Simple living in the country - back to basics

themadvix

Remember it varies by area too, although I can smugly say that apparently we use the equivalent of one average person's water (£17/month here) - and we're not smelly, honest! 😂

badmemory

Just over £600 a year here.  Daren't go for a water meter, if it was just me I would, but with a DS who takes sometimes 30 min showers I just daren't risk it & I won't stop him due to MH issues.  It is as they say what it is.  My friend who has recently moved house has never had to pay for water until now, probably why he washed cars with oblivion & jet washed in the same way, when I told him I had just got my bill & how much it was was absolutely shocked.  I don't tjhink he has even realised he has a back bill to pay not just the new one.  I think the - but I only spend .... may soon stop.  I know I shouldn't laugh at his expense but sometimes you just have to!

rtandon27

Our water is about £264 a year unmetered, includes water & sewerage as we are in a town, so about £22 per month but I pay once every six months in two lump sums.  Our last place which was a rental had water included in the rent as the meter was for the whole farm & included the rental properties on it - can't remember at all what the rental places before that were, but I'm not finding the amount we currently pay unreasonable.

Bluegreen143

Sorry you’re having sleeping issues @Cheery_Daff and hope you get your promotion! The thought of having to do such a thing as your form would fill me with abject terror, though I’m firmly in the “work enough to get paid” rather than “hustle to get ahead” stage of life with two littles 😅 maybe one day I’ll be more motivated to try and work my way up…

Our water bill is part of our council tax here in Scotland so no opportunity to influence how much it is as it’s just set by your council tax band. 

Paspatur

I am also in Scotland and I pay £268 a year after 25% single discount for unlimited water/sewage. Given that our tap water is drinkable I think that is a bargain

greenbee

My water bill is almost the same as cheery's. No waste water (although I must remember to pay into the fund for the communal treatment plant - currently £375/year. 

Cheery_Daff

Gosh,  I never imagined there to be such variation! I think we used to pay about £400 a year at the old house, just under £150 here but that's without sewage. Seotic tank costs about £180 to empty, but we've only done that once since we've been here (it was VERY thick sludge so need to do it more than once in 3 years...) so we're still quids in, well, in relation to the water bill at least! 😂

Not much to report today. Didn't ring the insurance people, laptop just would NOT fire up. Seems to be on its way out, but it's the same age as Mr Cheery's and his is fine, so goodness knows what I've done to it 🙄 Will try again tomorrow, or use the work one. 

Plan for tomorrow is to have a cafe breakfast, and then head down and get on with the job form. I'm getting there, but there's still a lot to do. Quite clearly I should have started this before Christmas when the call opened rather than leaving it til the last fortnight.... I'd say I'll learn for next time but quite clearly I won't 😂😂

Rest if the week is looking like

Sat - cafe & job form
Sun - job form, and Mr Cheery to his dad's. I'll try to leave time for a nice bath and maybe a gym trip

Mon - send job form to others for comment, valiantly try to catch up on neglected work
Tues - into the office, busy all day
Wed - working at home - hopefully get comments back from people so can work on rejigging
Thurs - working at home home
Fri - home,  hopefully not working but most of day on form - payday and car insurance due so bank shuffling
Sat - final touches to job form
Sun - Mr cheery to dad's, and I'll try to submit the form and have a bit of a rest

Monday- deadline, and we're also on strike
Tues - strike - going to try to oil the skirting boards in the bedroom 😂
Wed, valiantly trying to catch up again

Then hopefully by the following week I'll be back on an even keel again and can talk about something else 😂😂😂

Suffolk_lass

One more water thing (sorry) We have a micro development of five houses in the Village (there were two large chicken sheds before) and they were not allowed to attach to the mains sewer because the drop was insufficient (and nobody wants those consequences) so they have a private sewerage system - it's one of the anaerobic digester systems that looks like a septic tank in the field but doesn't need emptying - b-brilliant!

Here we have an adopted mains sewerage system but we get a discount for no roof waste water as we don't have gutters, being thatched. My Mum's place and my Sister's lace do not pay separate water as they are in Scotland too.

Cheery_Daff

Interesting about the anaerobic digester! 

I have finally renewed the house insurance. Had to ring up as stupid computer is throwing a tantrum, but it was quick and painless.

Added legal protection for the first time ever because I had a really strong feeling that I should 🙄 I hope that's not some kind of premonition 🙄 I've just ignored feelings like that in the past and lived to regret them (I'm sure I've also ignored plenty of them and then forgot all about them because they're irrelevant 😂😂😂).

Anyway, it's done now, for better or worse - total cost £182.40 so still cheaper than the £350 I'd budgeted over the year so all good! Can do a bit of shuffling later 😁

edwink

Sorry Cheery I am a bit late to the water discussion.  It is interesting how people's bills vary. Our water would be in the region of £300-£350pa if we were not metered and didn't have a rainwater harvesting system.  Our water bill comes to around £80 to £90 a year depending on what we use of course.  We get an 86% discount on our sewage costs, I think they call it an abatement because we have a rainwater harvesting system in place that collects all the rainwater that lands on our roof, our bath, shower, and basin water is also collected and all of this goes into one or two 1,000ltr storage tanks and this rainwater and wastewater is used for our toilet flushing. We obviously need to flush the toilets and this is the 14% of the sewage cost that we pay for. We also have a large soak-a-way here so the water from the kitchen sink, the dishwasher, and the washing machine go in there after being filtered. 

I am sure not a lot of people are aware of these discounts that are given if these types of things are installed. Even a simple soak-a-way on a patio with rainwater pipes directed into it and washing machine wastewater would get a percentage discount on sewage costs. This is because you are not using the water and sending it through the water companies sewage system to be treated, hence the discount is given on the sewage side of the bill.

As far as I am aware you will not get a discount if you are not on metered use. Always worth checking with your water company to see what is available. 

Sorry to hog your thread a bit cheery with the above info but it is good to get info like this out there because at the end of the day it saves us all money especially at the moment with utility bills going through the roof right now. 

Edwink x