how are you preparing for October?

[nickthefox]

When prices are set to rise again and temperatures are going to plummet. We are buying curtains and have got some fleece throws second hand. Got in lots of easy and quick to heat 'meals' read tinned soup and noodles but I'm afraid it won't be enough.
We have recently moved and in our old flat ot was cold but at least we had people above and below us and to the side, we were insulated by other peoples flats. Now we are in a house ans last winter was freezing and we have lots of drafts in the windows, single glazing and no carpet!

I have been stocking up on tinned food and long shelf life products over the summer where costs are lower to try to keep the shopping costs down in the winter when the electricity will be shooting up again.

I have hot water bottles and a few thermoses (is? 's?) too.
What else can we do?
We are a family of six by the way so, food is quite a big cost anyway.

Not necessarily. Mine costs 4p an hour (at current prices)

To echo the others; take a look on freecycle and gumtree for carpet offcuts - people often give these away for free.

Rag-rugging is another option; the charity shops often get more clothes in than they know what to do with. The best bits go on display and the rest get bagged up and sold by the tonne to suppliers who ship them to Africa. If you ask nicely, they may let you shift through a few bags and pull out pillowcases/sheets etc for a low price or for free. These can be chopped up and rag-rugged really easily. There are a lot of tutorials on the web for them.

The best bit? Done right, rag rugs look good on wooden floors.

There is a prepper section on MN with plenty of advice:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/preppers

Thermal underclothes and hot water bottles are cheap at the moment as it is summer, stock up while you still can.
A kelly kettle might be useful as it heats water and you can cook on them, they burn sticks so very simple to find fuel. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Kettle

Even if this is a joke it really does take someone with a warped mind to think things like this up.

PurpleButterflyWings really glad you've got a nice summer lined up (and I don't begrudge you that if you can afford, and it also helps the economy), but your lovely summer isn't something someone whose worrying about money wants to hear about when they're worrying about paying the bills - I doubt they'll have two nice holidays this year, be doing regular trips to the beach due to transport costs, rock concerts.

If you're worried about money, now is the time to think about taking action, not leave it until winter when the cold weather is here.

Four children and you can even afford a carpet or curtains. Your poor kids. Selfish in the extreme to have so many children when you can’t afford to keep them warm.

Because circumstances are totally in your control ...NOT.... ignore the idiot poster below

It can be worth taping around the window frames as you can have small gaps and cracks leaking heat.

We've only just had double glazing put in after 20 years in the same house. Before that, we used cling film or similar on the window frames, insulation tape around the edges, extra linings on curtains- you can buy curtain lining ready made and hang it on the same hooks as the curtains. You can hang fleece blankets at the windows ( ikea do nice big ones).
Make sure you carpet where you can - look on Freecycle and Olio, and tell everyone you know that you are looking- I found that if people know you won't be offended, they will be happy to offer off cuts, and things they no longer need.
We had offcut of fitted carpet enough for a room from a neighbour- I did have to ask, when I saw it had been chucked out, and I've had 3 big room size rugs from various friends and neighbours at different times.

I'm not.
We'd already prepped for our retirement (not for a few years), so there really is nothing left to do to make the house more economical to run, but I might pay the electricity (over) estimate of the bill prior to October to get more units at the cheaper rate. We've decided a battery set up to further harvest the solar isn't viable at the moment

I daresay you are being very sensible, but I couldn't live like that. I'll deal with it when the time comes.

Not thinking of doing anything; we have double glazed windows in most of the house, warm duvets, hot water bottles, electric blankets, rugs for use in the living room, lots of warm clothes, and we're in London which is rarely extremely cold.

Well I probably could pay the extra but what's the point when I'm paying to heat the house and its all disaperaing out of the cracks.

I'm looking at getting some money added onto the mortgage to get the windows sorted now, so hopefully that will be that.

It's an old house and hasn't been updated since the late 90s early 2000s so it is in need. Its all things that wouldn't stop you buying the house, you just deal with it over time. and to the posters insinuating I'm a terrible person because I have 4 children qnd can't afford to recapped a whole house with adequate flooring already, fuck off I just managed to save thousands for a deposit, so they are hardly going without. I'm just looking for ideas on how to save money over winter.

Kelly kettle looks fun for camping anyway!

There are a few things you could try, depending on your budget.

