Pay off mortgage and start having even more fun 😁

newgirly

Oooh I’ll look out for you next time SC 😆

Just done the Tesco shop online for tomorrow and am whipping through this months budget fast 😱 did a meal plan, then re did it when the meals worked out a bit dear! It’s hard to plan sometimes as I never know if ds1 and girlfriend will be here or at hers. So there’s a bit of flexibility, but it’s nice if I can plan the less “basic” meals for when it’s all of us. 

Out of sheer boredom I’m posting my meal plans for the week! 

• Greek salad, houmous, wholemeal pitta (plus loads of cheese and crackers for dh) 
• Monday veg or chicken Thai green curry and white rice (no pouches now!) 
• Quorn or beef spag Bol
• Frozen chicken grills or fish fingers or fish cakes , chips and peas 
• Jambalaya 
• Chicken rogan josh , pilau rice 
• Frozen pizzas (night off and fancy the Tesco frozen veggie one) 
• Chicken pie, chopped up roasted potatoes and veg 

Nights where I can’t eat or don’t like what’s planned,  I shall have frozen value macaroni or salad or toast probably. 

Spending (for tomorrows shop) £73.54 so now £241 exactly left 😩

newgirly

Oh blimey, the gas and electric bill has hit my account today 😱 I don’t have a smart meter but do read the the meters usually twice a month, and this months electric is up from £168 to £220 and the gas is up from £109 to £240 - an overall extra cost of £183 taking it to £460 for the month - direct debit is at £280 pm! 

Now clearly it’s been snowing and Xmas, however I still can’t see why the rise? The prices are still the same and the heating has hardly been on, for example it’s not been on for more than two hours total this week, plus we didn’t have it on over Xmas as we were out and did t have anyone over. This is starting to get beyond crazy. 

Think I’ll start reading the meter weekly, we are now doing really the most we possibly can to cut down, I’ve switched from baths to showers, the lights are all energy saving and off everywhere except the room you are in (living room had just one energy saving lamp in evenings) we use the slow cooker a lot, no tumble dryer a heated airer on only when needed, no use of an iron and minimal use of the hoover 😆 I do have an old fashioned sweeper for the top floor daily use, the only thing on a lot is the kettle, tv’s and ds1’s pc when working from home, hot tub obviously been off since last summer. 

The only thing I think it can be is I use the thermostat and during the day it’s around 13-15 so doesn’t come on, at night I turn it right down so it doesn’t kick in at all, but perhaps it did and I didn’t notice during the cold spell? 

Perhaps it’s just sheer volume of people here in which case I’m stuffed 😂 I put the rent up a couple of months ago by £25 pp due to the energy rises so won’t do that again, I’ll hang on tight for a bit and see how things go in the next couple of months. 

themadvix

Could be DS1’s PC - they can use quite a bit of power with the fan running etc. Might be worth investing in a monitor plug to plug in and see whether it’s that. Also, how old is fridge/freezer? They can draw quite a bit. I suspect a lot is the heating during the cold snap - our gas was £10/day that week (nearly all on heating as Have electric shower/cooking and we have thermostat at 17, so not dramatically higher but also smaller house) - the boiler was working really hard to keep the house warm and at night the frost protection kicked in at 12 degrees. From 12 degrees to reach 17 it took four hours of the boiler being on to get up to temp!

 Other things to try - have you hoovered fridge coils recently? Is freezer not too frosted? Do people only boil enough for their needs when using kettle? Does anyone have anything plugged in in their rooms using vampire power when not in use? Are your energy saving bulbs CFLs or LEDs?

newgirly

Hi Vix, thanks for commenting any ideas gratefully received! Ds1 has his computer on 2-3 days a week working from home, all kitchen appliances are fairly new when we had the kitchen done about eek, 4 or 5 years ago? Everything was replaced and built in, plus we went from three freezers to one average sized fridge freezer and one small under counter fridge. 

Never hoovered my fridge coils 😬 not sure how easy that would be if built in? Energy bulbs are a combo of both types, but the kettle could be a big culprit! Myself and the kids only boil what we need, dh massively overfills but is currently undergoing training for this 😆 but we drink a lot of tea and are home a lot , it’s the only way to keep warm, I wonder if some sort of hot water dispenser type thing would be more efficient? 

You are probably right about it being the cold snap, perhaps it was kicking in like yours in the night but at really low temperatures still so we didn’t feel the benefit 🤔

themadvix

Hmm, not sure about the coils either then, but probably protected from the worst of the dust! And it doesn’t sound like they’ll be inefficient either. Suspect the PC won’t help, but there’s probably not much you can do about that - unless his work will supply a laptop instead? Probably depends what he does but if it requires a PC it is probably something that requires a lot of computing power, in which case it’ll be working hard and drawing quite a bit of power (conveniently for his company’s energy bills!).

 We really couldn’t believe how hard it was to keep the house warm during the cold snap, it was truly eye opening!

newgirly

Yes he is busy on it all day, but sometimes works from girlfriends and goes in a couple of days a week, the travel costs are nearly £20 a day for him when he does though , so still cheaper at home I guess! 

I’m having a nightmare finding a car 😩 I’ve been looking for ages everyday and our budget is too small for basically anything that’s done under about 100k and isn’t a write off! It’s surprising how many are, I was actually contemplating a fiat 500 at the local dealer in town at double the budget and low mileage, and when I checked that was a flipping category S as well, even though it didn’t say it was. I don’t want anything too far away either as chances are it will be a state when we go to look and a waste of diesel 😆

daisy_1571

Just had a quick look at our local garages  - mazda 1.3, 61k miles, £3495
Citroen c1, 62k miles £3995
Peugeot 207 80k miles, £1600
Citroen c1 86500 miles £1450
Ka 1.25 90k miles £3000
Clio 1.2 84k miles £3495
Corsa 87k, £950 needs timing belt changed 
Corsa 1.2 48k miles £3295

No idea if this is outwith budget, mileage or engine etc as I ain't a car expert by any means. Pm me and I'll tell you what to search for near me if any looks reasonable.  No problem if this isn't what your looking for at all 

Daisy xx

newgirly

Ah thanks daisy 😊 I don’t really know how much to spend is the problem! I wanted to spend under 2k but I don’t know if I should spend a bit more really 🤔 it needs to last until we have paid the mortgage off at least. I’m not sure how far away you are from me, most of the ones around that price seem to have lots of mot advisories when I look them up, I think I’m expecting a new car for pennies 😆

Moneyfordreams

Are you on the best tariff for your G&E? I did take a bit of a risk going with utili7ywarehouse but so far so good - I am cautious and we still racked up £220 gas last month and £80 electric. I don't know if further charges will be added to that, but we have been well in credit and out DD would be £200 which includes phones - (£144 government subsidy). We only have 2 floors too.   

newgirly

Hi mfd’s I thought we were still supposed to be on a standard variable tariff with anyone now due to the price cap? I could be behind on this info though! I think Martin Lewis is in tv tonight so will watch as there’s bound to be info on the bills. Our electric is way higher than yours at £220 last month 😱 and we have a gas hob and gch , where is this electricity going, the neighbours?! 

Been feeling rough the last couple of days with dodgy tummy, not too I’ll though I managed to clean most of the house today, which did help me to not be so cold 🥶