Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

themadvix

From what Greenbee said (and our experience with Intelligent Go (I’ve been calling it Agile Go, not realising that it doesn’t exist!)), it’ll be pretty immediate.

£27 coat sounds like an absolute bargain and like it’ll be very useful, so I don’t think any story is needed.

Also embracing the autumnal feel today.

greenbee

Yep, as TMV says, the switch took about 2 hours, so you might want to check tomorrow's rates (I'm about to do that myself as I've just got in from the garden). 

Cheery_Daff

Right then, that's been decided. Soup has been abandoned, decided pan-swapping was too much effort so we'll do it tomorrow (earlier in the day and stick it in the hay box).

We'll have our tea and I'll run a bath and then I'll switch, and then we can have the evening's electric cheaper 😂

Current flat rate is 23.83p per kwh - to keep things simple I'm going to aim to mostly use stuff that's under 24p on the new rate. 

All jam making and soup cooking will be done, therefore, before 3.30 tomorrow, and I shall plan some analogue activities for the early evening when Mr C is out with his friend 😂

Cheery_Daff

Well, the email with the T&Cs came at 18.12, I accepted, and the email saying 'welcome to your new tariff' came at 18.15 - so approximately 3 minutes 😮 and obviously it started from 12am on 27th, so all today's usage is covered by it too, so I am being punished for being flippant about using peak energy for jam making 🙄😂

Still, the hob was only on for about 30 mins anyway, and every day this month would have cost less with Agile anyway with no attempt to move activities, so I'm not too worried.

Let's see how it pans out! Working at home mostly this week, so at least having my little electric heater under the desk will cost less, and I can set a timer to remind me to turn it off by 3.30 😊

greenbee

Coincidentally, since moving to agile I’ve got better about using the solar and battery and not tried to do the cheap import/peak export thing. Although export is obviously down, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find I’m spending less than 25p a day on electricity (pity about the SC!). I’m not exporting much, but have managed to get three loads of laundry and a load in the DW mostly from solar and battery today. No cooking though, as I was too busy and had cold lunch. I might heat something up for supper in a bit. Or I might just have fruit and yogurt. Tomorrow I need to cook cat food at some point. 

It might be worth getting a programmable plug for your office heating, Then you can use the cheap night time rates to get the temperature up (I’ve found this has worked well with the electric towel rails) on cold nights, as well as be more specific with daytime slots (skipping the odd expensive half hour).

dawnybabes

I’m still obsessed by load switching, and I charge my batteries in the afternoon if 1 - it’s cheap or 2 needed so I can cook tea without using grid electricity if I want. 

LadyWithAPlan

Well done on the CS coat, sounds fabulous - and your energy saving 

so annoying re interest rate rises - still it’s a great motivator I guess and at least the OP roundup helps 

Cheery_Daff

Well, yesterday's electricity results are in - 2p more expensive than it would have been with the flexible tariff 🙄😂 I checked back and we've had 4 days this month that would have been more expensive on Agile (yesterday being one of them) - but all just by a small amount, and the overall month is under by about £4. And all of that was with no effort at load switching, of course. 

Off work today, and planning a jam-making extravaganza. Gooseberries have strained overnight, and the consensus seems to be that it's best to warm up the sugar to add to them, so I'll try to get some granola on the case too, and I can use the oven for sterilising jars (actually, granola might be ambitious since I'm also making 3 types of jam and trying to defrost the freezer...)

Also need to nip to pick up prescription, Mr C said he might want to come into town with me but hasn't appeared yet,so I might go and retrieve him now, get an excursion in quickly, then apply myself to jam (or maybe I should save the excursion for when the electricity goes up at 3.30... Gosh, this is going to add an extra layer of decision making, isn't it?!)

Cheery_Daff

Well,it would have been more sensible to do cafe at 3.30... but we didn't, we went about 11. Got a free octopod coffee though - I've realised they last for the whole week (for some reason I thought they expired after 24 hours) and the last few weeks we've tried to get one on Friday and they've all gone. So now I'm going to save it on the Monday if there's any chance at all of us going later in the week, which there usually is. 

It's been a week for coats - Mr Cheery picked up an excellent tweed thing for £5 today 😂 He has promised to get rid of another two in exchange! 

His friend was meant to be coming to stay, but while we were out Mr C remembered he actually has a gig with a friend this evening 🙈 (playing, not just going!) So no need to tidy the spare room, and I do still get my evening to myself as planned 😂

Made three jars of gooseberry jelly, and four jars of blackberry jam, and turned the hob off 5 mins before the massive electric increase at 4pm 😂 I was aiming for 3.30 but there was no point stopping when the blackberry jame was bubbling away, and it just took forever to increase those final 4 degrees... 😂 Anyway, done now, and some space in the freezer! 

Trying to decide whether to defrost tonight, might as well, I think. There's enough room now for the rest of the fruit that isn't jam yet as well as the apples I've cooked. 

I'm working at home this week, so I can chop apples each night, stew before work in the morning, then leave in the hay box overnight before freezing the next day - a week should get them all in there. 

Right. I was considering an hour outside, but actually I'm worn out after standing up organising jam for several hours so I'm going to have a sit down for a bit first!

themadvix

Jam always, always, always seems to take forever, and always much longer than the 10 minutes the recipes state. I am very glad I have a digital thermometer though - using the saucer test has never worked (and my freezer being outside is not conducive to popping the saucer back in frequently. Totally agree that it's tiring standing and making/stirring, so I hope you got your sit down first!