Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

badmemory

Turning bulbs on & off can also affect the life of the bulb, so it also depends on how often you are doing it & how much the bulbs cost.  I confess to turning lights on I don't need because it is so very very dreary.  I almost closed the curtains at 1pm today until I just thought that is crazy.  I think today has been the worst day ever for my solar as it didn't even yield 0.5 kWh.  So basically 13p.  It does concentrate the mind somewhat.

Suffolk_lass

I was up at 06.00 this morning, only to find Mr SL had left the dining room light on all night! So yes, we are getting slack and lax around turning things off. We are also with the 'pods for electricity and I planned to be up early enough to turn things on. Mr SL did remember to delay the dishwasher so that is running now, and I have put a sachet of cleaning mix into the washing machine and that is running at 60c. Our normal Sunday morning is low but we did turn the electric aga back on for winter on 11th. Not sure what they will make of the "normal" usage with which they compare, but the app told me we used 190% more last week. I had already cleared the washing basket with three loads while the sun was shining on Thursday (taking advantage of solar power from our kitchen and garage roof generation) before the Free Electricity email arrived, so cleaning the limescale and soap-scum that accumulates over time seemed a good option for us. 

I noticed you mentioned you use WhatsApp for calls because mobile signal is so rubbish at home. Same here, but there is a setting on your mobile phone that helps with this. On Android, go into the green phone symbol and use the three dots top right corner, then choose settings and scroll down to WiFi calling preferred and turn it on. Wherever you are that there is WiFi, your phone should choose this in preference to a poor phone mast signal. For the fruit people's phones, AI thinks you go to settings first, choose phone, then WiFi calling. I hope this is helpful - it works brilliantly here (where I used to stand on the upstairs bathroom loo seat with my work device, to get any signal!

I may have just succumbed to ordering a Christmas tree shaped hole punch. Doh!

Cheery_Daff

Oops, I hope that hole punch wasn't my fault! 🙈

I confess we do leave lamps on when we're in the house, and often the lights in the kitchen too. We're pretty low electric users overall, but there's always more we could do!

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers,
What a dull old soggy day it's been today. I shall be quite glad to see the back of it & so will the cats!
@Suffolk_lass - Yes, thanks I do know about the mobile phone setting which facilitates defaulting to wi-fi & had already done it. Tbh it's made my phone connectivity better, but I still wouldn't choose to make a complicated call downstairs. Everything phone-related just seems to work better upstairs.

