Buying a little piece of Middle England; Manifesting my way to mortgage free.

debtfreewannabe321

lulabelle1 said:

lol re the DS growth spurt egg snacks… we went through 60 eggs one week recently! DS2s post school current snack of choice is 4 slices of toast topped with 4 fried eggs and a pint of milk to wash it down 🙈

Omg I thought it was just my DS. I said to him yesterday...there's some eggs in the fridge ready cooked. As he goes from ok to starving in a second...well he went and ate all four. I thought they'd last yesterday and today's lunch 🤣 nope. 

debtfreewannabe321

Morning world. Well kids are off into the fog. DP and I are leaving soon and will wander through the park before work so we have some exercise.
I've got a healthy lunch with me (no gluten) I messed up AGAIN yesterday with gluten. This is like when I gave up dairy and was making silly mistakes for months 🙈 slowly slowly. It's always the stuff you buy ready made that catch me. Didn't feel bad after eating it though so got away with it.

Anyway work soon, hopefully a NSD.🤞🏻

My face cream has been used three times now and it's made the world of difference to my skin already. It's not super thick like the other one I bought so actually absorbs into my skin. Was well worth the money and saying goodbye to the last of my pocket money (well almost I kept back a little for just in cases)....the little dry patch I had for weeks on my chin has almost disappeared since yesterday! 

I've a nice day today - I hope -- it usually is. So should go quickly enough. I was having crazy dreams last night I need to look up when full moon is. I feel like one must be coming up with those crazies 😆.

Had no luck with surveys last week or so. Was hoping to make some extra pennies towards MOPs. I'll keep trying though. 

debtfreewannabe321

Okay not having the best day money wise. 
Now we've had issues with energy bills since moving here. The smart meter wasn't working. Not smart enough clearly. We had engineers out. They think it's working now and yet are still asking for readings. Isn't that what the smart meter is for? Huh? Or do I miss the point on this. 
I had a bill today and nearly fell off my seat when I opened it. We are around £300 in debt with OVO after having only been with them for a few months. And paying over £100 a month already. According to their 'usage' section that breaks down to daily usage for the month...on the 22/23 December we used £8 something a day. 
We were not home. 
We were away. I left on the fridge, the freezer, the heating on 15, the Xmas lights at the front of the house on a timer so it looked like we were in- 10am-10pm or something like that. That's ALL that was on for two days. Do I own the most expensive Christmas lights in the entire world OR is this wrong. 
So ANYWAY.....I panicked messaged DP and said I need to submit a reading as this estimate must be way off!!! So off he went to get them for me, send them over and I uploaded them the bills for daily usage went up to £10+ a day. 😐 I am really p***ed off now and thinking HOW????? I've emailed them and asked the same but I've pulled out the electric reader thing I bought in the old house and have it currently on the Xmas tree which thankfully I was too lazy to put away yet. I'll report back on what that says. But I would like to know how it's cost that much with just a fridge freezer and low heating on in an empty house 😭 totally freaking out over this and getting annoyed....and just wondering how on earth, if it's right I will be able to pay this going forward and have any money left!! 

beanielou

That can’t be correct surely. 

debtfreewannabe321

I don't think it is right. I feel so annoyed with it all. Anyway we did the Xmas tree lights and it said 10p. So even on all day shouldn't be £10! However after walking through the house we are doing some more DIY this weekend 😐😩 we are changing all the lights we have in the living room/ kitchen/ ds room (already did DD room) and our room. We all have spotlights everywhere! In our room alone we have 8 different spotlights. The living room- well it probably has twenty. Seriously. The kitchen about 10. Non LED bulbs. So that's first on our list to change now. We are pretty good with the lights though we don't have them on all day. We're at work/ school for most of the day and have them on a couple of hours so even that hasn't amounted to this crazy bill. We also have an electric shower in our room. I won't use it any more I will use the other one. DP said it's old and probably costs a fair bit too. But again does a 5 minute shower and some lights for a couple of hours equate to this bill? I don't think so...? But if it has I'm very angry about it. And annoyed at whoever the hell decided to put all these bloody lights in the house. 

greenbee

Have a look at the consumption on the bill, not the price. Electricity is expensive, and at this time of year it's easy to spend £10. 

