Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@badmemory - Our readings are automatically collected now, as we had a smart meter installed, but before that, the cephlapod method was pretty much as you describe. I'd read the meters every month, following an email prompt from them & input the readings online. An up-to-date bill would then ping into my inbox usually the same day. 
Customers are now spending so much of their income on energy bills - concise, accessible, up-to-date information should be available to all, regardless of provider. People can't plan without accurate, current figures. As you remarked on one of my previous posts, 'ignorance certainly is NOT bliss'. Knowledge is power.
F

foxgloves

@foxandflowers - Your lunchtimes must have been truly boring if they were perked up by my assorted (mostly) financial ramblings! Hello & welcome. Do feel free to join in with discussions - we are a friendly group. It's never too late for that lightbulb to ping on. I wish mine had appeared a decade or two earlier, as I was a relative latecomer to budgeting, but it is what it is. I've learned some valuable lessons & feel 100% more secure since discovering how to live within my means, a process which began about 14 years ago. I never had any qualms about borrowing back in the day because I never reached the stage where I was unable to make repayments, but it is an irresponsible way to live & I much prefer being the debt-averse person I became.
F

foxgloves

Hello Sunny Savers,
After the greyest of starts, the sun has decided to put its hat on & is sending warming rays though my little HQ window. So, a few small money saving wins today:
*Nobbled Mr F over breakfast with my energy bill figures & we discussed the need to stick to all our budget pots as obviously the extra £54 a month going on our energy dd won't be available to pick up any slack. He was in agreement & also seems to be enjoying the challenge of working on £30 a month less grocery budget.
*Made a sourdough loaf which will shortly be turned out of its basket & baked.
*Free fitness clearing & weeding a length of flower bed. Free cheeriness too, as this now shows the snowdrops to their full advantage & I also uncovered one of the hellebores I salvaged from Mum's garden, which has a lovely plumptious purple bud.
*Sowed penstemons (free seed), parsley & 2 types of chillies - the latter are indoors in my little heated propagator. It's too early to sow pretty much everything else, but I always aim to sow my chillies on the last day of January.
*Cashed out my January PA survey earnings at £26-75. That will be added to my Personal Spends. Started February's earnings which will all go to a Savings Pot. £4.99 in there already, but I've missed a good payer this afternoon - frustrating, but kept getting an error code so had to report it in, rather than participate & earn the payment, grrr.
*Cheapo meal tonight - spicy chickpea burgers (Delia) which I batch-cooked a while back, with vegetable couscous. I've defrosted a pot of chopped peppers to go in the couscous & will add turmeric, homegrown red chillies from the freezer, onions & other bits & bobs. Can see that we've bought a bigger tub of coleslaw than intended, so will serve some of that too.

Resourceful activity:
*A few more large jars with the 'button' style lids added to my stash in the shed. If last year's experimental bottlings turn out to have worked (not yet opened!), I shall need more of this type of jar for stepping up production this summer.
*Added to my free plant label stash by cutting some from bright pink & lime green ice-cream tub lids. The tubs themselves were a good size for potting up divisions from perennial plants, so I've added them to my plant pot stash in the shed.
*Mr F has scrounged a box to bring from work so I can box up our nephews' birthday presents for posting. I have none suitable at home & it would really annoy me to spend money buying a cardboard box.
*Shredding pile shredded & bagged to use as free worm bedding, as I shall soon be setting up the worm composter for the new season. Bought bedding isn't expensive, but shredded paper seems to work fine, so I can't see the point buying it.
*Have decided that the scarf I am knitting from my l/o magenta stash yarn is worth more to me as a present than it is for the paltry sum I am likely to make if I try to sell it online, so have decided to gift it to my friend next Christmas. I had ruled this out, as a possibility, because she likes red coats & this would be quite a colour clash for her, but I have decided to source some charms to sew onto the 4 corners when it's finished......hopefully ones which say things like 'relax', 'calm', that kind of thing, then gift it as a wrap to wear indoors round her shoulders on chilly nights. I think this could be quite a nice themed gift bag, along with a good paperback novel, some chocolate truffles & maybe an individual bottle of prosecco or posh tub of hot chocolate. She does feel the cold & is trying to save on energy bills along with the rest of us. So I am going to finish knitting it - I've got plenty of time to find some nice charms & will check my own craft stash first - then add it to the presents bag. 
Right, I think that's my lot for the day. Think I'll put the kettle on for some ginger tea & see if my sourdough is ready to plop out of its basket. Off to butter a baking sheet.
Love F x
 