• If some of the draft from the windows is because of cracks/gaps between the window frame and the wall, buy some polyfilla and fill them in.
• If the floor is cold because of gaps between floorboards, consider laying something like DraughtEx between the floorboards. Also, do you have any of those rubber floor tiles that nurseries and kids play centres often have on the floor? (If not, see if you can get some for free/cheap on Facebook marketplace or the like.) They are fabulous at making the floor warmer and stopping cold air coming up from between the gaps in the floorboards.
• Buy a draught excluder from Amazon for all the doors
• You can also buy a different type of draught excluder for windows, which are easy to fit yourself
• I'm not sure what you mean when you said you re-positioned furniture to cover the radiators but if you literally did something like putting the sofa directly in front of the radiator, don't. Whenever you do have the heating on, the sofa will block the heat from circulating most effectively.
• If you can afford the fabric, make sure curtains run to the floor, not just to the base of the window; and use a thick black out fabric on the back

@C152 I mean I really don't want to put the heating on until December at least so I'm order to not 'give in' I moved the furniture around.
We used to have storage heaters so it was easy to ride through a cold few days because the heater would take 12 hours to warm up, but when we moved in and had central heating for the first time, we started putting it on almost every day. Which goes against what I want to spend and also against how I want to live.
I like the idea of a nice insulated home that doesn't take much to heat/ keep warm. I like it for the cost and for the environmental reasons.
I know its wierd but the room literally 'fits' like this and it was a bit hodge podge trying to keep the radiator free too. so

@Chaoslatte ooo do you mind if I ask what make and model it is? Hate the piles of damp clothes all winter :(

Took a job with a 15k payrise

@RBKB it’s a Meaco, I think it’s this one www.meacodehumidifiers.co.uk/products/meaco-12l-low-energy-platinum-dehumidifier-meaco12le?variant=14284009898051&currency=GBP&msclkid=2f4c1f20e8bc150ca9d57d891607a912&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Meaco%3A%20High%20Priority%3A%20Products&utm_term=4587437391982130&utm_content=MC%3A%20PLA%3A%20Supplier%20-%20Meaco%3A%20High%20Priority%3A%20Products%20-%20Meaco%2012L%20Low%20Energy%20Platinum%20Compressor%20Dehumidifier%2012%20Litres%20-%20FREE%203%20Year%20Warranty%20*5060216550114

Once the price rise happened in April, we made a lot of changes. I turned off the heated bathroom floor, turned the washing machine down to 20 or 30 and have just generally been more aware of what we’re using. Subsequently we are now paying less than ever before on energy. We’re £900 in credit so I’ll leave that there to cover the winter months.

Same as others, heated throw for me too! There are some great ones on Amazon, mines was £33 and it does the trick! As Martin Lewis says, heat the person not the house 👍

Hoping that log burners don't rocket in price too, as it has been the plan for a while to get one at the start of this winter, and can't afford until Sept. I know the price of wood will also go up but I'm hoping it will all work out ok!

@daffodilandtulip One thing you can do to keep the cost of wood down, if you have anywhere vaguely wooded where you can go walking is keep an eye out for any dry looking medium sized bits of wood that you can carry home in a bag. If you just pick up one or two per walk it soon adds up. Stack them on top of each other in a pile and cover the top of the pile when it rains so they don't get soaked but so air gets to them to dry them.

Oh we go on LOTS of woodland walks! I'll start collecting...great tip thanks.

I know people are facing some very difficult times and may have very little choice. However, wood burners create truly horrific air pollution and in particular if you burn wood which you gather yourself (“wet wood”) rather than “seasoned”/kiln dried wood.

See, eg, the following which says the effect is worse than if you had an HGV pumping its exhaust fumes into your living room:
www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/09/eco-wood-stoves-emit-pollution-hgv-ecodesign?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

They pollute your own home - worth bearing in mind if you have young children or if anyone suffers from asthma- as well as your street/neighbourhood.

We have a wood burner which I used to love but haven’t been able to bring myself to use it since I learned just how polluting they are 😞 We’ll just be turning down the central heating, wearing more layers and using an electric throw.

A better tip is to turn the temperature down on your boiler to 50 degrees. Apparently you can set the thermostat to the same temperature you would normally but save maybe 15% of energy just by running the system at a lower temperature.

It must take longer to heat up the house but I guess you just allow for that (ie set timer to come on a bit earlier in the morning so house at the right temp when you get up).