I also have billions of downlighters. When I moved in there were 63 spotlight bulbs. I swapped the halogens for LEDs (and replaced three light fittings in the utility and downstairs loo) which got rid of about 20, but still have stupid numbers of them, so mostly use table lamps. 

t4mof

Sorry, not commented on your diary before so hope you don’t mind me dropping in. I used to work for an energy company so might be able to help. 

First of all, you don’t mention gas. Is your heating electric? If it is, are you on an economy 7 tariff?

Have you got an immersion heater that is left on permanently? That eats electricity and would explain why you used a lot while not being there. Anything that uses electricity to heat uses a lot so that’s something to focus on.

Also did you take a reading when you moved in and have they used that on the bill? You could be paying for some of the previous owner’s usage if that wasn’t transferred over properly.

slm6002

I was going mention the emersion too as have in the past had that on and got a bigger bill

LadyWithAPlan

debtfreewannabe321 said:

Ps. I am in shock. My DD did the cooking. AND washing up!!!! This is actually unheard of and no precedence set for this kind of behaviour from her or DS2. I'm not sure how to respond 🤣🙈🤣 I said thank you about a hundred times 🤣🙏🏻

This is VERY exciting.

Sorry to hear about the bully, yes mention it. Noone needs teenage girl drama at our age,

I like boots no 7 future renew - serum, night cream and love the day cream with factor 40 in
The ordinary brand (find in boots) is great too

Well done on all the soup and decluttering..

debtfreewannabe321

greenbee said:

Have a look at the consumption on the bill, not the price. Electricity is expensive, and at this time of year it's easy to spend £10. 

I also have billions of downlighters. When I moved in there were 63 spotlight bulbs. I swapped the halogens for LEDs (and replaced three light fittings in the utility and downstairs loo) which got rid of about 20, but still have stupid numbers of them, so mostly use table lamps. 

Oh blimey did the people who live at your house know the people who lived here 🤣
It's gas and electric combined. But I was more peeved that we had an empty house obviously for a few days we were away and the energy usage was still showing at £10 a day for gas and electric combined on the days we weren't here? I switched everything off as I always do when I go away.

t4mof said:

Sorry, not commented on your diary before so hope you don’t mind me dropping in. I used to work for an energy company so might be able to help. 

First of all, you don’t mention gas. Is your heating electric? If it is, are you on an economy 7 tariff?

Have you got an immersion heater that is left on permanently? That eats electricity and would explain why you used a lot while not being there. Anything that uses electricity to heat uses a lot so that’s something to focus on.

Also did you take a reading when you moved in and have they used that on the bill? You could be paying for some of the previous owner’s usage if that wasn’t transferred over properly.

The bill is combined gas and electric. Sorry if I was confusing everyone. I'm not sure what I said now, but I always call it the electric bill but actually mean both 🙈. Just asked DP if we have an immersion and he said no. 
Things with heating element - kettle, oven, air fryer....ummm I can't think of anything else. I can sort of (not happily though) accept £10 a day when we are here but when we were away and the kids weren't here - they sometimes have their computer/ TV on all day when on holiday - and the house was all shut up and heating on very low for cold Snaps that we've spent that much still. It's like they just guessed. Which in fact they did the first month we were here and then eventually called us and told us the smart meter wasn't working and they would have to send an engineer out to fix it. I'm wondering if it's still not right? Could that be possible? Or do they just guess daily usage. Let me see if I can attach a picture of what I'm talking about. Oh and yes we took meter readings on moving in. So that was done ok. Thanks for commenting @t4mof


Right ok this morning the bill has changed again this is the third time in a row. It's now saying £8.99 for 22nd December --- however house was empty 22/23/24 until dinner time (5pm ish then we went to bed a few hours later as was shattered). Most expensive day of usage was the day we weren't here - are these tables just made up? 🤣🙈