The Friendly Frugaleers, figuring out our finances with furry feline photos!

[Cagliostro]

Hello all :)

Our electricity usage is roughly a £1 a day in the Winter and 80p per day in the Summer. That seems high!

What have you got switched on? You've got led bulbs haven't you because you said your taking them with you when you move. Even our fridge has an LED Pygmy bulb I got off eBay.

Right now I'm running;

Slow cooker
Fridge
Freezer, both turned to No1.
Central heating panel. But I switched off the LED backlight on it.

Everything else is off including the doorbell, which Dh teases me about.

Aaaand the kettle just died. Great.
Got a letter from the solicitor who did our remortgage saying they owed us a refund and a cheque is enclosed. Got very excited and the cheque was for the grand sum of...FIVE pounds! Might use it to start my mortgage padding or put it towards a new kettle

fluffy just had a closer look and actually our usage has dropped in the last few weeks. We opted to use the airer instead of the tumble (it's DHs job to load it!) And we've ditched the microwave. Fridge / freezer is at 1 but it's very loud. I often go to turn it down as it's so noisy only to find its already on the lowest setting. Perhaps it's not as efficient as it used to be. It's 4 years old.

I wish our washing machine had a 30 minute wash. It has a 15 minute wash that is crap. The rest are over an hour.

Perhaps it was higher previously thanks to mowing frequently too. It all adds up I guess.

snuggly feck sakes that's unlucky!

snuggly Sorry to hear about the kettle. I have this one and it works brilliantly. Only £6.99.

www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/household-appliances/small-kitchen-appliances/kettles/essentials-c15jkw13-jug-kettle-white-20582445-pdt.html

Fluffy I'm in awe of your frugality in power use. My only claim to fame there is that we have a manual doorbell, with an actual bell and no battery. It sort of works.

Thanks Genie, my cheque from the solicitor will almost cover it!!

snuggly Woohoo! We frulageers know how to live it large.

£11 in boots on tissues vitamin c and cold and flu relief tablets.

£2 in paperchase on thank you cards. (Should have been £7 but I have a rewards card and had £5 off because it was my birthday!!).

£1.80 on a bottle of water (we have glasses here at work. It I'm a notorious spiller so I'm safer drinking out of the bottle). It'll be refilled and replaced next month.

Colleague took pity on me and. Ought me some soup to have with my sandwich. Pea and chorizo. I'm assured it's delicious but have no taste at present. Or smell. And am just squeaking at people today. She's made all my phone calls for me.

Must buy her a bacon roll tomorrow.

Snuggly, I am so shallow I would buy a fancy kettle and starve for the month.

£11 in M&S on naice food. I like good grub.

Also now have an appointment 9am in the morning to open the high interest Santander savings account. Seems a bit archaic to me, that you can't do it online but hey ho. Their business account sounds amazing too, so I am speaking to the business manager about possibly switching. That's a big move though, so needs thought.

Also spoken to M&S about part time work for DS.

Electric I love that you are also a spiller. I used to buy bottles of water like that and hoard for a month too, then I tried buying reusable bottles which turned out to be impossible to wash. Then I recently discovered that I can buy bottles of water with a sports cap in Tesco in packets of 6, which then cost 20p per bottle. Definite saving there. Endless pursuit of the prefect drinking bottle.

My housework rota is turning out to be good. I cleaned the whole kitchen this morning, and it was hard work, so I know feel pretty okay about just putting my feet up for a while. Yay!

My very very exciting slide scanner that I got for 1/3 off online has been delivered to the wrong street and signed for by a stranger, who then didn't bother to redeliver it to me. The postman is going back to ask if he can have it back. I'm crossing my fingers for him.

AGenie hope they find it

Phoned the estate agent for an update, he said phone the solicitor, the solicitors said phone the estate agent. What the hell? We're paying these people £thousands. I flipped out at the solicitors and now I feel bad. It was a frugal fail choosing the estate agent that's for sure. he's useless!

Just caught up and will post properly later, but just wanted to say I hope Cag is having a fab day in London; welcome back to Don't and excellent example of pacing there, Genie.

I have a cheap travel kettle that's saved the day for me a couple of times when my main kettle's bitten the dust. It's one of the few examples of a rarely used appliance coming in worthwhile that I can think of.

That made me Need.
I have actually just bought the £6.99 Currys kettle as recommended by Agenie, it looks fine and since we seem to destroy a kettle a year it hardly seems worth buying a posh one.
Had another look at fridge freezers whilst in Currys. This is the third time I've looked but I still haven't remembered to measure the space in the kitchen!

We spend £122 a month all year round on electric.

Hope Cag is having a good day

Just making macaroni cheese for dinner Dh can put it in the oven when he gets back from work.

Today I have discovered the joys of working with two monitors at my computer it's soooo much easier unfortunately it wasn't my desk

Thanks Creme I was pretty chuffed myself. I am sort of semi-relaxed now. Yay! I'm on a mission to find ways to take stress off myself. I'm sure there must be more ways.

snuggly I hope you enjoy the kettle. I really like mine, which is weird as it's just a kettle.

No sign of the postman yet Collie. Eeep! Sorry your estate agent and solicitor are being useless. I think they are sort of pre-set to run at the speed of a glacier. House buying seems to take three months to the day, not matter what you do. I have no idea why.

Collie, that's pretty par for the course re the moving process I am sorry to say.

£10 window cleaner too. Spent more today than I thought.

The Jamie Oliver Super Food Family Favourites book is excellent. Recipes look easy and there's a whole section at the back on bulk cooking, bulk buying, freezing, batch making curry pastes, pesto etc and then freezing, nutrition, fussy eating. Loads of use of pulses and veggies.

I'm going to try the chicken and chorizo bake, peppers, sweet potatoes and spuds, squash mac and cheese and also chicken jalfrezi, blackened peppers and tomato rice at the weekend.

Need can I come to your house for dinners & I'll make the breakfast & lunch? We can run together as well

I'm pleased you have said that, Need, I was going to ask for it for Xmas.
New kettle has had it's inaugural boiling and the tea is brewing!

need all I can say is "why didn't I learn my lesson last time?" Haha! Hate house buying & selling. The whole process is antiquated & confusing! It's just bittersweet when you have to pay these people SO much money. I would love to be paid thousands not to speak to anybody.

AGenie luckily all is well and some asshat is just causing unnecessary doubt. (Turns out she was reading emails from the 6th September. Not October)

wreck £122 for a year is incredible for a family! Well done!! Jealous though.

No collie A MONTH!

snugglygenie it's weird how you get attached to appliances. I love our kettle (Russell hobs shiny silver deely). I don't like our one at work so much (plastic one). They were probably the same price and do the same job.

My sister has a see through kettle. It weirds me out.

oh my god! I can't believe I just misread that. Epic fail! £122 a month on electricity? Is that because of the storage heating?

Yes unfortunately