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This is a recession-beating post!
Maybe if there is plenty of interest in this topic, it could be made a sticky.
I am deciding to overhaul our out-goings in an attempt to reign in our spending.
Food prices are shooting up, our utility bills seem to have spiralled and we seem to have less and less at the end of each month.
We have three kids 9 & under, so our laundry bills are not cheap. I have decided to stop using the dryer (before we used to dry some stuff to make the house look less like a chinese laundry).
I am using less washing liquid. I have decided the soap manufacturers always suggest more than is necesary.
We are buying some Value/Basics lines like some cereals, bread and other basic foodstuffs where there is not a fantastic difference in eating quality between, for example, a JS basics wholemeal loaf at 47p and a Hovis wholemeal loaf at £1.59.
We are trying to train the kids not to leave lights switched on & those few lamps we have that are not low energy will be changed when the lamps I have in stock are used up.
I am experimenting with leaving the heating off altogether to see if we can cope.
We have DG, loft insulation & cavity wall, plus a spray-lagged tank.
The only other thing we could do is change the boiler for an A rated one (current one an Ideal Mexico circa 1982).
We use Madasafish for broadband (9.99/month), don't have sky/virgin only freeview and have a BT line. We have seen many special offers for broadband & phone, but they all include cable/sat TV which we don't want.
We both have Virgin payg mobiles, which we find a reasonable cost, as we hardly ever use them and rarely text either.
Whether food, utilities, broadband, phone etc.., it would be great if folk could post their suggestions as to how others could reduce their bills.
Maybe if there is plenty of interest in this topic, it could be made a sticky.
I am deciding to overhaul our out-goings in an attempt to reign in our spending.
Food prices are shooting up, our utility bills seem to have spiralled and we seem to have less and less at the end of each month.
We have three kids 9 & under, so our laundry bills are not cheap. I have decided to stop using the dryer (before we used to dry some stuff to make the house look less like a chinese laundry).
I am using less washing liquid. I have decided the soap manufacturers always suggest more than is necesary.
We are buying some Value/Basics lines like some cereals, bread and other basic foodstuffs where there is not a fantastic difference in eating quality between, for example, a JS basics wholemeal loaf at 47p and a Hovis wholemeal loaf at £1.59.
We are trying to train the kids not to leave lights switched on & those few lamps we have that are not low energy will be changed when the lamps I have in stock are used up.
I am experimenting with leaving the heating off altogether to see if we can cope.
We have DG, loft insulation & cavity wall, plus a spray-lagged tank.
The only other thing we could do is change the boiler for an A rated one (current one an Ideal Mexico circa 1982).
We use Madasafish for broadband (9.99/month), don't have sky/virgin only freeview and have a BT line. We have seen many special offers for broadband & phone, but they all include cable/sat TV which we don't want.
We both have Virgin payg mobiles, which we find a reasonable cost, as we hardly ever use them and rarely text either.
Whether food, utilities, broadband, phone etc.., it would be great if folk could post their suggestions as to how others could reduce their bills.
