Monthly Bills

[Rigout]

Good evening everyone, 

 

I'm thinking of trying to reduce my monthly outgoings, gas, elec, car insurance, etc. 

 

Have you done this and what was the best way you found?

 

I've seen money supermarket, etc. but wondered if there was anything else. 

 

 

 

Rigout

[Minty]

I have swapped energy supplier twice, there is a meeting Lewis energy club, or uswitch and they do all the work for you.

[Fon]

I spent £400 changing all my heating to zoned. IE the bedrooms go off during the day etc..

 

I saved about 40% on my gas bill.

 

I spent another £400 changing every single bulb in the house (we had lots of spot lamp bulbs) to LED ones.

 

I saved 1% on my electric and wished Id never done it!

 

Fon

[goldringers]

We've tried all sorts but it never seems to lower the cost of lecky. Gas ? that's easier , just lower the heating down a notch and get use to changing the timers and temp with the weather. Sounds daft but one day you can be freezing your sack off heating on and a jumper on the next day it's cracking the flags and the heatings bubbling away while your sat in your boxers piss wet through in sweat wondering if your coming down with summut

[chizh]

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning is a good read and has a spreadsheet to download and complete to get a good picture of where you're at.

 

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/

 

All the categories are at the top of the page and there's a lot to digest. And sign up to the weekly email if not already done.

 

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/help-with-debt/budgeting/budgeting-tool/ is also a decent tool but requires personal info to be entered.

[Snuffs99]

Like Fon i have my house zoned, i have upstairs off or set low and downstairs is set to whatever the living/dining room thermostat is on at the time (terraced house front room knocked through to dining room to make big room).

BUT i have pre paid meters for both gas and electric.

Electric never really changes and costs me roughly £70-80/month

Gas is roughly £50-60/month in winter and drops to about £20-30/month in summer (bear in mind it also takes £1.25/week as s sanding charge (cheeky fooks)).

 

Many people hate the idea of pre-paid but i love it, I can top up from home and its a case of not worrying about estimates and how much they are going to take this month, plus i suppose if you wanted to spend less each week you can trial and error easier with pre paid.

I've done the whole getting shafted by British gas each month and fightign to get my accoutn credit back each time the real meter readings are taken.....so i chose to be shafted in real time instead and went pre paid.

 

I also drive less aggressive now and that sves me a few quid on fuel each month.

[Fon]

Aye with fuel dont forget necta or clubcard.

 

Also worth getting their credit cards (proving you pay off in full every month) and your save even more.

 

Im doing about £70 quid a month in diesel atm.

 

Fon

[jakdos]

Snuffs, mind me asking if you (or someone else) are in most of the day? Both me and missus are out Mon to Fri and our leccy is £45. My gas price isn't a million miles from yours. Much lower since I switched to Ovo last year.

[Snuffs99]

Yeah prety much always someone in. I've had to stop my daughter spending near on an hour in the shower each time as she was hammering my leccy and missus uses tumble dryer etc etc. like i say i can make it less if i start feeling it a bit mroe but atm its ok (ish).

[Diddy]

I spent £7 on one of these

Saved almost 100% on my electric bill

[goldringers]

Were also on the key and card gas and electric, the rows stopped instantly. We use to row like shit every time both bills came through the door all about usage, lights on , time in the shower etc.... so when we moved it already had both key and card meters installed so we just stuck with it. We know we will be paying more but it's far better paying out weekly rather than putting away for a quarterly bill then finding out your £100 short then back at each others throats.

 

The Spar across the road does both key and card so were in a routine for checking and topping up. Food bills are the next, the missus has a habit of not checking then you can close the freezer. She likes to have say 3 in of any 1 thing. I prefer having the 1 and nip out if we need. I even fooked the window cleaner off when he knocked it up from £5 to £6.50 every fortnight which saves £170 a year, I clean them once a month which is well enough.