Makingabobor2

I'm sure you never sit down, you seem to be on the go all the time and are just such an inspiration.  I think I need to try harder next month, as I feel like I've not done much at all this month.  Enjoy your ginger tea. x

foxgloves

@Makingabobor2 - I definitely do sit down! I usually have a lunch hour & proper coffee break just as I used to when I was working. I either read or watch an episode of something over lunch. Once I've cooked dinner (my cooking nights are Mon - Thurs), I am in leisure time, as Mr F washes the pots & catches up with his geeky podcasts. I do like to be busy, & being busy in the garden is particularly good for me as it sorts my head out. I'll admit I'm not very good at doing nothing. Even when I'm watching TV, I'll usually have some knitting on the go....unless it's a complicated pattern & the programme has subtitles.
One of the reasons I decided to re-boot my efforts with our savings pots as a key financial goal this year, was because I felt that like you've said yourself, I was just starting to take my eye off the ball  a bit......just on little things when I know a small extra effort would have been worth making. Just small things - grocery budget going a little bit over, forgetting to budget for something & taking the money from our buffer zone, spending more from some of the savings pots that we're putting in them........only minor things, but in the same way as all the little bits of good behaviour add up decent savings, so small regular slippages or incidents of CBA-ness add up to not being quite as angelic with our finances as we might be! It doesn't hurt to have a re-boot now & again, to revisit how we do our budgets, whether everything is still working well & if there are any 'leakages' creeping back in. So that's what I've been doing & tbh, I feel better for it. 
F x

Suffolk_lass

foxgloves said:

*Have decided that the scarf I am knitting from my l/o magenta stash yarn is worth more to me as a present than it is for the paltry sum I am likely to make if I try to sell it online, so have decided to gift it to my friend next Christmas. I had ruled this out, as a possibility, because she likes red coats & this would be quite a colour clash for her, but I have decided to source some charms to sew onto the 4 corners when it's finished......hopefully ones which say things like 'relax', 'calm', that kind of thing, then gift it as a wrap to wear indoors round her shoulders on chilly nights. I think this could be quite a nice themed gift bag, along with a good paperback novel, some chocolate truffles & maybe an individual bottle of prosecco or posh tub of hot chocolate. She does feel the cold & is trying to save on energy bills along with the rest of us. So I am going to finish knitting it - I've got plenty of time to find some nice charms & will check my own craft stash first - then add it to the presents bag.  

A quick contribution from me - why not add a mini hot water bottle with a knitted cover to your friend's "kit"? Big river do a mini (500ml) one like this or Argoos have a couple on clearance (full sized) for £1.20 today - they are perfect (I used to take one on every business trip in winter) and they are brilliant as a hand warmer on your lap.

I was a bit behind, reading your diary but just to say I usually read my meter on the last day of each month, but I forgot at New Year - so yesterday I added the readings. Ours is electric only on an economy 7 tariff (fixed until August) - anyway, the accumulated credit took a massive drop as the Scottish People do an electronic bill summary the same day in response to every meter reading submission (and a PDF after a couple more), or an estimated bill after three months, if you don't submit readings. My KWH usage is massive (smassive) with the 4-oven electric aga on in the winter (it does mean we use less oil for heating than most people though). 1 Dec - 31 Jan we used 1070 day units (@22.29ppu), 2748 night units (@8.511ppu) plus standing charge of 34.43ppd - Just £518.05 for two months. Shocking, but actually less than I was expecting, our credit is back in the seven hundreds now as we pay £198 by DD. We seem to have used about half the oil; we bought 1000L to add to the very small amount transferred to the bunded steel tank bought at the beginning of the year (from the rusty single skin tank we could see through at the top). When the Village collective oil delivery was planned I wasn't confident we would fit the minimum 500L in so we left it (78.8ppl) - hopefully it will drop a bit more before we top up again. Manageable, sums it up.

foxgloves

@Suffolk_lass - Thanks for the suggestion about adding a pretty mini-hot water bottle. I've made a note of that, as it would defo fit the theme of my friend's 'cosy up with a good book' present bag.
Re energy bills.....aga sounds heavy on electricity but I can imagine it does add warmth to the house, & as you say, it probably helps reduce heating oil use. Re energy use monitoring/studying bills, etc....I think we are all at it more than ever before. The price rises have been higher than anyone really could have foreseen. I've never felt the UK to be sufficiently secure for energy. As students back in the 1980s, when we were supporting the striking miners, we used to talk about the potential risk of the UK concreting over its coal & Russia having a worrying amount of control over global gas taps. Wind & solar energy - still too many nimbys, many of them in government.
Ah well, I'd better crack on with my day.
F x

cbsexec

joedenise said:

Unfortunately @foxgloves they aren't taking on new customers - I've checked several times recently!  As soon as they are taking on new customers I'll be moving.  I'll carry on checking from time to time until such time.

Can I ask does that mean you are paying a variable DD rather than a regular monthly DD?  I'd prefer a regular DD throughout the year but it certainly wouldn't be a deal breaker if a variable one is all that is available!

I quite agree that more communication/information is important but the only information we get from EDF is "let us help you save money on your power", eg try turning your lights off, reduce the temperature of your thermostat!  Don't they think we're already doing these things?

Just seen on another site that octopus are offering £50 sign up to new customers.   Don’t know if this is of any use? 

