2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Mollymop5

Good news on the hoover Mumzy

Frugaldom

liuhut wrote: »

Is anyone monitoring their gas usage?? We've been using 2 units a day for the last week, wasn't sure if this is good or not. The Lecky varies between 14 and 30 units a day ( the 30 was today but I have done three loads of washing). I've started to do a tour of the house to make sure things are turned off....starting to sound more like my mum with the 'turn the light out' shout!!

Today was a no spend day for me!!...yay!! but not for my OH ...boo..., had an argument as he wanted to buy a bottle of wine as its the last day of our hols....he won and has spent £6.50 so £6.50 off my total then....I think I might end up not including his spending in this if I cannot get him on board!!!

Glad everyones doing well and well done Mumzy for fixing your hoover!!

because I count everything in my budget I would monitor my gas if I had any. If my chimneys are ok for fires, I'll be monitoring my coal and log useage and back at making homemade logs

liloandstitch

keren29 wrote: »

I was thinking today.

I work from home now and I'm guessing my winter bill will be higher than this time last year. I only have a thermostat on the radiator in my bedroom so when I want to heat the spare bedroom to work in (or spend many hours on MSE!!) I have to heat the whole house.

I wear a jumper etc, but my work involves lots of typing and my fingers get freezing. I have 2 of those little hot air blower machines (both freebies from catalogue codes a couple of years back with MSE!!) and I was wondering how much they cost to run????? Is it going to be better to heat the whole house for, say 2-3 hours during the day, or to have one of the hot air blowers going whilst I'm working and keep the bedroom door closed?

I'm not really up on the 'usage' thing. I only have a small house (a bungalow) but it has concrete floors and I'm on a raised site, so the cold air really does fill the house from the bottom upwards. The news about the bad weather heading this way later this week got me wondering the best way to heat the house whilst working.

Hi, there, dont know if this is any use, but as we have not used our central heating for 5 years due to the expense (calor gas) we are quite expert in keeping warm. We have our stove in the main room downstairs, which uses logs and coal. In our cons, we have 2 heaters which come on on timer on the E7 elec, which for us runs 1.30 to 8.30 - I run all my washing and TD then - and an electric heater upstairs. The heaters are mainly to give the illusion of warmth in a cold house and to prevent damp - our house is 150 years old and prone to it. I am in the house a lot of the day, and dont light the fire most days until 3 to warm it up for when DS leaves school. I really feel the cold, but because I am on the go most of the time, I dont notice it. If I am sitting at the computer, I have 2 hot water bottles, one on my lap and one for my feet to sit on. If this isnt enough I wrap in a blanket, and put on fingerless gloves - works for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

redmel1621

Yay

I've not spent a penny today, maybe because I haven't stepped out the door but hey it worked hehe...
DH (naughty Dh) forced me to buy guitar hero 3 wii yesterday which cost £70...althogh we did have £20 in vouchers...and after getting home yest at 5pm and putting it on, we ended up playing it unil 3am this morn it is absolutely brilliant.
I will stop now, I don't want to tempt any of you wii owners to be spending money you shouldn't...

The saving grace is that the challenge starts today not yesterday and I have said in a very stern voice that I think 13 wii games is sufficient to last the year........

I am going to try really hard for this challenge as I want to get some of these debts paid off before Sept, when I start my PGCE.
How often is everyone updating sigs.....daily/Weekly/Monthly/randomly..

All the best for 2008 and may all your challenges be a success.

Mel x

Penny2myName

I have to admit, heat is on of my main selfishness areas, I like to be warm. I am learning to turn my themso down a notch now and then, this time last year had it at 30, max this year has been 25, though put it to 22 ealier, and redid the timer for heating. Have to admit I have it set for 8 hours in total. 5am - 8:30 am DD gets up real early, then 4:30pm -9pm. Electric I am using around £30 a month and that includes using the dryer for each wash.

whitewing

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! You should have seen OH's face when I just informed him that we'll be taking gas and electricity meter readings twice a day from now on!

mumzyof2

whitewing wrote: »

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! You should have seen OH's face when I just informed him that we'll be taking gas and electricity meter readings twice a day from now on!

Lmao!!!!!!! what to you get from taking meter readings?

shazrobo

think i might start taking meter readings, my heating is sometimes on all day from getting up at 8am then i turn it off around 9pm, never have it above 20 degrees tho

KiKi

I'm very good with elec - turn all lights off when not needed, only wash up every three days when it builds up, and only do one lot of clothes washing a week (live on my own).

Re gas, when it's cold outside, my flat gets very very cold as it's basement and only gets sunlight in one room at the front. So I do set the heating on very cold days to come on for the cats, otherwise I get home to find that the thermometer has been on 15C all day, and I don't like the cats to be that cold.

0530-0630 - up for work
1000-1030 - for cats
1200-1230 - for cats
1400-1430 - for cats
1730-1830 - for when I get home
1930-2000 - for eve
2030-2100 - for eve
2130-2200 - for eve

So that's 5 hours a day, but is enough - it warms up very quickly, too! Also, I don't have a thermostat, so when the heating comes on, that's it - it's on. It doesn't switch off at any given temperature, so I've no idea what temp it actually is.

But I do have a Scottish Power temp thing which indicates it's about 20ish. Plus, I wear slippers (makes such a difference) and a fleecey thing if it's really cold, and have lots of blankets for when I'm curled up on the sofa!

I spent £1.01 today in Tesco on loo roll!

Frugaldom

I can hardly remember the days of instant heat at the touch of a button but I would rather live rural than in town, so I don't mind. I'm more and more being drawn to the possibility of kindling the fire downstairs for a little extra warmth but need to fork out of my budget for the sweep and chimney check. It's a week's groceries worth for a chimney sweep now and that's per chimney, as far as I'm aware. Maybe I could just get one done? LOL

This has been a totally NO SPEND DAY and I'm off to stick on a washing and make soup stock now that cheap rate electricity has come on. I'll also take my late meter reading This is a full time lifestyle, I should have warned you about that :rotfl: