Financial Focusing update #8

Yesterday and today I have been turning my financial focus to the electricity usage.

We are with Scottish Power  –  Online Fixed price energy deal which ends 31st August 2014.

Last year we spent £600.96 which is approx £50 month.  We cook electric and our shower is electric – the two main culprits that make our bills dear.

I like a long hot shower every morning and although I try to be economical with the oven because there is only the two of us it is sadly sometimes only cooking 2 baked potatoes and a rice pudding.  It is a large free-standing oven too (my sisters old one) so the capacity is larger than the new double ovens so more wasted heat.   The smaller oven is not well insulated so really doesn’t gain much by heating this.  The answer might be to cook a lot at a time in the oven on a weekend and do hob only meals during the week.

As I keep saying when we get our new kitchen and oven this will change –  in fact life will change completely for us and I am still holding on to that Siemens dream of coming home to a wonderful new streamlined easy to run and clean kitchen! You have heard it before here

Anyway back to the electricity usage.

What did I find out other than it is costing us far too much?

Our usage in Kwh is 4883 units from 15/02/13 to 16/01/14  (336 days) which = 14.53 units per day so for a full year 365 days it would be 365 x 14.53 = 5304.

Having this figure now allows me to go onto a comparison site to look at cheaper options.  I will get back to you on this.

…Meanwhile the gas saga goes on.

Yesterday I re-ran a comparison on the Moneysupermarket site and found that there is a company called ‘Daligas’  mmm…I had never heard of them either but they work out even cheaper than Npower.

Now if you begin to understand all these price breakdowns you will notice that their standing charge is £5.828 a month which is different to the price per day that most of the others charge. Npower for instance is £0.467 a day.

So over the year

• Npower  = £170.46
• Daligas = £69.94

with me so far?

Daligas charge £3.308 per kWh and Npower £3.25.  So on my 22ooo units average per year that equates to

• Npower =  £715.00
• Daligas =  £727.00

Daligas is dearer by £12 on the units but cheaper on the standing charge.

Total amount for year –

• Npower =  £885.46
• Daligas =  £796.94

– a difference of £88.52 for the year.

Now I am not sure if Moneysupermarket are including VAT here or not but given it would be the same percentage added to both it would not alter the comparison.

So all I need to do now is suss out Daligas who they are and what their service is like and is it worth switching to an unknown with all the hassle for £88.52.

It is quite a worthwhile sum to have don’t you think?

I am nothing but thorough and I have yet to research the companies who offer

• No standing charge (but kWh usually a bit dearer)
• Pre-payment
• Duel fuel

Now for a catch up on the rest of the weeks spending…

I realise plain text can be a bit boring and my site has lacked a bit of colour all week so here comes a few photos – remember I said I would photograph everything that came into the house so that I can try and see where the problem lies with accumulating more stuff.

What did I buy this week that wasn’t groceries?

I have bought one or two bits and pieces but I won’t have to make room for all of the items as  some are presents, some edible and one a replacement new for old.

A pink iced cake for the party girl and the residents at the care home.  A box of candles though I am sure we can’t fit 90 of them on the cake and a pot of her favourite face cream.

A pack of 2 pillows reduced at Sainsbury’s.  These are the ‘feels like down’ type which I have bought before and they do feel like down.  As we needed new pillows to replace some old ones this seemed like a bargain at £18 for the pair.

A small pink notebook to carry with me to jot down a few things that I think of like jobs to do, ideas for my blog, shopping I need etc.  This was reduced to £1.19

A grey patterned fleecy scarf and glove set £6 from Sainsburys another little birthday present for my mum in law.

I also treated myself to a £3 bunch of roses (picture at the top of the page)

Tomorrow we have a trip to Shrewsbury to celebrate my mum in-law’s 90th birthday.  Hope you have a good weekend too. x