Good morning all!
It’s another chilly and foggy day, but I’m not going anywhere so can stay snug and cosy indoors.
We’ve done two washloads and Hubby has just taken it up to the launderette. After posting this I shall do a bit of housework, then settle down to finish off making my Christmas cards.
I checked the meters today and we are 25% up on our gas usage from last week.
Our electricity is stable at 3 to 4 Kwh a day depending on how much I use the cooker, and our water consumption is just over 1 cubic metre for the week which is normal.
Gas obviously fluctuates depending on the season, and this will be our most expensive quarter. Some might say because of Covid we are home more, but being retired, there isn’t a lot of difference in our day to day routine. It has been really cold lately though, and over the weekend, the heating was kicking in on and off all through the night. We’ve had it on boost a couple of times too when we’ve done some smalls washing and got it dry on the rads indoors. However, we put it on boost one day then went out for a walk for over two hours and forgot to adjust it! Oops, and that’s what’s knocked it up. I’m not worried, and refuse to be cold to save a few pence.
In the cottage, we had no gas in the village at all, so our heating was oil fired. We also had a log burner in the lounge which made the property very cosy. There’s nowhere to put one here, but the insulation is excellent so once the house gets warm, it stays that way for hours.
Friends used to laugh at me reading our electricity meter every day. As a result, I could account for every extra kwh used………. showers took 1, cooking took 1 and using the washing machine took 1, so our usage was normally 3 kwh a day, with the occasional rise. Out of curiosity an acquaintance decided to check out his usage too. He had a shock as it was 28 kwh a day. Mind you, he did have a young family so the washing machine and dryer were in use every day as was the dishwasher, they owned a very large four bedroomed property with TVs in practically every room, all of which were usually left on standby.
All in all though, we are on budget with everything, so I am well pleased. Even the phone bill has come in under budget this month.
Hope your day has started on a positive note.
Take care, keep warm and safe.
pensitivity101 
The weather is the same here. I have been smiling to day to ward off the black dog💜💜
Keep at it Willow. 🙂
I am 💜💜💜
Your diligence amazes me Di. I tend to work on the seasons. Winter we run the heating, summer we run the cooling and in between, we have smaller electric bills. I’m expecting one any day now. Just what I need around Christmas. Things are relaxing down here, everything is open and the rate of covid has dropped dramatically. It helps living on an island at the bottom of the world. Take care of you and stay safe and warm.
Case of having to be Michael. I have always been worried about receiving a bill we cannot pay, so like to be prepared. It’s habit now so easy to keep to, and I so like it when things work out, as the estimated water bill last week did. It was bang on!!
Hm, we live on an island too, but our government didn’t shut down the borders or restrict international travel as Australia and NZ did.
Keep safe my friend, and work on your tan as we freeze our noses off!! 🙂
We just got our gas and electric – lower than last year on the gas but higher on the electric… I suppose it is because of running the electric space heater in the bedroom at night. Our bedroom gets all the wind and has 2 exterior walls…
I can imagine. On the boat we had two electric heaters and kept them on miser 24/7 in the winter. If it got really cold, we’d run the heating run off the diesel engine, and it soon got warm. We had to buy our electricity in multiples of 100 kwh, and in the summer, 100 would last us about three months. In the winter, we were using 250 to 300 kwh a month, but that was still only £55.
Our monthly electric is about £25, gas around the same spread out over the year.