Mobile phone contracts ?, were all on sim only and some are on £15 a month. I checked their usage and there no were near the mark. ID Mobile (carphonewarehouse three network) are doing a cracking deal at the moment for £5

250 minutes

5000 texts

1gb data

I'm moving them all over this will save £35 a month. I personally think we could save £150 a month on a few things and cut out the shite n crap we buy. I don't think we all realise what we waste till you write it down and see what you spend it on. No ones saying you have to live like a caveman and grow your own but a simple , not cutting out but cutting back on the takeaways at a weekend cause you can't be arsed cooking saved us £50 a month.

Summer last year I actually eBay'ed 9 pairs of the wife's shoes , some with tags and got £70 odd quid and she's not a clue, well till the sun starts shining

[mik]

@diddy

 

What the feck is that? Explain it to us non sparkys

 

I'm not a fan of the meters. You're already held to ransom to the cunts, throw in the meter charges and its a proper piss take. I agree about quarterly bills but it isnt too bad every month, worth it for what you save.

 

Biggest saver here was ditching the plasma and going LED. The electric and gas have come down £15 pm since I bought it

 

Also switching to a water meter saved a couple of hundred per year. Not so good if you have a big family mind

[goldringers]

Yeah I had a fook off Plasma, went over to LED same thing saved about a tenner a month but previously in winter we didn't need the rad on in the living room but in summer with the plasma, , sweating me rocks off.

[chizh]

If someone's in the house during the day, might also be worth looking at free solar panel installation in your area.

There's usually someone doing a deal, giving you panels for nowt and taking the feed-in tariff for themselves. Bonus is, during the good sunshine days panels will generate enough to power to feed the house of normal usage stuff meaning you get free daytime leccy for a few months of each year. Could save approx 25% on electricity bill over a year for no outlay by doing this and making slight changes to your habits by washing etc during the day rather than at night for example.

 

We did it back end of last year and TBH I didn't see much of a dip in the usage for the final quarter of last year so this spring and summer will (hopefully) be the first to see if it was worth doing.

 

Obviously, if you can afford it and get a decent return on the investment then paying for panels and getting the feed-in yourself would be even better but the returns are not as great as they were a few years back. I'm sure I've seen somewhere that the feed-in for new installs is around a quarter of what it used to be a few years ago.

---

@diddy

 

What the feck is that? Explain it to us non sparkys

Diddy'll have to confirm but I suspect you wire this to a neighbor's supply (or maybe one phase on a lamp post) and feed it back to you own place?

[Diddy]

Haha guys the thing I linked to is what we call a henely block. It is used to route your mains cable say in a situation where you had two fuse boards (One for the shed say) and one set of mains, These are used as splitters. I have known some people who have used these for other purposes such as bypassing the meter lol. I myself would never condone such lunacy of course. Chizh idea is also a "correct" use of these blocks.

 

As some of you know I am an electrician - Don't do this at home people my original post was in jest lol.

[daveywavey]

henely block that's the posh way of doing it

[mik]

lol I was about to buy one

 

 

 

Still might

[Rigout]

Thanks for the advice.

 

I've recently changed gas and elec from BG to GB Energy and it's now £73 for both.

 

I'm on a water meter so that's only £18 pcm.

 

just looking at the best ways to save a couple of £ better in my bank then theirs.

[Diddy]

@Fon I don't understand how converting to led has only saved you 1%. Could this be due to the actual increase in electricity price's ? I mean straight forward maths tells us that we need to run on average 10 x 10 watt led's for 1 hour for it to cost the same as just one 100w incandescent bulb. It is either that or their is something seriously wrong with the draw from the led's you have installed. Personally we have converted to led because me and the misses prefer the colour range. With warm whites in living room and bed room ect. Cool white for kitchen/bathroom and daylight for hall and dining room. I have also installed some hidden led strip lighting so that it just shoots up and bounces off the ceiling...done that in the hall and stairs. I find it very versatile and it simply must save money imho.

