To ask you how much Gas & Electric you have used today ?

[specialk9]

We've used £3.30 already. Yesterday we used £5.80

No heating on
Washing machine has been on a quick cycle
2 x showers (total 10 mins?)
1x TV on
Kettle boiled 3x
Usual things plugged in / on standby (fridge/freezer/other TVs etc)
No lights on

Still need to do another wash, 2 small children need a bath (will share), 1 teenager needs a shower, kettle will be on at least another 3/4 times. Dinner to be made.

We can never seem to stick to our 'budget' (who sets that? The company?) unless we're out all day.

How do you manage to stick to your budget ? Seems unmanageable (2ad, 1 teenager, 1 infant school & 1 baby)

We're £400 in credit over the summer but DD has gone from £105 to £291 !

OK !

Well one more thing I would say, unlikely but possible. In an old house I rented there was a room with a mysterious switch in it. The woman in that room pressed the switch and left it. Apparently it was the immersion heater switch. The landlord (who paid all the bills) was non too pleased to find the electric shoot up. Of course it wasn't so bad, as the tank was fairly well insulated and the immersion was just keeping it up to temp.Still, it ramped the leccy up quite a bit.

I think unlikely in your case (it would probably be more) but worth looking into.

A f/f will definitely use more than 85watts a year

Y

Oops posted too soon!
The f/f I just got should use 206kwh/year, according to the sticker, so about 0.56 kwh a day.

Yesterday we were almost £10 with no heating ! Today we're at £5.58

Checked my washing machine manual and my short washes use less water and kw than cottons eco so that's good.

We're very fortunate that we have a good buffer of disposable income but i'm still trying to be mindful.

Here it is

85w, is when it’s running

I tried washing clothes at 30.degrees but my machine started to stink so I've reverted to 40. It's ridiculous that we are obsessing about these basic expenses in a supposedly wealthy country

@mum2jakie vinegar once in a while. Magic.

And yes

Cakewench,there is an online map for the grid areas for economy 7. I am in the old SEEB area,which means I have a split night rate. 10.30pm -12.30,then 2.30 to 7.30. I used to hear it click over,it was actually about 3 minutes later. Changes with BST. In winter,I do the washing before I go to bed,if possible it will go outside, I check forecast,if we get several days with no sun or wind, electric airer,last resort tumble dryer Finnishing before 7.30am

I've used £3.38 so far in electric since the 1st October apparently.

Gas is probably about £5 that isn't connected to the smart meter have to take readings for that. Probably less than that tbh.

@Unforgettablefire

A lot of people get confused by the power rating.

Electricity consumption (energy) is specified in kilowatt hours. So you pay 35p for every hour you use a kilowatt (1000 Watts).

You have an 85 Watt fridge, so if it were using that power permanently (often it is switched off) then it would use 85/1000 kilowatts per hour = 0.085 kilowatt hours.

That really is a small amount. And that assumes the fridge is switched on permanently !

So if it is operating correctly, your fridge power consumption would be pretty low. If it isn't (bad seals, compressor) then it could use more energy.

It's a fridge freezer but very small only about five foot in height. I'm wondering if even though the new ones use more it might actually be cheaper to run if this one is on its way out. It's a minefield.

F/Fs really haven’t changed over the yrs how they work, the only real progress with them is the compressor, being a piston type or the scroll motor. The major advance is the inverter system where they don’t actually turn off altogether after a cycle, they just slow right down & gently tick over, this saves the enormous pull of power to start a motor from scratch, that’s the real enemy of older systems

Thanks for all the info it's really helpful, sorry I've derailed this thread