My Energy use Diary

Frugaldom

I'm an 'E' rate compared to all households and an 'F' rate compared to similar households - I see there are now 4 of us but can't tell if any of those use tank gas or oil. Carbon Club reads 45 out of 49.

That's the rubbish part over

The good part is that I spent just under £15 on electricity last week, so I am bang on target as my budget allows for average £30 per week Nov-Apr inclusive and average £15 per week May - Oct inclusive. It's a very tight budget I have - £1200 per year for electricity and £440 for log, coal etc. It also means that my fuel bills account for 41% of my complete annual household budget. :eek: But I wouldn't change my lifestyle for anything - nothing beats rural living in my book

chivers1977

[ It also means that my fuel bills account for 41% of my complete annual household budget. :eek: But I wouldn't change my lifestyle for anything - nothing beats rural living in my book [/QUOTE]

Ouch!! Well done for coming in bang on target! Can I ask, why are your bills so high? Do you run an IT business from home with lots of servers? My electricity was £6 last week but we work outside the home.

lingojingo

OMG - got A rating on both badges :j :j :j (never been better than C before). How sad am I - had to take a screen shot just in case it never happens again, lol. won't bore you all with it, you can tell I'm over the moon

For week ending 3rd May, 2009 your household spent £7.61 in total.
Gas meter (cu. ft. x 100): £1.81 - Main electricity meter: £5.80

don't know why it says 'main' electricity meter, we only have one

Frugaldom

chivers1977 wrote: »

Can I ask, why are your bills so high? Do you run an IT business from home with lots of servers? My electricity was £6 last week but we work outside the home.

I was never aware that my electricity costs were high until I saw how little others spent elsewhere. It's £1.60 per week standing charge and I use at least 6 units per night (£2.50ish/week) to make sure I have hot water (needed), we use between 10 and 15 units daytime (£10+ per week average) for kettles, cooking, home office for 2, incubators and brooders (small poultry farm set up) and I still need to heat the place. Choice of heating is electricity and light the open fire (logs and coal cost money). Had never thought about it before and had never heard of anyone spending as little as some on here in my life before - guess I'm a country bumpkin :rotfl::rotfl:

belfastgirl23

Well DH's slip up with leaving the heating on for seven hours has put us down to an E rating and 47/49 in the club I suspect this week might be high ish as well cos we have relatives staying who are older and need the heat on more.

Ah well...at least we're still trying.

cw18

belfastgirl23 wrote: »

Well DH's slip up with leaving the heating on for seven hours has put us down to an E rating and 47/49 in the club I suspect this week might be high ish as well cos we have relatives staying who are older and need the heat on more.

Ah well...at least we're still trying.

Am I right in thinking he left the heating on in the last week - ie. included in the figures you've just added? If so, that won't impact on your badges until NEXT Monday when i-measure are sure of having everyone's reading in (due to us being able to select our own day for reading meters)

GC81

Just updated my readings, thinking of my week its been ok, girls have had the fan on in their room for a little bit at night and I've had visitors over the weekend but I think I've been doing ok.
Club rating 'A' 6/49

Your household's total energy spend over the last 11 weeks is £47.15.
For week ending 3rd May, 2009 your household spent £3.15 in total.
Main electricity meter: £3.15

chivers1977

nykmedia wrote: »

I was never aware that my electricity costs were high until I saw how little others spent elsewhere. It's £1.60 per week standing charge and I use at least 6 units per night (£2.50ish/week) to make sure I have hot water (needed), we use between 10 and 15 units daytime (£10+ per week average) for kettles, cooking, home office for 2, incubators and brooders (small poultry farm set up) and I still need to heat the place. Choice of heating is electricity and light the open fire (logs and coal cost money). Had never thought about it before and had never heard of anyone spending as little as some on here in my life before - guess I'm a country bumpkin :rotfl::rotfl:

Aah, electric heating, working from home and chickens! Never gonna be a country bumpkin me, my OH is bird-phobic!!! I bet the poultry stuff uses a fair bit of electricity

A_fiend_for_life

I used 1 unit of gas and 20 kWh of electricity, 13 kg CO2 and slipped from 7th to 13th place. :eek:

B over all and C for low rise flats.

cw18

My badges for last week are a wobbly D/E against all users (said D last night, says E this morning ) and a D against my selected group (g&e detached)



However, the good news is both my gas and electricity have dropped this last week :T

Gas is down from 114kWh to just 91kWh - the only difference being I didn't boost the heating at all (boosted it for one day last week - but I can't believe it made THAT much difference :eek: ) The only weekly readings I've ever done which were as low or lower were the first 5 reading I did (end September and through October)

Electricity is down from 62kWh last week to 58kWh, which is my third lowest reading since keeping track ona weekly basis -- and my also third lowest lowest daily average in my bill records, which go back to 2nd Jan 2004 :T :T :T Only differnce I can think of from last week is no lawn mowinf (needs doing, but has been raining on and off for days!!!)

I can also now get a comparison against a similar period from last year.

5th Feb 08 - 2nd May 08 inclusive : gas was an average of 26kWh a day, electricity was an average of 15kWh a day

3rd Feb 09 - 4th May 09 inclusing : gas is an average of 27kWh a day, electricity is an average of 9kWh a day

The increase in gas is slightly worrying, but I may have boosted the heating more through the day as I've had my GDs around school this year which I didn't before November 08. ETA: Actually slightly concerned about this, as I've just realised I've reduced the time the water heater is on by over 80%, so in theory should have seen a good reduction on this!!

No idea what I've done to reduce the electricity so much though - but I guess some of this will be down to my late husband's habit of going out for hours while leaving the main TV either switched on (normally frozen on a Teletext page) or on standby. I also have less washing to do due to being 'a person down', and when he did the washing he always used the tumble drier -- which I've been trying hard not to except for things like jeans, towels and bedding which are almost impossible to hang around our house (low radiators, dogs, and young grand-children).


Unfortunately, the way my billing days have worked mean I can't compare prices for exactly the same period - but having keyed todays readings to S/Power I can see that

5/2/08 thru 2/5/08 - 88 days - bill for useage in the period was £207.33 (if I pro-rate this to get 84 days spends, I get £197.91)

10/2/08 thru 4/5/09 - 84 days - provisional bill for useage in the period is = £169.72, which equates to about a 14% decrease
(this is my actual bills for the first 8 weeks, and the suggested total for the last 4 - I should be able to update this to accurate figures tomorrow)