I keep thinking about bringing my gas central heating into the 21st century, Not too keen on the hive though as we all keep very irregular hours here so whatever it learned would soon be wrong lol...so i haven't got far yet.

@Fon do you mind listing up what you bought for your place...I seem to remember that you done it sort of bespoke diy..... that kind of appeals.

 

Other savings easy made are obviously pay tv .....it really isnt needed these days - a reasonable internet connection would get you every channel you ever wanted.

Go for BB only ditch the home phone - Go through a cashback site - analyse the offers - sometimes it is cheaper when counting the cashback to take what seems like the more expensive package.

All things that you subscribe to - House insurance, car insurance, sky (if you cant do without), AA,RAC ect ect mobile phone contracts - Do them ALL through a cashback site - my favourites are topcashback and quidco - I have made hundreds per years some years with these sites. You can buy all your online purchases through these sites too....even bloody just-eat lol....anything up to 20% of what you have spent gets given back to you if you go through these cashback sites....typical cahsbacks are <5%...but it's money for nowt. On topchashback you can convert £50 per year into tesco vouchers....you can turn that £50 into 100 instore during their 3-4 times per year monthly double cashback promotions....Even better if you can use the clubcard vouchers for one of the few retailers that give you upto 4x the face value - The other year i turned £50 into £200 by using them in goldsmiths the jewlers....went towards a decent xmas present for the misses. Last year we used our £50 extra to put towards my xboxone...so hundred quid knocked off.....So yes topcash back earns you and saves you cash.

[Fon]

Sure,

 

I think the bulbs use such a small amount compared to the washing machine, dishwasher, oven, kettle, microwave etc, that it pales into insignificance. We also turn lights off when we leave the room, so it really hasn't made any difference.

 

As far as heating goes, I installed one pair of these in each room.

 

 

I cant find it for sale at the moment. When I have more time, Ill find a link. (They were cheaper on ebay.de but I got mine from Conrad (they seem to not be selling them anymore)

 

It was basically about £40 per room. You got a remote control thermostat and a motor that replaces the TRV on your current radiator. The remote thermostat could change the rooms temperature at different times of the day by moving the motor. These motors do make noise. There about the same as a mobile phone, on silent vibrating on a table. You get used to the noise quite quickly but.. If it go's from fully shut, to fully open (think the morning) it can wake you up as it takes about a minute. . We cover ours with thick socks in the bedroom and it doesn't wake us up anymore.

 

You can achieve the above far cheaper (£10 per room) but at one disadvantage. Imagine your bedrooms turning on in the evening (IE the rads opens up) BUT............ the thermostat in your hallway is nice and warm so the heating is off! This means the rads wont get hot... With the above kit, you can buy something for £80 ish odd pounds that replaces your thermostat and can hear when a room wants heat and turn the boiler on.

 

This can all be controlled from your smartphone with something called FHEM.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Fon

[hoponbaby]

Tbh with the mrs who seems to have the washer and dryer permanently on, electric shower (POS), kids leaving tv's playing to themselves and lights on everywhere, 3 pc's on 24-7 & a hot-tub I've got no chance of keeping our electric bills down. A newer more efficient boiler and zoning the rooms might be a future project though.

[Diddy]

Tbh with the mrs who seems to have the washer and dryer permanently on, electric shower (POS), kids leaving tv's playing to themselves and lights on everywhere, 3 pc's on 24-7 & a hot-tub I've got no chance of keeping our electric bills down. A newer more efficient boiler and zoning the rooms might be a future project though.

 

Your situation is crying out for home automation. Have sensors in each room for the lights. You switch the light on and it activates the sensor - lights out within a few mins of room being empty. You can also get smart sockets that you can control by your phone. Finally a hitman is also a long term money saver - unless you can retrain the misses to be more efficient with tumble dryer and washers ect.