2022 Frugal Living Challenge

CCW007

A family member signed up for that scheme cw18.  They use for free whatever electricity is generated that they can manage to, the company who owns the panels gets the Feed In Tariff on whatever is exported to the grid. 

Once the FiT dropped significantly it wasn't worthwhile for the companies so they stopped offering it.  If you were confident of staying put for the duration of the lease it was a good way to get the benefits of solar without the outlay or maintenance costs.

Jellytotts

We had that solar panel deal at our old property. Transferring it when we sold was very easy. We got all the solar power we could use with no install or panel expense.  No deal like that when we moved so we installed panels via our electricity provider on an interest free loan.  

joedenise

We had solar panels installed back in 2014 which we bought outright as we still had some of my pension lump sum left.  It's been good being able to use the electric as it's helped keep prices down a bit but I think it's going to be even more important now.  Even with the panels I'm still dreading how much extra our G&E is going to be.  I'm planning on paying the £150 from CT rebate direct to the G&E account and this hopefully will keep our monthly payments down around £10-15 a month.

Ms_W

Can I ask a silly question. I have light fittings with numerous bulbs in them for example the front room has 5 bulbs from a fitting that once was a single drop ceiling light. Is the electricity cost for each bulb ( so in other words just have one bulb in it, or do they not run effectively that way) or is the electricity cost for the energy going to the fixture and then it's shared out to the 5 bulbs. I hope I have made sense. Thanks for any guidance.

ZsaZsa

Ms_W said:

Can I ask a silly question. I have light fittings with numerous bulbs in them for example the front room has 5 bulbs from a fitting that once was a single drop ceiling light. Is the electricity cost for each bulb ( so in other words just have one bulb in it, or do they not run effectively that way) or is the electricity cost for the energy going to the fixture and then it's shared out to the 5 bulbs. I hope I have made sense. Thanks for any guidance.

I don’t think it’s a silly question, I’d like to know too. I’ve a light like that and have been avoiding replacing the 2 bulbs which have gone. 

maryb

I think it's the bulbs that pull the power, the wiring to the fixture delivers to the connectors in the light fittings arms which each draw power when a bulb is connected.  We have light fittings like that and we rarely turn them on.  We have lamps around the room with LEDs and use those.  It's nicer lighting actually and a lot less energy greedy

ladyholly

We used to have a 5 branch light fitting and nearly always had at least one bulb missing because if it ran on all 5 one would blow very quickly. The one we have now uses LEDs.

cw18

Ms_W said:

Can I ask a silly question. I have light fittings with numerous bulbs in them for example the front room has 5 bulbs from a fitting that once was a single drop ceiling light. Is the electricity cost for each bulb ( so in other words just have one bulb in it, or do they not run effectively that way) or is the electricity cost for the energy going to the fixture and then it's shared out to the 5 bulbs. I hope I have made sense. Thanks for any guidance.

Yes, each bulb pulls the power.  So if you have 5 bulbs of 40w each, they pull the same a single 200w bulb would.

And yes, you should be able to run the fitting with fewer working bulbs.  So putting in 3 bulbs of 40w would only use 120w - but the room woudn't be as bright.   My parents often had one 'blown' bulb in a 3 bulb fitting.

Those examples are based on old, old bulbs.   I have some 60w equivalent LEDs which are only 9w.

I'm slowly changing over to cool white LED bulbs, as those make a room brighter even if they're the same power.   My living room is still on older energy efficient bulbs which give off a more orange light.   At some point I'll change them to cool white LEDs, but I want a lower energy bulb than seems to be standard (I originally ran the room with 2x60w, but if I change to daylight I should only need the equivalent of 2x40w which seem to be harder to get as cool white - and even harder to find at an affordable price!)

spudsmum

Still frugalling on here as best we can. 

Car is due in for Mot next week and it's likely to be a big job as its 15 years old. I don't have much in my car fund following the recent repairs on my husband's car so it will need to go on Cc. I will use future car contributions for the next few months to pay it off though rather than that money being sat in the bank.

Positives this week.

Managed to go the whole week without putting the heating on. Just having the electric blanket on for sn hour before we go to bed to take the chill off.

Trying to use halogen oven instead of big oven and making a big effort to turn lights out when we leave the room. 

Bought tickets for legoland for my twins birthday - combined some Clubcard vouchers and a Cadbury 2 for 1 offer so got 5 tickets for £22 rather than £110. Also got a cheap Premier Inn for the night. We'll need to pay for food and petrol but still loads cheaper than a party and loads of gifts. 

Made good us of the pantry and leftovers meaning shopping only cost £42 this week. Including eldest son's school baking stuff and a stock up of orange squash and long life milk.

Found a lovely pair of suede boots in charity shop which match my dress perfectly - £2

Offered to make mum in laws 50th anniversary cake for her party and she's asked me to do that as our gift instead of buying them something -that will save us a fair bit

Think that's  it for now 

Ms_W

Thank you for explaining the light bulbs