EssexHebridean

  This is why I wouldn't have a smart meter because I've heard stories about them disconnecting them and not even letting the person know. 

For anyone who reads the above and may be concerned:
If you are paying your bills, you will not be even switched to Prepayment unless you request that this happens.
If you are not paying your bills, and are engaging with the energy company about this, they may have a discussion with you about changing to prepayment - in some cases, for electricity, this may even cost you less than your current credit tariff. Otherwise you will be able to work out a payment plan with them.
If you are not paying your bills, and are not engaging with the energy company about this, then they may indeed switch you to prepayment - and they do not need your permission to do this in these circumstances. This applies regardless of the type of meter you have - a smart meter can be remotely switched once a process has been followed. A non-smart meter means a switch will be forced - the energy company will be granted permission by the court to enter your home (whether you are there or not) and carry out the switch. In neither of these circumstances will you be "disconnected".
If once you are on prepayment, you continue to not pay anything, and continue not to engage with the energy company about this then your meter will run out of credit and you will not have further access to energy. This is precisely the same as it has always been - Smart Meters have not changed this.

The media - even formerly seemingly reliable sources - have been guilty of some very lazy reporting about this, and there have been a lot of sensationalised stories appearing - notably in rags like the Daily Mail, but also on the BBC site. Once these stores are looked into it can be seen that the facts simply do not add up - and that either as a result of poor research, or due to a desire to deliberately misinform, "fake news" is being printed. 

(Foxgloves - apologies for the rant, but this sort of misinformation is causing SO many issues over on the energy board at the moment - it's sad to see the number of folk being genuinely terrified by the nonsense talked about Smart Meters - especially as most of those who are the most scared are also the most vulnerable! As a result it feels very important to ensure that the facts are presented in opposition when this sort of stuff surfaces).

@JoeDenise suppliers ARE taking on new customers - but you need to call up rather than doing it online at the moment. I personally switched to the tentacled provider mentioned by Foxgloves herself back in October and have been delighted with them so far. They  may initially be hesitant as they will say that in your case it won't be a cost saving, but if you tell them that you wish to change for their excellent customer service that will likely be all they need to hear. I imagine Foxgloves may well be happy to provide you with a referral code too if you were to ask her - that nets both parties £50 bill credit so is well worth having! ( gained my code from someone on here when I joined!) 

Foxgloves I love the idea of your "Cosy up with a good book" present - that sounds like such a lovely thing to be given!  Also - back on the subject of energy bills, as our "buffer fund" account now has over £1000 in it I have called it closed for now and decided to divert anything further to our New House Fund - I am hesitating over increasing our DD any even ahead of the April price rises as with not being sure where we will be I'd sooner not build further credit yet. 

foxgloves

Hello Wednesday Pence-Wranglers,
Hope everyone has managed to have at least a half-decent day today, hopefully a properly decent one. Very grey & so windy here today. 
Today's small wins:
*Did meal plans for next week, prioritising stuff we already have in.
*Wrote grocery shopping list as aiming to place an online order shortly.
*Rounded up unused veg to avoid wastage. Carrots prepped & frozen - shan't need to buy any for next week -  ditto a large green pepper from which I got a small bag of strips for a future stir-fry or chilli & a pot of diced for adding to a home-made pizza at some point. Also skinned, chopped & froze l/o tomatoes as they were the exact quantity needed for a meal planned for the weekend, but would not have kept that long. 
*Did a couple of surveys.
*Cashed out a £5 voucher from a survey site - I will use it for grocery shopping & swap the money into a savings pot.
*Free fitness doing an hour of garden tidying - clearing stuff away, emptying troughs ready for new veggie plantings, & weeded & dug over the small bed alongside the greenhouse where we grow half of our outdoor tomatoes. They won't be planted there until May, but I want to add a good layer of our garden compost fairly soon to enrich the soil.
*And found some garden freebies. Went to clear away 5 pots which were blowing around at the side of the shed & they contained the last of the pansies I grew from free seed last summer. I'd completely forgotten about them & surprisingly, given the cold snap we had, they looked p*ssed off, but otherwise ok. Have planted them around the witch hazel in our big patio pot. 
*Cut the very last of the September-sown rocket - enough for two portions alongside tonight's meal.
*Wrapped nephews' birthday presents in the box scrounged by Mr F yesterday - he's volunteered to post it on his lunch hour tomorrow, so I think we will get away with 2nd class. I'll get him to check though.
*Knitted more of my friend's wrap over my lunch hour & will continue with it this evening.
*Two baths from one fill of hot water will also be in order - nothing to concentrate the mind on energy-saving like spotting the figures on the smart monitor. 
Well, Mr F is home from his meeting early & is firing up the coffee machine, so I shall go & see what he's been up to today. Can hear cats greeting him & telling him that they are absolutely starving <eye-roll>
Take care, m'dears,
F x