Prepping for the challenge ahead...

Floss

Siebrie look on Facebook for a group for your model, there will be lots of info & help there.

YorksLass

I spent yesterday indoors to escape the overpowering heat and sat in a cool living room to sew up a cardigan I've knitted.  Not my favourite task but it's another garment added to the winter wardrobe.  

This morning I've renewed our fixed price deal for gas & electricity for another 12 months.  Way, way more than we're currently paying but it's the best I could find (before it potentially disappears) and I want the certainty of knowing up front what we'll be paying.  Also more expensive than the current variable price cap but that's about to change to heaven knows what, come October.   On current predictions that will be more expensive than the fixed deal.    On the plus side, no exit fees if (and it's a big "if") anything better comes along and we want to move.  Just need to work out how to adjust the budget to accommodate the extra cost without doing too much damage to the savings pot!  

Today has been another day of escaping the heat and I've been looking through recipe books and making lists of what cheap meals I can make that we like and are tasty, nutritious and don't use a lot of fuel to cook.  Quite a few forgotten favourites have made the grade!  

Today's offering for our main meal is a small bacon chop each (from a pack of cooking bacon), a cheese & mushroom stuffed pepper and a side of mac'n cheese.  Ice cream for afters if wanted.

joedenise

My gas and electric company have very expensive fixed deals but unfortunately also have massive exit fees of £300 per fuel!  No thank you - I'll stick with the SVR for the time being.

YorksLass

joedenise said:

My gas and electric company have very expensive fixed deals but unfortunately also have massive exit fees of £300 per fuel!  No thank you - I'll stick with the SVR for the time being.

Exit fees have become so expensive I'm not surprised people are reluctant to sign up for deals.  As pointed out by Martin last month, they're outrageous.  I'm lucky my energy provider doesn't charge.

Floss

My energy co don't have any fixes on offer right now.

YorksLass

Floss said:

My energy co don't have any fixes on offer right now.

Quite true, a lot of companies have stopped offering them altogether.  That's why I fixed now before the new fix was pulled, even though our current plan doesn't finish until the end of August.

Longwalker

Effician said:

Floss said:

bouicca21 said:

... The question then is, how long would it take to recoup the cost of buying the air fryer?  For me probably years if I bought the cheap one that they discussed, and more like decades for the super pricey Ninjas.

I have had my larger airfryer for 3 months and have only had my top oven on once & the main oven once in that time. It is on for less time at a lower temp than the bigger ovens and as I'm now off my fix I am happy to use less electricity.

The problem with air fryer comparisons is that almost always they are only compared to full sized ovens to make the case for time & energy savings. As a very low energy user at under 3Kwh / day ( electric only with log burner for winter heat, no solar ) , 2 of us in all day & having at least one hot meal a day there are plenty of options apart from an air fryer to save on cooking bills.

Don't get me wrong i have an actifry genius air fryer & some foods it does well & fairly cheaply but it doesn't save much money at all & will probably take some considerable time to pay for itself even though it was bought cheaply s/h, it was as much to do with experimenting with different ways to cook foods & see what all the fuss was about.

When buying it i didn't expect to make great savings anyway as cooking was close to the top of the list when we started modifying our energy usage with the help of the new smart meter & in home display , this enabled us to see exactly what the cooking costs were using various methods & portion sizes. Very anoraky i know & it's taken a few months of learning & monitoring to make this a habit while making very little difference to lifestyle but the current & potential savings from this little exercise will be in the many thousands of pounds over the coming years.

You are correct, you do have to compare to a full sized oven. For those using a table top toaster oven, perhaps no savings at all, and I know a lot of people use those

I have two very large ovens, oh its new, so very energy efficient, had to get a new one in lock down and having been so used to have a large capacity oven, went for the same again

When the kids and grandkids come stay ( which is quite often ) the oven is on constant, for me its the easiest ways to cook for up to 12, wanting different, at once as stress free as possible 

Maybe its not going to save me a fortune - well lets face it it wont but its saving me a lot of time as well, last nights dinner for 3, cooked and served in 12 mins and very little hot water required to wash up

Effician

Longwalker said:

Effician said:

Floss said:

bouicca21 said:

... The question then is, how long would it take to recoup the cost of buying the air fryer?  For me probably years if I bought the cheap one that they discussed, and more like decades for the super pricey Ninjas.

I have had my larger airfryer for 3 months and have only had my top oven on once & the main oven once in that time. It is on for less time at a lower temp than the bigger ovens and as I'm now off my fix I am happy to use less electricity.

The problem with air fryer comparisons is that almost always they are only compared to full sized ovens to make the case for time & energy savings. As a very low energy user at under 3Kwh / day ( electric only with log burner for winter heat, no solar ) , 2 of us in all day & having at least one hot meal a day there are plenty of options apart from an air fryer to save on cooking bills.

