet, it insists on walking across the floor at regular intervals - not always, of course. Makes a horrific din while it does it, which is helpful because I can leap up and push it back where it belongs.

It doesn't help that the floor is raised by 1" underneath it, so when it tries hard enough one corner is hanging off that bit of floor. The other front corner sometimes get close as well, if I don't leap fast enough.

I'd never leave the tumble drier running overnight.

Organgrinder

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81980778#Comment_81980778

That's the one appliance we won't be using overnight.

Good news though - our trials at using the timers have been fine. I know this is probably something really trivial but having never used the functions before you do wonder about how well they work. I won't be getting up before 6am to have a shower though!!

Overall with the car, washing machine and dishwasher scheduled overnight it will save approx £200 a year once I take into account the increased daytime costs of other appliances etc. Given the way energy prices have been I'm fairly happy with that. That saving is on top of the savings from switching to an electric car.

On another front we've sorted getting our windows and doors and they are due to be installed in June. It was an excellent quote and the workmanship is superb (he did a house down the road).

So here's to a cosy and cheaper winter too!

uralmaid

@Organgrinder - Stop looking forward to Winter. lol. I am looking forward to the Summer.😁 We use quite a bit of water and electricity here. All through this Winter I used the tumble drier sometimes 2 or 3 loads per time and heating in the garage for the beloved motorcycles etc. Last year we moved electricity to Octopods and the bill has consistently stayed a lot lower than our previous supplier so quite happy with that. I suppose we are in a fortunate position of being able to afford things and don't tend to scrimp but do still look for bargains when we can. We don't tend to go on holiday abroad though so that saves money. I have noticed that the food bill has gone up quite a lot - I tend to budget around £600 per month which is a lot for the two of us but it isn't always that amount spent. Although I keep trying to get hubby to downsize the number of vehicles but so far he isn't amenable. Maybe the answer is to trade him in🤣