2022 Frugal Living Challenge

[Deleted User]

I have just caught up on a few months of posts.

I am with Utility Warehouse for electric (gas is LPG). I pay on receipt of bill, and submit meter readings every two weeks without fail. 

September’s usage came to £71.36. They  knocked the £66 off that on the bill, so I had £5.36 to pay 😊😊

I always line dry, and clothes go on the drying rack that hangs above the fire. 

The TV licence went ages ago. 

My biggest expenses relate to the animals, new fencing and other such necessities drain finances but we get such a lot back from them. We have two cockerels destined for the table in the next week or two. Our hens are still laying but we only get around 6 per day at the moment due to the temperature dropping. 

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi all

My Mum has a saying about getting the washing hung out to "knock the dampness out a bit".  It makes a lot of sense.  Two loads out here.

We have had my brother staying for a few days so have been a bit less frugal with the heating and went out for a family meal last night where we spent more than I wanted, but it was hard not to.  Still, two weeks of the month left to get things back on track.

Pizza dough in the breadmaker for tea, good way of using up odds and ends in the fridge.

Primrose

My inclinclination with laundry these days when sun and outdoor warmth is on the wane is to get stuff exposed to fresh air as quickly as possible to make the most of it.

So my inclination is for a quick 30 minute low temperature wash followed by a fast spin for bulkier items which benefit from having extra moisture wrung out of them. At the height of winter there's little real  outdoor drying capacity after around 3 pm.

YoungBlueEyes

Same here. I've my washing sorted into piles the night before, then into the washer first thing and out on the line so it gets the most of whatever drying is in the day.

I was taught - if your flagstones are dry, your washing'll dry.

If it isn't dry enough to be put away when I bring it in (mid aft, as Primrose says) I hang it on a clothes horse in the spare room and crack the window open a tiny wee bit. It's usually fully dry by morning.

kayannie

We should be getting solar panels soon, courtesy of a Welsh Government scheme. We've had the surveyor out to make sure our roof is suitable (& it is).
We'll only be having about 6 panels & as we have no experience of these, have no idea how much they will save us, but as the saying goes, 'every little helps'. 
I've just fetched my washing in from the line, we get wind blowing straight in from the sea so as long as it's a dry day, it's worth hanging out even in the middle of winter. 
KA

Primrose

I love the way many of us are trying to squeeze the most out of outdoor drying.    I guess in olden days it was the only way.  

Hardly surprising that people wore  the same  item for days on end in winter.  It must have been a nightmare for anybody not having a mangle to squeeze the worst of the moisture out.

i recall my mum trying to  "half mangle" items like shirts and blouses to avoid breaking the buttons between the pressure of the rollers.  And on freezing winter days shirts would hang stiff with ice like scarecrows on the line for days at a time because there was almost no fuel for fires to dry them indoors. 

angela110660

we have put an airer in the greenhouse as nothing growing in there now and it seems to work well so far by leaving one of the skylights open a crack especially when there is still some sunshine at times.

Floss

I generally put my washer on timer so it finishes around 6.30am when I am getting up for work. Then I can hang it out either before I leave / log on in the spare room. When I get home / 3pm-ish I will bring it in, hang on the airer & put that in the downstairs loo which has an extractor vent. 

Soontobeoap

I usually have a longe straight washing line. It broke last week and I am still waiting to get to the shops for a new line so that DH can fix it. We get the sea air too and it is great for drying. I have noticed that the people round here are filling their lines more. I think we are waiting a bit longer to put our washing on therefor have bigger loads.  There is no better smell than freshly dried clothes that have been in the fresh air. I also remember shirts being still as a board when left out in the frost too and the huge icicles that used to hang from the roof and window overhangs.

cw18

Soontobeoap said:

There is no better smell than freshly dried clothes that have been in the fresh air.

I've never liked that smell - especially on bedding.

When my back garden has short enough grass to use the rotary line I do hang things outside when off work during the summer months, but other than that I dry everything indoors.   I've only resorted to using my tumble dryer once in the last 6 years though.

Since the start of Covid I've managed to mow enough of my lawn to use the rotary line once, which gave me a couple of weeks use of it.   Work was mad through 2020 so it didn't happen at all.   Due to staff shortages (maternity leave and sickenss) 2021 and 2022 haven't been much better.   And now we're told we're looking at 10,000 redundancies within the next 10 months, with up to 6,000 being mandatory based on performance - so I expect that to include me