2022 Frugal Living Challenge

Floss

If you are a low-use household but can't have a water meter fitted, you can ask for the reduced usage tariff which is cheaper than standard rateable value.

Siebrie

When we bought this property, the water meter was smack in the middle of the living room outside wall, 'hidden' by a bookshelf with a set of doors at the bottom. Really ugly. The electric and gas meters were smack underneath the living room front window, also sticking out, not hidden at all! I think they put a decorative table with a long table cloth in front of the meters. We had some renovation works done to the property, and moved all meters to the garage, next to each other. The gas meter installer messed up the pipes (the meter was for fixing on the right side of the garage, but it had to be on the left, so the pipes go around instead of through, if that makes sense). We just received our waterbill for last year, and with four people we have used 119m2, which is average for 2.5 people, so we are doing well.

Living_proof

weenancyinAmerica said:

Actually rosemary for remembrance is from Shakespeare. The tour guide encouraged people to take a piece of the plant outside of Anne Hathaway's cottage for that reason: William Shakespeare — 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.... 

carrying on from the previous discussion we are up in Anwick on a road trip and have visited the poison garden there. One of the exhibits was rosemary and the guide also quoted Shakespeare and also an experiment Sandy Toskvig did on tv. Half the contestants were given wafts of rosemary whilst memorising Various facts and the other ones not. The memorised facts were tested and the rosemary aided contestants could recall over 70% more than the rest. I’ll be spreading sprigs around the house for ever more! The rosemary was in the poison garden as the volatile oils are very dangerous to pregnant ladies (or others!). 

florianatwobob

Alnwick and the Poison Garden are on my bucket list

Primrose

joedenise said:

MazzieD said:

Pretty certain it was the whole of Southern Water area.  We didn't know anything about it and we went on holiday and came back to a card through the door to say a water meter had been installed!  To be honest I'm not bothered as our water bills are not much more than half what we were previously paying.

i'm a bit shocked a water meter was installed without giving you prior notice. However  I suspect increasing drought will soon make them compulsory everywhere.
The main problem is when you're a vegetable grower.  You simply need to water or your plants die and then you don't reap the cost saving of growing your own.  We have 4 water butts but when you're getting elderly it becomes impossible to carry heavy watering cans around your garden  - I ruptured a disc in my spine doing just that.

I think everybody is beginning to feel pressurised on all resource fronts now - water, gas, electricity, petrol, diesel.   It's coming as a shock to an affluent society who previously used all these resources without too much thought.

So keep all the economy hints coming folks.   Even those of us who are used to trying to live frugally will now be looking for innovative ideas as the winter bills bite extra hard.

I fear my daily newspaper subscription -  one of my few  luxuries  - may be the next item to come under a very scrutinising  eye, especially as 24 hours later it goes in the recycling bin. 

2Scratters

Today I have had a LBM. Others may already do this.
 My water butt is 250ltr and has worked so far in watering the garden. The grass was catered for from dishwater when I emptied the bowl into various places. Even the debris in the bottom fed the birds that visit our garden. The water butt had become full in the recent rains and I had even moved the diverter that we inserted to catch water quicker in the beginning. It still trickled down into the butt. I had stored excess into buckets we have and a couple of tubs and it was still overflowing. I had poured some down the drain and then thought..... this  may as well go down the loo. (We have a water meter which was already here when we moved in) we already let it mellow if yellow, now we won't need to do it so much. 
This will also allow for the bit longer warmer shower for DH at night as he needs it for his muscles and  improve his poor sleep. We are in the process of taking the morning shower down in temperature for a short time shower. (less than 2 mins)
To those outside of where we are will think we are tight, I really don't care what other people think, it is none of my business. I am not letting "the man" tell me what to do with my money. If I can get our bill down to £200 pa I will be a happy lady.

2Scratters xx

joedenise

Primrose said:

joedenise said:

MazzieD said:

Pretty certain it was the whole of Southern Water area.  We didn't know anything about it and we went on holiday and came back to a card through the door to say a water meter had been installed!  To be honest I'm not bothered as our water bills are not much more than half what we were previously paying.

i'm a bit shocked a water meter was installed without giving you prior notice. However  I suspect increasing drought will soon make them compulsory everywhere.
The main problem is when you're a vegetable grower.  You simply need to water or your plants die and then you don't reap the cost saving of growing your own.  We have 4 water butts but when you're getting elderly it becomes impossible to carry heavy watering cans around your garden  - I ruptured a disc in my spine doing just that.

I think everybody is beginning to feel pressurised on all resource fronts now - water, gas, electricity, petrol, diesel.   It's coming as a shock to an affluent society who previously used all these resources without too much thought.

So keep all the economy hints coming folks.   Even those of us who are used to trying to live frugally will now be looking for innovative ideas as the winter bills bite extra hard.

I fear my daily newspaper subscription -  one of my few  luxuries  - may be the next item to come under a very scrutinising  eye, especially as 24 hours later it goes in the recycling bin. 

We were away for the whole month and suspect that there may have been something in the Junk Mail pile (a neighbour used to pop in regularly to pick up the post and sort it for us so we just used to put the Junk Mail straight in the recycling bin!).

Agree about needing water when you have plants.  Our water butts have been empty for months now and still no sign of rain.

MazzieD

Same here, nothing in the water butt.  Fortunately I can water everything with 2 x 6 litre watering cans, having a small back garden with mainly shrubs and bushes and no lawn has it's advantages when water is in short supply.  It was designed to be low maintenance for the previous owner who had mobility problems.  I do miss having a lawn though, always loved the feel of grass under bare feet after kicking off my shoes or sandals!.

I'm a great believer in re-using water from washing up or a bucket of water saved from heating the water up in the shower.  If the 'experts' are right about heatwaves becoming more regular we will need to get used to water being a precious resource.

ladyholly

My Hydrangea in the front of the house is getting brown curly leaves but I sure it will recover when the rain comes so I dont water it. I am concentrating on the veg and trying to cut down in the house. I do get a fair bit when I run the hot water as we have a combi boiler and they waste so much water.I must say I havent seen anyone here watering their lawn which is a first. We have had odd bits of drizzle but nothing more for ages,

Primrose

E leaves on a precious magnolia stellata bush have started to go brown. Am worried abiut it dying.  It will have to have the grey water from the kitxhen for a few days.
some of the aplatinum jubilee trees planted in iur village ewrlier in the year are looking very sorry for themselves as they ve been planted in places where it,d not easy to get water to thr, and the odd bottle of water from a passer by is simply mot eniugh. I guess they probabky need a couple of gallons at a time.