Simple living in the country - back to basics

rtandon27

Cheery_Daff said:

... the carbon monoxide alarm... (er, in a box on a shelf, never opened 🙈 In my defence I don't think we've used the fire since we bought it!) Anyway, it's up in the right place now...

Yikes!

I must admit we never owned one in all the places we rented - the landlords may have had one installed but I don't remember any! One of the first things we bought here was a carbon monoxide alarm as the first thing we discovered was that our boiler had been bodged into service and needed to be replaced.  The second thing was that our gas hob would turn on even if we just accidentally brushed up against the control! YIKES - the joys of an old house!

Cheery_Daff

Gosh, yes definitely better to have a working one in those circumstances! 

Very exciting - opted into my first octopus savings session tonight! We originally thought we'd go out when they were on, but as we're currently out at the docs, and need to go home as I have a meeting, we don't want to have to come back out again 😂 So we'll turn everything off for an hour and just use laptops on battery, and a light in the room we're in (or maybe even candles 😂)

Can't imagine we'll save much but even a couple of quid will be good!

Cheery_Daff

Ha, it's not even going to be a couple of quid. In the last 3 weeks (which is as long as we've been sending half hour readings) we've not used more than 0.3kwh at 6pm 🙄😂 Still, good to see how much we can save!

ladybird1106

Glad I read your post as opted in too. We don't generally save much when we do it, but better in my account than theirs. 
Love 🐞

edwink

Cheery_Daff said:  Very exciting - opted into my first octopus savings session tonight! We originally thought we'd go out when they were on, but as we're currently out at the docs, and need to go home as I have a meeting, we don't want to have to come back out again 😂 So we'll turn everything off for an hour and just use laptops on battery, and a light in the room we're in (or maybe even candles 😂)

Can't imagine we'll save much but even a couple of quid will be good!

We've been opting in too Cheery and turn everything off. And, like you just use our tablet/laptop on the charged batteries. We don't even use a light though 🤣 We get our home monitor down to 16 watts each time which is the internet modem use and the monitor itself. It stays like that for the duration of the saving session. Last week we did 2 x 1.5 hour sessions and today is 1 hour between 5.30 & 6.30 pm. We eat either earlier or later than those times, whatever we feel like doing on the day. Once we were credited £5.52 for a session but mostly it is a lot less than that as we a low users like you.

Bit of fun sitting in the dark totally chilling out 🤣🤣🤣 Whilst earning credits on our accounts eh?

Edwink x

ETA...  Just checked and we got £1.30 for the first one, and £2.53 for the 2nd session.

Cheery_Daff

Yes, we know how to have fun! 😂😂

Also demonstrated by me and Mr Cheery booking appointments with our favourite doc this afternoon - one at 2.45, one at 3.15. Seemed like a good idea to get it all over and done with, but obviously they were running late, and as I was first, I ended up spending well over an hour in the surgery waiting room 🙄 Mr Cheery sensibly nipped to the shop at the beginning (although I was still waiting for my appointment), but I was quite quick, so I thought they might catch up with themselves... but then the next person was in for over 30 mins. 

Hey ho - I should have taken work with me but never mind! Both all sorted out now with relevant prescriptions and referrals 😊 

themadvix

You lot need to get some home batteries installed. I just asked Mr MV why we were using so much power (sitting staring mindlessly at the TV, feeling sorry for ourselves) and when I looked, our battery was charging - he’d not checked his emails to see there was a saving session this evening. But pleased there is - we’ve made £16 so far, discharging to the grid during the sessions (which for clarity is not through Octopus but our battery supplier). We get paid £2/kWh normally, but last week’s was £4/kWh!

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, excellent work! That does indeed sound like the way to go! 

Solar panels are on my list - but I confess way, way down it at the minute 🙄

redofromstart

I used to do the reverse on 'free energy Sundays' when I used to run the WM/TD all day. Saving energy seems more positive. 

Cheery_Daff

They do also tell you when there's a lot of green energy being generated and encourage you to eg use washing machine etc then - but it doesn't actually save you anything I don't think.

We remembered with 2 mins to spare and are now sat in the dark with our laptops 😂😂 Have to say it's not making work any easier 😂 Have ended up using my phone torch as a little lamp so I can see my notebook 😂 we do have a battery lantern but I don't want to run that down in case we actually need it for real!