Save energy and costs on other things

How to give energy and utility company's the finger and other company's too

The energy and other utility company's will hate me for telling this but as I always say SOD 'EM. I was spending £165 a month on just gas and electric a few years ago. The son, now long gone, used to leave everything on and even grow drugs in the bedroom. So with the permission of a friend and the use of his BLOGGER account I have their permission to post this. 

Well, first the water! How you may ask when they do it on a rateable value? The simple answer is getting a water meter fitted although some properties cannot have them fitted you might be able to get the bill reduced to an estimated or if all the tenants in a block are single see if they all agree as you maybe just have the one feed coming into the block? This could be a help if all the residents are elderly as you might save overall. What is the point of paying £450 plus a year if you only use £250 including standing charges? A block who learn to turn off taps instead of run water continually could save considerably. Shower instead of taking a bath, does your hair need washing every day? No, it doesn't, not even those expensive dry shampoos. 5 minutes or less in a shower is ok and will use a fraction of the water that a bath uses, seconds to heat up wet yourself with water lather up and rinse off job done, get out and dry yourself.

Now the real culprit of overspending GAS & ELECTRIC it may seem like only pennies a day but pennies turn into pounds and one pound turns into five, ten, twenty and so on. It is very little you need to have on 24/7. They would be the fridge and freezer and the washing machine on standby as pulling it out to access the plug just isn't on, the only other thing would be the broadband router. Everything else, unless for medical use can be turned off. 

TV, DVD player, surround sound equipment, do you really need that massage bed or chair that has many positions,  NO! There's a saving already, hundreds of pounds. Buy a fleece dressing gown, gloves, hot water bottle, flask, Halogen oven, I recommend the Andrew James 1300W for £41.99 delivered  You get a load of accessories including a spare bulb and it's just 4 screws to change the bulb. Be careful as the last screw out, first one back can cut into the wires if you trap it and need to send it off for repair, cheaper to buy a new oven.

Who has the TV and DVD player on 24/7 I used too and that was around £50 a year including the surround sound as I hardly ever watch the TV preferring NETFLIX so over 50% of the TV license saved there. Over the years I have built up a collection of DVD's that will keep me going for the rest of my life.

In the really cold weather I put on the fleece dressing gown and gloves sod the heating until my free day for the electric then just about everything I need to do is done in that one day cooking washing everything that needs electricity the cooker is on all day electric fire radiator (electric of course), It's just reheating meals, you could do some prep work the night before and put it in cold water overnight.

Now the hot water bottle cost to fill a hot water bottle is around 2p per fill with a 3KW kettle, you might need a towel around the bottle to squeeze the excess air out gently. You want the top of the bottle to just have water coming out of the partly closed top, the last thing you want is to squeeze hard as you WILL burn yourself. 

Next the flask it's a bit like a teapot you warm it first with hot water it could be just hot tap water or from the kettle if you like. Don't add milk or sugar get them as you need them, or drink it without as towards the end you may need to use a microwave to heat the drink up unless you like it just warm. 

The gloves are an old pair I cut the inners out of, they were just far too warm with the inners plus after washing them I couldn't get the inners back in. I also have a shower that day 1 of the 4 I have through the week and as the electric is free until mid-2018 it is a long shower as the others are just fresheners to keep me clean.

I cook enough to keep me well fed for more than a week, then I reheat stuff throughout the week from the frozen cost of this is just around 5p per meal. Not bad to say I did the majority of the cooking when the electric was free, the downside is the larger daily charge for both gas & electric 26.1p per day compared to 15.1p on the standard rate. They expect the average of about 80p per week to be used in the 8 hours but I use about £1.35 on free time then a few hours outside like the first wash load as I wouldn't get it all done otherwise. But a few pence to do a load overnight is pennies. It must be the only day of the week I use the cooker instead of the halogen oven and slow cooker.

When looking for the best deals don't look at just what the savings sites say you can save go into the standing charge and price per unit then multiply that daily charge by 365 and divide by 100 to get the yearly charge in pounds and pence. Sometimes changing to the cheapest supplier might not be the best option, you could be locked into a set period, or even worse, any time you choose to leave a fee to leave their plan unless it's another service provided by them. But let's say you move and they charge you £30 to leave once you are hooked they can increase their fees, they normally wait a few months, nobody checks the pence per unit or the Kwh, who understands the Kwh conversion anyway. It's multiply by this, divide by that. Then add the standing charge for 90 plus days then divide by 100 and multiply by 105 to get the cost of the bill.