Great Rural MoneySaving Hunt

Chimera

Ooo.. what a good thread - glad this ones popped back up, shall make my way through it tomorrow after work.

I've recently moved to the country, and I am very lucky that my partner has lived here for years and has good connections. We get all out meat from our friend who live local with a little farm, we spend about £30-£40 a month for a mixed bag and we get a LOT of meat - from ham to venison steaks. Pheasants is never a problem come shooting season, as OH is a gamekeeper - but to be honest he refuses to eat it as he gets sick of the blooming things, but we have used them for swapsies.

I have found there is much more of a can do attitude, there is always someone who can help and people aren't scared of a bit of hard work.

Our local farm shop is great, they grow some of their own and get loads from local farms - everything has a sign to say where it's from so we buy local where we can. Discovered this year they also do plug plants, 6p for a lettuce plug.. they had cabbage and various others too. Chitted potatoes were free as they just didn't want them to go to waste - as were plant pots - and if stuff is going out of date they either reduce it right down or give it away. The dog food for 4 dogs costs us about £7 a week, compared to about £25 from supermarket.

I really do love living in the country!!

Only problem is we have no gas, only electricity, and can't change it as in rented at the moment. But our long term aim is to get a bit of land and build on it and make ourselves as self sufficient as possible.

Lotus-eater

Davesnave wrote: »

Well, the Aga has been turned off and we are only having a small wood fire each evening now. We got through about 1300 litres of oil, or £540 worth. Back to the old red gas cylinder + electric for cooking.:(

Is that the whole year?

mardatha

I find that logs are a waste of time Davesnave. They don't give out nearly the same heat as coal and don't last as long, so we stopped getting them. Personally in this house we find it more economical to keep the stove running 24/7 all year even on the odd hot summer day. That way the stone walls get warm and retain the heat. It's a multi-fuel but we use only coal & find the smokeless eggs last longest and throw out most heat. We spend £130 a month on coal, all year, and that also gives unlimited hot water. We dont use much electric and the Calor gas takes a cylinder every 3 months (£25).
My daughter just moved from a new gas-heated house to a hilltop (1000ft up) stone cottage with only 2 coal fires for heat- nothing upstairs at all. The walls are 12" thick and the place feels chilly. SO we are looking for suggestions for the two upstairs rooms & the kitchen/pantry at the back of the house please
I too love this thread - its quite a specialised type of living and theres not a lot of us really !

Davesnave

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Is that the whole year?

November 12th to 26th April only.

Lotus-eater

Davesnave wrote: »

November 12th to 26th April only.

But that's mostly the times you must have had your heating on. You do run your heating on oil, don't you?
Seems cheap if you do.

Optimisticpair

mardatha wrote: »

I find that logs are a waste of time Davesnave. They don't give out nearly the same heat as coal and don't last as long, so we stopped getting them. Personally in this house we find it more economical to keep the stove running 24/7 all year even on the odd hot summer day. That way the stone walls get warm and retain the heat. It's a multi-fuel but we use only coal & find the smokeless eggs last longest and throw out most heat. We spend £130 a month on coal, all year, and that also gives unlimited hot water. We dont use much electric and the Calor gas takes a cylinder every 3 months (£25).
My daughter just moved from a new gas-heated house to a hilltop (1000ft up) stone cottage with only 2 coal fires for heat- nothing upstairs at all. The walls are 12" thick and the place feels chilly. SO we are looking for suggestions for the two upstairs rooms & the kitchen/pantry at the back of the house please
I too love this thread - its quite a specialised type of living and theres not a lot of us really !

Another one here with stone slab floors and stone walls 14 -18" thick). Our heating and water is running at about 1140 a year (2/3 bed cottage 600ft up). Oil for water and daytime heat Nov - April and coal and wood open fire at night. Roughly it splits 50/50 .

Just got used to having 10 days of sunshine and it being warm enough to have the door open onto the garden but now it is throwing it down here, granted it is filling up the water butts but it has gone chilly inside, so I've just put the heating on at 4-30pm and on for the first time in a fortnight probably.

I'm trying to decide if I want wood (mainly oak) and coal next year or just coal. It's an open fire until I can get a stove fitted. I'm not even sure if it isn't cheaper to run on oil as we installed a very efficient CH boiler in Feb 09.

We very rarely use the oil CH to heat upstairs at night for an hour and only need to use it at 7am when its it is freezing outside.

mardatha

What do you all think of these Calor gas portable heaters ? like the Blue Flame ones ? My daughter is thinking of one for mornings before the fire is lit..

Davesnave

Lotus-eater wrote: »

But that's mostly the times you must have had your heating on. You do run your heating on oil, don't you?
Seems cheap if you do.

Our heating from the Aga is just what it belts out in the kitchen + a radiator in the bathroom, and it gives us hot water. That's it. The wood burner does one or two radiators, but that's all it can manage on logs. As both heat sources are in the centre of the bungalow, and as we have a lot of external protection (25' conservatory, 15' utility area and an integral garage) the extremities aren't usually that cold. There's plenty of loft insulation and new windows/doors too. Daughter puts on a fan heater in winter for 15mins or so when she gets up.

Seriously, as the place is going to have major alterations in a year or two, we shall just live with it as it is. After all, we're unlikely to have anything worse than last January, when we weren't really uncomfortable.

Lotus-eater

Davesnave wrote: »

Our heating from the Aga is just what it belts out in the kitchen + a radiator in the bathroom, and it gives us hot water. That's it. The wood burner does one or two radiators, but that's all it can manage on logs. As both heat sources are in the centre of the bungalow, and as we have a lot of external protection (25' conservatory, 15' utility area and an integral garage) the extremities aren't usually that cold. There's plenty of loft insulation and new windows/doors too. Daughter puts on a fan heater in winter for 15mins or so when she gets up.

Seriously, as the place is going to have major alterations in a year or two, we shall just live with it as it is. After all, we're unlikely to have anything worse than last January, when we weren't really uncomfortable.

So that oil, does your cooking? heating in the kitchen and the bathroom and hot water.

It could be worse I suppose, do you plan to keep the Aga running over the summer? A friend had one and her kitchen was boiling in the summer.

Davesnave

Lotus-eater wrote: »

So that oil, does your cooking? heating in the kitchen and the bathroom and hot water.

It could be worse I suppose, do you plan to keep the Aga running over the summer? A friend had one and her kitchen was boiling in the summer.

Yes, love it for cooking. Now it's off, it will stay off till next November. Our kitchen faces north and we like it's cool aspect in the summer, and the fact that we get to see a lot going on from there!