Thanks everyone who commented re electricity saving measures esp relating to switching lights off. I think the tip about bulbs lasting longer if they are not switched on & off so frequently probably used to be true. I remember getting into a feisty debate with a building officer back when I was working, as I used to get infuriated when I arrived at work at 8.15 & pretty much every light would be on all over a 4 storey building......at the same time, the staff were being told endlessly about budget cuts, the need to save money, etc. The building officer said that switching lights on & off was more expensive in the long run because it shortened the life of the bulb. I checked this for veracity (can't recall where) & the answer was that while this used to be the case, electricity was now so expensive that it was indeed worth switching lights off. So I have kind of continued with that (though not as diligently more recently), thinking that energy prices have shot up way higher than they were back then.
I too like the ambience of a nice lamp on dull days - I have one made from an old silver-plated coffee pot & it has one of those big naked modern bulbs which just looks good when it's lit - however, much like the 'If a tree falls in the woods' philosophical conundrum, is the lamp really providing ambience if I am not there to experience it? So I have settled on having it lit on dull days when I am in that particular room (ditto lamps in other rooms) but if I am elsewhere in the house for longer than a few minutes, then I will resume switching it off. My return-to wastage is, as ever, filling the kettle much fuller than required before putting it on the hob. I used to put the surplus boiling water in a flask towards washing-up, etc, but this habit has fizzled out. I don't have the same issue with the coffee machine as the amount of water I put in there always makes a perfectly full single cup of coffee during the day when I am here on my own. For me, it comes down to 'Do I want to spend this amount of money with energy companies, or would I rather spend a little of it on something else?' I am intending to be more conscious of wastage this coming week & see if I really am wasting energy or have just convinced myself that I am.
More about energy in today's budget-helping activities....
*Made good use of the Cephalopods free electricity 2-hour period between 7 & 9am this morning. Didn't do anything extra, just moved planned stuff to the earlier time slot. Included a 14-min laundry load, half of a longer cycle, made bread using my stand mixer, had the heated airer running then sat at the dining room table with the stove heater on so that it was warm enough for sitting & doing a bit of diary admin with Mr F & then copying another batch of recipes into my book. Mr F ran the de-scaling/servicing programme on the coffee machine which he was pleased to do on free electricity because it involves 3 complete cycles, then he made us some coffee, so that was no. 4. I also charged my phone, laptop & fitness tracker.
*Prepped the fruit for the first Christmas cake which I intend to bake tomorrow. It was good to see all those tubs of 'use-it-ups' I labelled & set aside last month for this very purpose. The cheapo own-label sherry smelled perfectly fine for macerating all the fruit & I am getting a festive whiff of it when I walk into the kitchen.
*Mr F set about the too big cake board with a stanley knife & has successfully reduced it to a size which will both fit the cake & fit in the cake carrier. That has saved me having to order a new one.
*Checked for surveys, but apart from a very few points for being screened out, there was nothing doing.
*Deleted another tranche of Black Swizzday emails. Even though I am only on retail mailing lists for companies I like, I haven't seen anything I both need & think is a really too-good-to-miss bargain. These offers have been on for a long time  - I actually made use of one of them on that dress I bought at least a couple of weeks ago - & when any kind of 'sale' goes on for ages, I always think it starts to sound a little bit dregsy, so I lose interest. Anyway, no temptation so money saved.
*Chatted through our diaries. It's a busy week next week with Mr F on courses or on leave, a city centre trip, night out & the first pre-Christmas meet-up to exchange presents. 
That's my lot.....I'm not cooking tonight, so will be tackling a highly Annoying Job. I am part-way through frogging the black lace section of my lovely shawl, grrrrrr. I took it up last night to carry on where I left off & couldn't make the pattern work. It had been fine up to then so I can only assume I have missed a 'DYO' at some point & it's thrown the maths out. After over an hour of knitting forensics, I couldn't see it, so wasn't able to put it right. That left me with 2 options - either bodge a row with my fingers crossed hoping the following row would then work, or frog the entire black lace section back to the 2nd row & re-knit. This kit was a gift & I know it would have been expensive, so I have opted for the latter, rather than bog up such a nice project. Also looking forward to a hot bubble bath & 'Wolf Hall', however, so tonight won't all be about yarn & swearing.
Stay cosy,
F x
P.S We discovered this morning that Soot has worked out how to move a weighted down plate off Ash's bowl in order to gobble his food. How do I know it was him? Because he was so stuffed this morning, he didn't even bother with his usual biscuit-pester. Guilty as charged.

KajiKita

Oh bad luck on the shawl - I know how utterly frustrating that can be! 😢

Soot! You little monkey! 😂😂 Cats here have been so restless and naughty / fidgety today … There’s been quite a bit of “No!”, “Careful!” and just laughter 😉

I tend to overfill the kettle for a boil as well … 😉 Need to challenge myself on that 😊

KK

badmemory

I refill my hot kettle straight away as the kettle is going to lose heat anyway and it may as well lose it into the new water.  Now where did I read about that!!

Sun_Addict

Soot is a little devil but he does make me smile. I have to hide the dog’s dish from the older cat as she scoffs it despite usually having been just fed. The thing is if I put dog food in her dish she wouldn’t eat it! 

QueenJess

Sun_Addict said:

Soot is a little devil but he does make me smile. I have to hide the dog’s dish from the older cat as she scoffs it despite usually having been just fed. The thing is if I put dog food in her dish she wouldn’t eat it! 

The secret ingredient is crime

Pixiehouse55

Hi Foxgloves & all
Ive sent you a message.
It's been a long long time since I've  been on here
I've explained in my message to you 

We are still on our Narrowboat, in a marina for now, we've had some great times.
I hope you are all well a d nearly ready for Christmas without spending too much 

Take care everyone 
Lots of love 
Xxx

ladyholly

Hello pixie house. Lovely that you have posted and that all is ok.