And now we go again...

PennysIntoPounds

Ooh meant to say EH, aldos are doing cans of the Hop Factory marshmallow stout 4.5% at 1.69 reduced from 1.99 if that sort of thing floats your boat. Nice to find a decent stout that's not a silly abv, and the marshmallow isn't as sickly as it sounds!

Cheery_Daff

Love the idea of Try January! 😂 I never met last year's goal of trying every cafe in our local town, so maybe efforts can be continued towards that! 😂

EssexHebridean

PiP that marshmallow stout is indeed very decent. Thanks for the tip off about price too - I’ll have a look next time I go in (while also avoiding going in specially, at which point I will undoubtedly emerge having spent more than I wanted!)  and see what the situation is in our local store. 

Cheery why not make Try January about cafes indeed - that’s a great idea as I bet they suffer just as much as pubs do from all the “new year new you” stuff! 

Hey paspatur 👋🏻! Agile is a tricky one - I actually commented on the Energy board earlier that I do really see it as a tariff to recommend people go on to as you do need to be a degree of a geek about that sort of thing before there is any prospect it would work for you I think. Having said that I reckon most of us on here have a degree of geekery about us anyway, so…! Our annual energy use is in the region of 2300kWh electric and around 8000kWh gas - so we come under the heading of relatively light users allowing for our property profile (3 bed terrace, early 50’s build, gas central heating and hot water, dishwasher, all cooking on electric). On the gas side we have currently stuck to our not too bad fix, although the comparison site I use (octopriceuk.app) reckons we could save by switching to Tracker. The common wisdom is that tracker is nowhere near as good as it was though, so right now we are of a view to stick to the fix and review in the spring.  On the electric - Agile could suit you if you can easily avoid other than background use during the peak hours - mainly 4-7pm although sometimes a short time in the morning as well now - and you are able to be flexible in terms of when you do laundry, run a dishwasher if you have one and that sort of thing. Learning exactly at what stage in their cycles appliances like that use the most energy can be handy, and a delay timer is pretty much invaluable. I’d say for anyone for whom needing to be that flexible would be more of an inconvenience or simply isn’t practical due to lifestyle, Agile is probably not the way to go. Right now it might be worth setting yourself up on Octoprice (or one of the other 🐙 comparison sites - I believe Cheery uses 🐙Compare - and tracking what tariff might work out best for you on your current profile. (They will all tell you that savings are possible on tracker but that is based on how it’s performed over the last 12 months and may not reflect how it will behave in the future of course) Does that help? There’s a fair few folk who comment here who are on Agile as you’ll have spotted and we are all fairly different in use so there’s a decent bit of input to answer your questions hopefully! 

ROFL Greying oh I DO wish our postbox was one of the shonky mid-west types with a flag! Sadly not, a far more utilitarian black steel effort! 😆

Paspatur

Thank you so much for the detailed response
I think I would be classed as a very low user for electricity at 1,100 per annum and a high gas user at 11,000 per annum
I am not sure Agile would be for me as such a low user and with very little to load shift - washing machine and tumble dryer 3 times a week in winter and washing machine only in summer
It would also not be possible for me to use tumble dryer overnight/early/late as it is on a party wall
My gas useage is related to location, looking at yesterday the gas tracker was above what I pay and given it was minus 10 when I got up there is no way I could have reduced heating
I have Hive heating and do not heat rooms I am not using or it would be even higher
I think the only was to reduce my winter gas useage is to go to the office more often
Problem is it has not been possible to get to the bus stop for the last 10 days due to ice
I have enough credit on my account to cover the expensive months through to April and I am lucky to not be struggling financially, although we would all like to save money where we can of course
Thank you again for taking time to explain

Paspatur

When reading my above reply I had a think about the not heating rooms I am not using
I have to heat my hallway as it has the bypass valve
My hallway is the impossible to heat space due to a void under the staircase, the house is insulated and double glazing and doors quite new but this void space causes a cold pocket
Neighbours have tried all sorts of expensive fixes to no avail, stupid design
I realised I am due a boiler service so asked my gas engineer if he can move the bypass valve from the hallway to the kitchen radiator
Yes, he can and will on 20th January
This means I can heat the kitchen (where I mostly live and work) without heating the stupid hallway
Duh what an idiot, hopefully this will save me lots of money
Thank you for making me think more on this rather than accepting the status quo

EssexHebridean

That sounds like a good idea to sort the issue of the hallway , and ought to bring your bills down a bit too with luck?  I’d definitely suggest anyone thinking about going on tracker for gas spends a good bit of time reviewing how it might pan out for them first. I’m still considering it, but I reckon this isn’t the best time to go for it. 

