2024 Frugal Living Challenge

Katiehound

Free electricity is connected to having a smart meter because they can see exactly what & when you using power.
Sorry I don't know how the meter operates as this is a reasonable mobile signal area. I suspect it may well be radio signal 'though.

I am with Octopus & I signed up for the free deal (no extra cost)
It's the first time I have benefitted.
I get an email the day before to alert me. It seems to be when demand is low - yes, 7-9 am on a Sunday probably is possibly low usage!
Oh, it's not completely free- you pay for what you normally use at that time, but any extra is free. They look at the last x 4 Sundays. I am hoping for a decent saving as I was away for 3 of those days, otherwise this time of year that's my lie-in time! (The dog has been well trained, he had to wait until 10 am this past Sunday)

Hope that explains - at least how it works in my case

Debsnewbudget

@Prudent
i am a food waste volunteer/hero for Olio and collect twice a week from Tesco.
i have been doing this for a number of years now and enjoy meeting my “regulars” 
the quantity I collect varies wildly.  Some days its 5 items and other day can be up to 10 crates. 

We are allowed to keep 10% for ourselves and some weeks there has been nothing we want/need and other weeks some really good items.
It can be daunting to start especially if you get a large collection but just work through it methodically listing use by items then best before items, taking good photos and always a photo containing the date.
Do the training and give it a go , I love that I am keeping the majority of food from landfill. I am however fed up of opening bags of stir fry to put them in our food waste bin and washing the plastic bags to recycle the soft plastic as no one requests stirfry !!

Matty246

I hooe this is the right place for this. I had a bit of a plumbing accident resulting in water gushing out of the pipe. The pipe was quickly put back on but wanting to mop up the water quickly I reached the the nearest things which included a couple of tea towels which ended up getting mixed up with other tea towels in the washing basket. Do I need to throw away all my tea towels now as I don't know which is which?  My kitchen floor hadn't been mopped for a few days.  

Katiehound

^^^ Kind of depends what kind of grey water was involved!
Look through the basket , can you identify the muckiest?

I would just put the whole load in the washing machine on the 90 degree wash or boil them in a saucepan. That will sterilise them
(You might be better creating a new thread?)

Bluegreen143

Tbh I wouldn’t think twice and would just wash them 🤷‍♀️ - even if human waste was involved, you can probably wash at 60 (90 if very worried). I washed cloth nappies at 60. I wouldn’t throw away the tea towels. 

joedenise

I too would just wash them on a 60 degree wash.  Definitely wouldn't be throwing them away.

Matty246

Thanks for your replies. It wasn't the grey water I was worried about but what might have been on the floor. I'll let my inner skin flint argue with my inner hypochondriac for bit. 

Katiehound

To be doubly sure you could soak in hot water with just a drop of bleach (not gallons, or neat!) After a couple of hours put in washing machine- hot wash. If possible line dry too

Nonnadiluca

And iron, that should see off pretty much anything.

Nelliegrace

I keep Oxiclean to soak mucky things with cold water, before giving them a hot wash.