Cost of living #3

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

I have a small apartment & my gas & electric are about $100!
What's worse is that more than half of that are fees! 😒

 

[Skanky Vamp]

I have a small apartment & my gas & electric are about $100!

What, a week? LOL...
do you need a roommate?

 

[November]

I have a small apartment & my gas & electric are about $100!
What's worse is that more than half of that are fees! 😒

Yeah the gas connection fee is why I wanted a house with gas bottles! Haha. My water rates/connection usually costs more than the use too. I just buy those big 4L bottles of water for when it is brown but havent had to buy any for a while cos i had a good stockpile. I think my tummy is all used to the bugs now. I tried filters at first but found them to be fiddly and overall useless to get any crap out of the water. Made it taste even more like chemicals! I had been spoilt with rain water when I lived in the shed.

Since my car got a run to the vet yesterday, I put in more delivery orders for next week. I can go another week without a city run for supplies. Maybe not for my sanity haha. Would be nice to get a swim in at the beach this summer! In the future when they start charging for parking and national park fees it will be off limits to me, so gotta get as much in as I can now!

 

[nightshade]

Got notification that my electric has now switched over to Octopus, so I'll be researching how that works when I get home as they were doing the pay less if you don't use at peak times.

The buses here are doing an offer for £2 for one way tickets, so I might take the bus next week and use up my gift cards from Christmas.

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

My gas/heat bill is $251 this month, my GOD.
At this rate, my dog and me are going to be eating beans and rice, lol.

 

[Taake]

I also had an electric bill that made me go WHAT! this month, though by the end of the month the government is supposedly to pay some kind of electricity support, so I guess I’ll see what kind of returns you get on that.

 

[nightshade]

Mine was bad for January as well, but I know it's going to be worse come April, no support by then plus another price rise. Hopefully I'll be able to switch off the dehumidifiers by then, these cold nights cause a lot of condensation so I have it running all the time. That's not a high power user though, I have stopped using the oven, except once a month, don't shower everyday, strip wash instead, make sure it's a full load in washing machine as those 3 are the higher power items.
I might try to do a food shop every other month instead, the big online order, and then just spend maybe £20 in the month in between, fruit, bread and milk etc

 

[Plasma]

Mine was bad for January as well, but I know it's going to be worse come April, no support by then plus another price rise.

Can someone explain why companies raise the price to supply electricity? Does it magically cost more to keep the current going, somehow? Or is it just complete and utter greed.

What really blows about it is the fact that you can’t even switch providers. There’s literally one company that supplies power in an area, so better pay their monopolistic rates if you want to live. 🙄

 

[nightshade]

Can someone explain why companies raise the price to supply electricity? Does it magically cost more to keep the current going, somehow? Or is it just complete and utter greed.

Oh I know this, or I remember something for here anyway. So it's based on a mix of previous price and estimated oil price, which for here comes from Russia, we also buy some of our energy from France which has had issues with some pipeline, so that's added in. However it's also profits/greed too.
We can switch here, but its not going to save you anything these days.

 

[TamsinValencia]

I remember when I was little and barbie dolls were like a tenner or even less than that.

I was going to buy one today for old times sake and they are like twenty pounds or more if you want accessories.

 

[November]

I ran down my electric credit ~ $175 this bill. $3.43 per day.

Its up almost a dollar a day from a couple years ago. Thats not too bad, considering I havent tried to cut down on power use at all and have been using the air con whenever I needed it. This is still the cheapest house in terms of electric that I have ever lived in anyway. I have been charging a lot of garden tool batteries and running the tv and oven way more than usual too. Still better than with my last housemate who ran the kettle 20 times a day! It would be a relief to me all round if I didnt have to cook so much lol.

 

[nightshade]

My elec and gas bill for January was £200!! So I've turned the heating off and will only put it on to help dry clothes. Blankets and Ooooooooodies have been handed out!! lol Everything is just so expensive, just basic living is harder than what I've been used to I guess.

Have you been able to look at an estimate for the year, mine is currently due to go up another £70pm by the end of the year, but it's likely to be more as we don't know yet how much it's going to rise in the summer and autumn. With the price cap now being every 3 months we're going to have more frequent rises.
Really they need to look at changing the way it's calculated, as it's based on only one method of power, when these days the uk at least uses several methods to produce power.

 

[November]

Who wants lamb? I ordered a little 500gm boneless piece for $12.50 a kilo. It was sold out so they substituted it with 1.3kilo leg lol. Paying $10 for it according to the receipt! Haha. Its not here yet but its going in the oven tonight.

I am confused with the substitution cos last week they charged the full price of a substitute instead of the price I ordered at, and they gave me a litre less of milk for full price too. I did not need over a kilo of lamb, but I guess I can freeze some once its done.

What is everyones electric per day if you want to share? I usually compare with my neighbour but he's away. The lowest we ever got was approx $2.40 a day, but gas is separate.

 

[nightshade]

I don't know what mine is per day, my meter isn't smart enough for that! I wish I could get one that would say as I would know what to cut back on more.

That's a great substitution, now you got to work out what to do with it?

I need to go through the freezer and do a meal plan for next week, this week was chicken based so easy to do, not sure about next week yet though.

 

[November]

I've found a multi cooker i will probably get... Has a dehydrator air fryer steamer and rice cooker all in one. Double the price i want to pay for an airfryer, but it has all these extras and comes with the chip basket and rack etc when a lot i have looked at don't.

So for those with dehydrators - can you do herbs, like rosemary in them? Or only fruit?

 

[nightshade]

So for those with dehydrators - can you do herbs, like rosemary in them? Or only fruit?

Depends on the drying rack, some will have larger holes than others making it harder to do small items on

 

[TamsinValencia]

Thinking of buying a whole chicken and saving it to eat throughout the week or for lunches.

 

[November]

Depends on the drying rack, some will have larger holes than others making it harder to do small items on

Thats really helpful, thanks 🙂 the rack that comes with it has very massive gaps and I dont have any rack that would fit this little machine. Maybe i could try baking paper on top? Might muck up the function, I duno enough about dehydrators. Its $79 for the cooker with free postage so I dont think that sounds too bad. The reviews are good, and the only complaints are about the postage lol.

Thinking of buying a whole chicken and saving it to eat throughout the week or for lunches.

Yum! The whole cooked chook and bagged salad is one of my faves for easy meals. I cant get through the big family size ones but some places do a smaller size. I can get through the $5.99 size but not the $10.99 size! Its so versatile too, you can have some in sandwiches, some in salads and by the third day, the rest in a curry!

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Thinking of buying a whole chicken and saving it to eat throughout the week or for lunches.

While I have had chicken neck soup before I've never eaten chicken feet. General consensus is it's really good. So many good parts of the chicken that people don't eat. Now I'm craving gizzards.

 

[November]

While I have had chicken neck soup before I've never eaten chicken feet. General consensus is it's really good. So many good parts of the chicken that people don't eat.

Chicken feet freak me out... Poh on MasterChef made chicken feet look really appealing , until I remembered that farmed chicken walk around in poop all day. I'd try them, but would not buy them.

Chicken liver on the other hand, yumyumyum. I'd eat that all week.