February Frugaleers United in Saving Money, Swapping Recipes & Supporting each other in finance, friendship & family life : )

[mammymammyIRL]

And so we continue ....

Today was not nsd. Inspired by the “what I’m wearing” thread I went eBay shopping. Oopsy. £5 jack wills quilted jacket (have been lusting after this for a while. They’re great quality and about £65 new so I’ve got a bargain there) and around £30 on about 4 new to me dresses. All can be worn with/without tights are smart enough but casual enough for work. Hoorah!

Took Dm to the coop. She needed to go and I wanted to look in dunelm. Ddad looked after ds. He was scared. But we told ds he was in charge and not to upset grandad. Came back and they were both all smiles. Dm paid for my shopping. Not much - kitchen paper, milk and tumble drier sheets (I only use these for bedding and towels) but catface got in the box again. She shredded them all. And rolled in them. Such a pest. But she smells gorgeous and is now non static. 🤣🤣😂😂

Dm got the dividend money this time as we used her coop number. So win win. She did her weekly shop. Bear in mind its just her and ddad living at home. £178. 🤔😯

Home Now and have grown a wash in and plopped ds in his cotfor a nap. Am contemplating doing something useful. But cba. So am just sitting.

Thats for 53 days Fluffy not per quarter
Plus heating has been off for about 10 days .
Hot water and heating are on separate timers so 2 showers and one bath (not full) per day atm.Hot water on a timer -on for 4 hours day split between early am and early pm.
I shower at the gym.
Typing this wearing thermals,blanket,hot water bottle and a hat -its cashmere

We're just about to go to the dentist 😭

mammydo you speak hen 😂

Omg Jason Grimshaw is in Neighbours !

quiteclean I pay about the same as you, just under £200/month for gas (lpg) and elec. We are high users, and I compromise elsewhere tbh. We run 4 big vivariums and two fishranks, the big tank is 6' and has 2 heaters, pumps and (ok they're led) lights on full time. The central heating thermostat is set to 19° and the heating kicks in as needed, combi boiler. Two big freezers, average of 2 loads of wash/dry per day.

But we know we use a lot of electric especially, the lpg is just expensive. If it's a suprise then it's a pain.

Took dd1 to hobbycraft, she needed more white acrylic. £16 on various bits. Also £16 in m&s on mostly sweets (for me) and lunch for dd1.

Dp has bent my glasses in where the arms meet the fronts, so they now grip the sides of my head. They kept on slipping down my nose, even though the guy who always seems to serve me in the opticuans said he couldn't adjust them any more.

What is it with cats and tumble dryer sheets? It's not like they're made of catnip. My mums old cat used to make a right mess if she could get to them.

Quite agree with Fluffy the electric seems way too high. We have all sorts of PCs, TVs etc here & electric is no where near that. £136 for heat seems about right. Time for some sleuthing!

Quite Ah. Ok. Try putting the water on for 1 hour before the first shower, then 30 minutes before the next shower bath and decrease in 5 minute increments. A shower doesn't take long & doesn't use much water so the heat should be retained until the 30 minute boost for the next bath.

In between those times if your washing machine & dw are on cold fill you shouldn't need too much in the way of water.

Is the tank well insulated? Or is it tropical in there?.

They did ask me on the phone if I have any specialist equipment but I dont Lonely

No vivariums ( eeek whats in there !) No fishtanks ,heating has been OFF for past 10 days and we do 4 washes a week max (at night on timer)
Im baffled totally baffled as to why its still so high.

Showers are one after the other in the morning.Bath at night.
Tank is well insulated in airing cupboard.
Could my neighbours be stealing ?
How could I tell ?

I have banned all washing down to 4 loads per week -8kg machine brand new
Dishwasher once daily -at night

Two showers in the morning can be done on one tank without feeling deprived. A tanks about 300l, a thermostatic shower shouldn't use more than 8l per minute. Water boards often have free shower regulators & shower heads on offer.

Dh drives me batty by putting the tank on again because I've had a 10 minute shower.

If you take a meter reading, switch everything gas powered off for 24hrs then check the meter again it would tell you if something's amiss.

quite I do would you like me to teach you?

Free 200g of Nutella on clicksnap. Only valid today.

mammy

We only use hot water for the DC's bath once a week and the small bits that can't go in the dw as our shower is electric. We beat up the tank for four hours a week and that's it.

Didn't have to pay for the dentist as I need a filling so will pay next time. He offered to do it there and then but I had to say I couldn't afford it atm

Puff pastry pizza for dinner and pancakes for pudding

Wreck You won't be the first.

www.savewatersavemoney.co.uk/free-water-saving-packs Free water saving stuff.