foxgloves

Interesting to read more about the ins & outs of agile pricing, @EssexHebridean . I am not sure I want to go down that route atm, but it did remind me a little of when we were on the old Economy 7 tariff, when we had storage heaters. We changed this when we had gas central heating installed in 2020, but prior to that, I was very good at getting laundry loads churning via timer early in the morning & shifting what electricity use I could to within the cheaper rate. 
I dread to think what this month's statement from the Cephalopods will look like - we don't have our thermostat set high, it's on 18.5 from 6am to 9.30pm, when it changes to 14.0, but of course during this very recent spell of icy weather, it's been on pretty much constantly during the day & also come on a couple of times during the night. Ah well, it's the reason we build up a credit buffer on our energy accounts over the summer, isn't it? 
F

EssexHebridean

Absolutely is Mrs F - no question, and with the amount our heating was on Friday and the weekend when it was SO chilly, I too was celebrating the small win of the energy credit!  Of course it was E7 which set us up well for the load-shifting required to make the most of Agile too - although E7 with its certainty of overnight pricing is definitely easier to manage from a head-space point of view! 

Well how are we all doing on this bright, cheerful day? We've got (just) blue sky and sunshine down here although it's showing signs of not lingering about for long, and it must be said that we took the view this morning that it probably wasn't going to be warm enough, sunny enough OR breezy enough to make it worth pegging washing out so MrEH was about to hang that on the airer in front of the spare room rad as I left.  

The change in temperatures is reflected in the heating costs with gas use yesterday being 47kWh as against a whopping 75 for both weekend days and an eyewatering 82 on Friday! Thank goodness we are in a position to be able to afford to stay warm without compromise though - and it must be said that central heating is STILL a wonderful novelty - to be able to think "brr!" and just turn the temperature up a little...! 

How is the MSE stuff shaping up then?
- Banks checked and all fine
- WM & DW ran overnight while electric prices were at least a bit less than SVR - we are now back to making teeny daily savings thanks to Agile, yesterday was just 5p but that included cooking during a time when prices were a bit above SVR still so all in all still a win.
- Monthly saving from Agile this month is going to be small but still a saving I think - again, we'll take that. We're also still seeing a saving on the gas over SVR thanks to taking the fix when we did too. 
- Stocks of logs and coal are dropping but still solid enough at the moment - I suspect we may need more before the end of the colder weather though, we'll have to see. we also still have a reasonable number of the paper "bricks" left too - those are working out superbly allowing they cost nothing to make, just a bit of time on MrEH's part! 
- last night's YS'd fishcakes were very pleasant but confirmed to us that we wouldn't have bought them at full price.
- I did go with the plan I came up with on the Reverse Planning thread and turned a chunk of red cabbage and one of the pink onions into coleslaw to have with that - it was delicious (the mayo was a mix of standard Al's cheapy brand and a blob of the posh garlic one we also have) and I have some left for tonight as well. Thank RT for the inspiration there!  Also did sweet potatoes baked in the combi oven alongside. All in all a tasty low-effort plate full. 
- There is one final sweet potato which needs using which will be diced up and cooked off with other veg to accompany couscous tonight. 
- After MrEH's rugby match on Saturday got cancelled we took the opportunity to go into London and meet pals who were down from Edinburgh and visit a couple of our favourite pubs with them. A thoroughly enjoyable evening, and the costs for beer, travel and food (Excellent pizzas!) will be met from our personal spends, of course. 
- MrEH has booked the train tickets for an upcoming trip for a meeting related to our voluntary role next month - getting a small saving thanks to the Rail Sale that started today. we'll be able to claim that back as an expense as well. 
- We have been through our seed stocks for the garden and all in all we're not doing too badly - although there will  be a few oddments we'll be wanting, and then of course there will be seed potatoes too although we'll probably keep a sharp eye out for those reduced again. The next garden related task is to properly work out how to get the best value from the space while also trying to follow crop rotation principles as far as is practical. 
- The new post box was put up on Sunday and seems to be fine. Annoyingly the oil filled rad we bought is going to have to go back as it's got a bent fin - presumably happened in transit although there is no obvious sign of how. I've raised a support ticket with the manufacturer and will see what they say. 

All in all, not too bad for a mid-month position. The council tax comes out tomorrow and then we'll have two months off before the new CT year of course, and I do need to work out where the money for the balance on the office door is going to come from as well as that is a chunky lump still sitting on the credit card. It will probably come from the long term savings pot, with regular savers due up next month which will replenish.

EssexHebridean

Really sad to see the news breaking today about Tony Slattery's death. I knew him quite well back in the early to mid 90's - we lost touch at the point where he really went off the rails with (as I now know) drink and substance addiction leading him to a dark place mentally - I believe he very consciously stepped away from pretty much all of the group I knew him through at that stage. I still think the way he was treated by the media back when he was on mainstream TV a lot had a lot to do with his mental health struggles too - I recall him saying at the time that it frequently felt like he couldn't win whatever he did they would find holes to pick. Even in that last couple of years I knew him though, when there were extensive media reports about his "violently angry outbursts" I never saw any of that - he was always unfailingly polite, sweet and kind to me. A lovely man.

PennysIntoPounds

I'm sorry for the loss of your old mate. I was just a fan but adored him and his work, and was really shocked and sad to hear the news. May he rest in lots of well earned peace