heating and water bills rising!!!

Our utility bills are about to kill us. My electric bill has skyrocketed in the last two months. We also heat with natural gas and my gas bill will be outragious also when winter and cold weather gets here.

Hi Littleowl I agree everything is going up except anyones incomes. I haven't been able to afford to heat my house properly for years as I have storage heaters or panel heaters as it is all electric so we have snuggle blankets downstairs and when it gets chilly we put them over us. I use just the one heater in the lounge and if it gets really cold put extra blakets on top of the beds and will put the heater on in the bathroom just for bathtime. I try to keep things switched off and have all energy saving bulbs in all the lights. I have a bottle filled with water in the cistern to use less water in the toilet and never flush during the night. I reuse and recycle wherever I can and only boil the kettle for the amount of water I need. I use a grilling machine a lot rather than have to heat the oven but when cooking I will make up extra quantities and freeze. I always draw my curtains as soon as it starts getting dark to keep the heat in and have thermal linings or very thick linings. A lot of heat is lost through windows. I save on cleaning products by using items from my kitchen cupboard, water, white vinegar and a bit of lemon juice in a spray bottle is just as good, also use baking soda for tougher cleaning jobs. There are probably so many more things that I do but can't think at the moment as I do them automatically. I suppose I am quite frugal really. I also send off for all the freebies that are available so I always have minture samples of perfumes, soaps etc and collect money off vouchers and use them at every weekly shop. I do surveys to help and this week received a cheque for £21.35 from one company and a £10 teco voucher from another. If I think of anything else I will add leter. Excellent discussion Littleowl and I apologise in advance if I have mentioned what other responses already have as I am playing catch up and have answered this without reading them first direct from email notification but will read them to see if I can pick up any tips. Ellie :D

Hello, my dear friend. We don't have gas supplied to our village so electricity and water are my main concerns, and I took most of my advice for saving electricity from the electricity board. I have several energy saving light bulbs in use; I boil a kettle and fill my saucepans with boiling water to conserve energy when cooking, as the kettle takes far less energy to boil; I set my storage heaters to come on during "off peak" hours; and I only heat my water twice in a day, once during "off peak" hours, and again when I take a bath. I only use three of the six storage heaters in my home, and two, if I think it's cold enough to light the open fire, as this gives off more heat and is much more cosy than the heater. With water, I'm considering buying a barrel like my grandad had, to catch rain water, which can be used for watering the garden and for the "special" water, I need. At present, I normally collect this either in a jug which I set in the garden, or from the spring beside the Shepherd and Dog Pub, in Fulking. During the summer months, I only ever water the needy flowers, with a watering can... I have no sprinkler or hose, because I think a watering can is sufficient, and conserves a lot of water. I think it's important to conserve water, and it would be great if they could think of a way of storing the water longer in reservoirs... maybe underground or something, so that it can't evaporate in the heat of summer. Brightest Blessings, my dear friend. xx

We don't have to worry about crazy bills in the summer, especially since we aren't using the heat, but whenever winter rolls around, we have high bills that we just cannot shake. We've tried waiting as long as we could until we just had to turn the heat on, turning the heat down and wearing sweaters in the house, everything. We have started placing towels under doors and what not to keep the heat in, but I think we just need better insulation. Electricity, you just need to start turning things off when you're not using them and unplugging things too. A lot of things you turn off still suck up energy when not in use, which just adds to the electric bill. Try switching the regular bulbs to CFL bulbs. Those things work wonders.

Thank you for the best response. Maybe someone should invite those Global Warmer Aye sayers to Manitoba, sometime in January. Or maybe if there is someone here from Siberia, maybe you can get them to come there when it is the coldest.

I leave the lights off all day unless I HAVE to use them. I dont turn them on until about 6:45pm-7pm ish. The TV is not on all that often maybe 4 hours aday. Also with the gas issue I try to do everything in one trip. I do as much food shopping I can in one trip so I dont have to run out later that week. For heat I turn it down during the day by 5 degrees or so sometimes 10. It's hard with 3 small children so I put an extra sweatshirt on them and warmer pants and things like that. Then at night I turn it back up to about 68 degrees.