Don't get me wrong i have an actifry genius air fryer & some foods it does well & fairly cheaply but it doesn't save much money at all & will probably take some considerable time to pay for itself even though it was bought cheaply s/h, it was as much to do with experimenting with different ways to cook foods & see what all the fuss was about.

When buying it i didn't expect to make great savings anyway as cooking was close to the top of the list when we started modifying our energy usage with the help of the new smart meter & in home display , this enabled us to see exactly what the cooking costs were using various methods & portion sizes. Very anoraky i know & it's taken a few months of learning & monitoring to make this a habit while making very little difference to lifestyle but the current & potential savings from this little exercise will be in the many thousands of pounds over the coming years.

When the kids and grandkids come stay ( which is quite often ) the oven is on constant, for me its the easiest ways to cook for up to 12, wanting different, at once as stress free as possible 

Maybe its not going to save me a fortune - well lets face it it wont but its saving me a lot of time as well, last nights dinner for 3, cooked and served in 12 mins and very little hot water required to wash up

Our herd is not quite as large as yours but there really is an economy of scale, 2 or 3x homemade 900g pizza & 2+kg of fresh chips  work out far cheaper & easier using the proper oven & deep fat fryer .( grandkids wont eat air fryer chips anyway , only G'dads magic chips from the small commercial deep fat fryer)

For me & Mrs E last night we had sausage & onions done in the AF which make great hotdogs, tasty & a very little to clean up, similar cost to the induction hob though but tastier in my opinion with less attention needed ( set time/heat & wait for ping as the paddle does the stirring).

Longwalker

Effician said:

Longwalker said:

Effician said:

Floss said:

bouicca21 said:

... The question then is, how long would it take to recoup the cost of buying the air fryer?  For me probably years if I bought the cheap one that they discussed, and more like decades for the super pricey Ninjas.

I have had my larger airfryer for 3 months and have only had my top oven on once & the main oven once in that time. It is on for less time at a lower temp than the bigger ovens and as I'm now off my fix I am happy to use less electricity.

The problem with air fryer comparisons is that almost always they are only compared to full sized ovens to make the case for time & energy savings. As a very low energy user at under 3Kwh / day ( electric only with log burner for winter heat, no solar ) , 2 of us in all day & having at least one hot meal a day there are plenty of options apart from an air fryer to save on cooking bills.

Don't get me wrong i have an actifry genius air fryer & some foods it does well & fairly cheaply but it doesn't save much money at all & will probably take some considerable time to pay for itself even though it was bought cheaply s/h, it was as much to do with experimenting with different ways to cook foods & see what all the fuss was about.

When buying it i didn't expect to make great savings anyway as cooking was close to the top of the list when we started modifying our energy usage with the help of the new smart meter & in home display , this enabled us to see exactly what the cooking costs were using various methods & portion sizes. Very anoraky i know & it's taken a few months of learning & monitoring to make this a habit while making very little difference to lifestyle but the current & potential savings from this little exercise will be in the many thousands of pounds over the coming years.

When the kids and grandkids come stay ( which is quite often ) the oven is on constant, for me its the easiest ways to cook for up to 12, wanting different, at once as stress free as possible 

Maybe its not going to save me a fortune - well lets face it it wont but its saving me a lot of time as well, last nights dinner for 3, cooked and served in 12 mins and very little hot water required to wash up

Our herd is not quite as large as yours but there really is an economy of scale, 2 or 3x homemade 900g pizza & 2+kg of fresh chips  work out far cheaper & easier using the proper oven & deep fat fryer .( grandkids wont eat air fryer chips anyway , only G'dads magic chips from the small commercial deep fat fryer)

For me & Mrs E last night we had sausage & onions done in the AF which make great hotdogs, tasty & a very little to clean up, similar cost to the induction hob though but tastier in my opinion with less attention needed ( set time/heat & wait for ping as the paddle does the stirring).

Yes I resort to pizzas and chips for tea when they are here quite often , dont think any of them would eat air fryer chips - I think they are disgusting myself I have a proper chip pan and you cant beat a home made chip cooked properly

We have a pizza oven - wood fired  and everyone likes to pick their own toppings , its a bit of a hassle for me tbh, making the dough and rolling the pizzas, I prefer to use it for smaller gatherings 

Whatever the outcome, savings wise, Im more then happy with my purchase - apart from air fried chips . Ive used it for steak, whole chicken, sausages, HM goujons, HM Chicken Tikka masala , jckt spuds, as well as heating up sausage rolls and pasties

Been a god send in this weather as well, kitchen stays cool. Plus usually after I cook curry, the house will smell for a day or even two ( unless I get the filters out of the extractor and scrub them ) and whilst there was curry smell last night - gone today - result

-taff

You could make it a thing for everyone to roll their own dough and you can supervise the cooking...delegation is the name of the game

I used to do pizza for parties, but I would buy a sheet pizza, put toppings in bowls, then everyone would put their own toppings on and sort it out themselves. Much easier than trying to please everyone...