Damn it, Damn it, Damn it! or A Failure To Report.

I am not having a good day today, I walked into work this morning and there was only half a pint of milk left, which would not do all of us all day for tea. As it is my responsibility to grab the milk (otherwise no-one buys it and I am evil without tea) I knew straight away I would have to grab some more cash at lunchtime. Bugger!

I had also checked my emails that morning and the utilities bill had arrived, I am on a dual fuel standard tariff and gave them my readings yesterday – so I knew it was on it’s way. But I was not particularly pleased to see it in black and white……£316.35 for the quarter.

I am naturally a very cold person and am rarely to be found in short sleeves, so I always know one of my biggest expenses is going to be gas and electricity. But at £105.45 per month, I am going to have to work something out for future. My aim is to get the next quarterly bill down to say £250.00. I think that is achievable. And I start tonight.

As I am away down south this weekend, off after work on Friday and back Sunday lunch time, I am going to turn everything off tomorrow as I leave W Towers to try and stop all expenditure on gas and electricity. I have changed most of my bulbs now to energy efficiency ones and I now switch anything I can off at the plug – Toaster, kettle, spare room lamps etc. But I am going to try a halogen heater I have been given one and see if I can make do with just that on in the living room of an evening even if only for a couple of nights per week. I think I am also going to stop the heating from coming on for an hour in the morning.

The negative side to this heater is every time I change channel on the tv etc it either starts rotating again or adds / removes another bar on the heater. Very eerie the first time it happened.

Organisation is proving to be invaluable again in saving money too. E.g. I changed my bed this evening rather than Sunday, so I am leaving the washed items on the line in the garage thus save on the tumble-drying costs.

I went to the cashpoint and picked up £50, much more than I ideally wanted to withdraw, but since I have such a journey ahead of me tomorrow I need to put more petrol in perhaps as much as £30 in to cover it and into next week. I will go to my local supermarket petrol station to do this where petrol is cheapest and I can pick up the reward points. Then hopefully the money I have left will get me through the weekend and perhaps into next week as well.

I am definitely going to try the £5 challenge again next week and see if I can last for 3-4 days on this during the week – really I should be able to this. I think I can get away with only a minimum amount of food shopping next week, but I need to look at the freezer and cupboards to check. I know I am very low on greens, and some basics are running out – milk, bread. But I will assess that on Sunday and let you know with my meal plan for the week.

So an expensive day – utilities bill and £50 out in cash. Gosh, do not want a day like that again for a while please!

Frugally yours

Abigail

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