Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Blackcats

Laundry line dried in the sun here too.  It's been a beautiful day but the temperature is dipping now.
I unsuccessfully challenged our council tax banding at the end of last year so I'm feeling particularly resentful about the impending bill for 23/24.  A 5% increase will take us to almost £4000 a year.  To mitigate my hurumph with a feeling of taking back control I've been working hard on my accumulation of marginal gains pot which is going to partly fund council tax.  The total in the pot is £999.90 which is a very messy number but a good start to the new bill.  I'm bringing OH on board with adding to the pot by resuming his e bay endeavours.  Some progress to report as he's got as far as bringing a box of something in from the garage and abandoning it on the kitchen table (sigh).  Unlike last year I'm going to pay the correct amount each month rather than overpay so at least I'll accumulate some interest over the year.

Cheery_Daff

Gosh, that's an expensive council tax bill you've got there 😱 Very annoying that your challenge wasn't accepted, grrrr.

EssexHebridean

Ouchy Blackcats that's a horrific CT bill! 

foxgloves

@Blackcats - Massive boo to that as a Council Tax bill. I'm guessing that's maybe about a Band D? I briefly toyed with the idea of querying our banding. We are in Band B, but given historic sale prices of various similar houses on our street, I think we must have been very close to Band A at the time of CT valuation. I think the old rateable values pre-CT used to involve land footprint of the property? We do all have quite big gardens on this street, so that could have been a factor. I never went into it in any detail as I felt it would be a lot of work for the probable result of the council coming back to me with "Your property just scraped into Band B & that is correct".
Sorry your attempt to challenge the banding didn't go the way you wanted.
F x

foxgloves

I'm attempting a rice pudding on the hob to use up our spare pint of milk because it is supposed to cook in a third of the time compared to my usual method of making them in the oven. It's on the smallest ring too. 
You can tell I've been thinking about the coming 40% energy cap rise, can't you?
F

joedenise

@foxgloves - would it be cheaper to cook it in the slow cooker?  Possibly not if you're using gas!

foxgloves

It might be, @joedenise, but my slow cooker pot is one of those black matte crock ones. It's  used regularly for curries, chillies & other strong-flavoured savoury dishes & I think this might well taint the flavour of something bland like rice pudding. I don't know for sure though as I've never tried it. 
F

joedenise

foxgloves said:

It might be, @joedenise, but my slow cooker pot is one of those black matte crock ones. It's  used regularly for curries, chillies & other strong-flavoured savoury dishes & I think this might well taint the flavour of something bland like rice pudding. I don't know for sure though as I've never tried it. 
F

What about doing it in a dish inside the crock pot or using a slow cooker liner?  Have to admit I've still not tried making rice pudding in the SC but I know that JackieO usually does!

lucielle

I use slow cooker liners, what a revelation!
L

foxgloves

I could do, but it worked pretty well on the hob & took 25 mins simmering on the smallest gas ring instead of 1.5 hrs in the oven.
Your suggestions have reminded me that somewhere I have a little trivet for standing inside my slow cooker to facilitate cooking different things, & stuff in different dishes. I have no idea where I put it. I must try to find it.
F