Quite that does sound high, i have heard some stories about those energy monitors not always being accurate, have you taken some meter readings as well? I have the heating on a fair bit as I hate being cold, immersion is on all the time (sorry fluffy) in winter otherwise isn't hot enough for my liking, there is usually a device somewhere being charged and our average bill is around £45 a month.

We have had a nice chilled day, had a lie in, finished emptying dds room ready to start painting Thursday (eek!) and popped over to see the new baby, he is tiny and completely perfect.

Have had pancakes for tea which dd made and were delicious, we popped in Aldi for a few bits £13, had to get lemon juice in the co-op as Aldi had run out and ended up giving £1.50 to a charity collector, 50p lemon juice.

£88 to go on the drivers speed awareness course have used money from car saving pot, couldn't decide if a speeding ticket counted or not!!

That is a bit of a bummer Girlie

I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t know exactly what we spend on energy. DH deals with all that as he set those accounts up when we moved in. I looked into it a year or so ago when we switched but think that is overdue so must look at it again. Even so, I think your bills sound very high Quite for how much you seem to be using. Hmmm. Hopefully the monitor will help.

Immersion on constantly here too. Sorry Fluffy. In fact the DCs have a bath every night although they do share the water. It’s a routine thing for DS, essential to get him to bed calmly. Heating we are quite sparing with during the day and hardly ever put on. Just an hour in the morning and couple of hours in the evening. Our house is quite well insulated but still never feels hot.

Spendy in Waitrose. About to eat dinner, back later....

I pay £75 dual fuel DD from Ovo . 3 bed chalet bungalow.. . Heating is on lots though... we dont do cold.. We are in credit right now.

We do have super duper high spec double glazing though as DH is in the trade , but having said that as its a 1960s chalet bungalow and quite open plan. I am sure the roof isn't as well insulated as it could be.. in fact I know it s not as on v frosty days I can see the roof directly above the stair well is not as frozen as I drive up the road. its not an easy space to do much with either as the ceiling is right at roof height there

Our dcs have a bath every night too, also part of bedtime routine and they all love it. They all go in together and it's only about 4 inches deep.
We normally don't have the heating on loads but the last couple of months have been so cold. I'm happy to wrap up but I worry about the babies being cold. Also with very young children so much time is spent playing with them on the floor I really feel the cold.
Expecting a big gas bill!

Ooh I'd love triple glazed Laska, it'd be all cosy & quiet.

I don't understand the immersion thing. You can heat water with the gas & it's cheaper. You can program ours to come on at various times & knowing our builders the control panels Bobby base spec.

Is this a "thing" and that's why our builders left our immersion on?.

I know what you mean about being on the floor Snuggly. We have a sitting room that doesn’t have an outside wall as the adjacent space is a (damp) conservatory. It is also carpeted, while the rest of downstairs is wooden floors. It is noticeably warmer than the rest of the house in winter so we hang there in the day.

Waitrose - spent £52. Again. Ffs. I stuck to my list but needed to get lots of cake ingredients for friend’s cake. It’s a 10 inch cake so requires 14 eggs. I also need to cover it in white chocolate ganache - £7 for the chocolate alone. Then I needed a dozen unwaxed lemons - no price marked but at the checkout they were £2 each for a pack of 4 (x3!). My friend definitely wants to pay me but she is properly broke so i was hoping not...

In my old house, my aga kept the hot water tank hot, it was the heat sink. Oh how the mighty have fallen! (The aga is the only thing I miss...that house was creepy as).

Spent the evening opening letters and shredding them. I don't open post if I know whats in it. How stupid is that. Found an £8 Debenhams voucher (in date) and there is less on my store card than I thought, which is good. I have another huge bag of shop paperwork to deal with yet. I am going to make fire bricks with it for next winter.

Snakes, quiteclean we have 2 ball pythons (they don't do much), my white rat snake (quite bitey), dd3's rainbow boa which is exquisite, and dd1 has a very fiesty corn snake (who we are all scared of). Best pets, ever.

We have started to meal plan for the next two weeks. We all picked something we wanted, and something we haven't had for a while. All dp's choices got vetoed. The gaps will be filled in with our standard stock teas. I'll then do a big list and another epic shop, but I must admit to feeling twitchy now we are starting to run out of things.

Triple glazed would be fab. ours is double but some kind of special high spec super-insulating glass, he tells me

Yup ..I am married to Double Glazing Man! ..

Actually they manufacture the stuff rather than him being a spivvy salesman! (apologies to all people married to salespeople )