how bad can it get

[Big Al]

I haven't read the whole list of replies yet but things I do are use a spread sheet for everything. Mine is a work of art and can be drilled down to every penny spent and where etc. ( yes I know it's sad but it works for me)Use cash back sites for everything possible. haggle for the restand be a cheeky bugger. I've haggled for a reduction in the price f a loaf of bread and go 5p off the price of 50 p for the loaf. It was a bet that I could do it but that 5 p was a 10 % discoubt. plan meals and bulk buy / cok / freeze. make all your own soaps, washing powders cleaning fluids etc. don't go shopping hungry, make lists ands stick to them. compare prices, swap leccy / gas every 4 months for a cheaper rate. threaten to leave virgin or sky for the other if you have it but be prepared to do it if needed. walk /bus instead of the car if practicable. for many it is not practicable to do without the car but think of how you would do daily tasks if the car was off the road. my car is often breaking down so it goes off the road until the repairs are saved for. Apply for all grants and benefits available to you. even if you think you don't qualify fill in the forms and get an official response. only spend on necessities. A season ticket to watch pools is a dire need for my wife but not a necessity. I feed two of us on £100 per month and we eat really weMy asda have them set at 9.30 am, 1 pm 6 pm and 11.30 pm but each department then puts in their own reductions at 1 hourly intervals so if i'm looking for fish I will go at 11.30 am 3 pm and 9 pm fruit and veg are the general times. Asda savings cards are good to use as we put £90 on there at pay day and keep £10 in cash. the asda savings card bonus this year is 21st of november. if you have £49 on they give you £1, £99 they give you £3 and if you have £149 on the card they give you £6. Put the money on the card on the 20th and spend it on the 25th when they give you the bonus....
Some of these things will work for you, others won't but try them all at least once.

HTH

[Rosendula]

Sound advice Al, and you're not alone with the spreadsheet thing. I also keep an indepth record of spends on a spreadsheet, and I know at least one other Isher does. Paper bank statements are so out of date when you get them they are practically useless, so I learned (long before paperless bank statements) to know exactly how much money in my bank wasn't already spoken for - and when it would be

On the subject of cash back sites, I'd like to mention that some cashback sites charge for their services - sometimes 50% of the cashback, whereas others are free to use and you get 100% of the cashback, so shop around if your new to it. The money does add up, especially if you have to buy something major (although sometimes the system fails and the company 'loses' details of your purchase and you don't get the cashback).

I also do paid surveys. You don't get much, or very often, but I recently got a couple of payouts that were very welcome.

I have a couple of reward cards, plus I use reward credit cards (I pay off in full every month, and only spend on the card what I could pay cash for if I wanted).

I call cashback, survey money, and rewards from loyalty cards and credit cards, "Money for Nothing". I've had a particularly good year this year and have managed to 'earn' £235.98 in total from them. Certainly not to be sniffed at.

[Big Al]

Thanks for pointing that out Rosie about the cashback sites. The main one I use has a £5 per year fee but I've saved over £700 this year alone using this one site but tis true about the differing rates. One previous CBS I used was free membership but only paid a %age of the total cashback but they didn't say that up front.

I also use comparison sites to check the different offers say on electric and gas then I#ll check these same offers on the original power company site then go to the cashback sites and see if there is cashback on the best plan. Some companies then started to charge exit fees of say £25 per fuel for changing before a set time. So I check the penelties and if they are less than the cashback I will generally move.

For instance, I was on That french firm with a exit fee of £50 but that southerly Scottish firm offered £130 cashback so I switched to a cheaper plan and paid the exit fee so I was £80 in pocket. Do this 3 or 4 times a year and the money mounts up and it also keeps the energy companies on their toes.

Insurance quotes are the same, comparison sites have free voucher codes for shopping delivery which saves you petrol and time.

Of course growing your own food, keeping hens etc are good ways to reduce costs if you have the space and bear in mind growing a few herbs in a plant pot will save £10's of pounds each year. I hope to rear rabbits for sale to pet shops and get £15 per bunny, 6 bunnies a litter, 4 litters a year from each of 2 does = £720 a year. They eat the veg scraps and a bit of meal in the winter, They give compost off as well. A couple of bales of straw and winter food costs me around £20 all in. They live really well in big runs and they also provide meat for me but at £15 a go it's better to sell them and buy meat....

Chickens do most of the same but they get pelleted food all year along with the scraps so they will cost me around £30 per year per bird but give over 300 eggs per bird per year. My hens are super freerangerorganiferous which basically means they have much more freedom, much better food and a much bigger coup than any so called organic or free range hens that you have to pay several £1000 pounds for for registration when people who know me and can trust me by seeing the feed bags and seeing the hens in the garden whilst even picking their own eggs from the nest boxes. All this will give a premium sale of £2 per 6 eggs.

The best thought is " if I had £1000 a week how would I survive?" Then from there ask yourself if I had £500 a week how would I survive until next week then carry one until you have worked out how you would survive on the, say, £50 a week you get.


...... simples.....

[ina]

until you have worked out how you would survive on the, say, £50 a week you get.

Well, let me know how you do that - because I pay a damn sight more than that in rent and council tax... At the moment I manage, just, on twice that - but it's not easy.

[dave45]

BonnieThomas - you can probably tell when the electricity grid is under pressure as the frequency drops slightly from 50Hz. I did read of or see a device (Dragons Den?) which wouldn't switch on an appliance unless the frequency was normal or high (surplus power) - for use with dishwashers, fridges etc that could cope with waiting a while.

This site spells it out for you http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html but it get most of its data AFAICS from here
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm - the grid's real-time reporting system.

I personally particpated in a trial to prove that a signal sent (via the internet) could tell my dishwasher whether to switch on or not based on whether the grid had surplus energy. http://www.demandforwind.co.uk/ it worked but the mechanism we used was a bit "heath robinson".

But why should I bother? - you can't actually save money on electricity by re-scheduling your appliances (on a regular tariff) until smart metering comes in... and I'm not sure what the actual deal is likely to be on that... We pay effectively an average cost for leccy, not the cost of production at the time we use it... leccy at teatime in winter costs a lot more to produce than other times coz they have to wind up the old expensive dirty power stations to cope. Realtime pricing (possible with smart meters perhaps) might give some opportunities for time-shifting consumption to save money. Lots of theoretical stuff on the net about it, but not sure if any real-world systems exist as yet.