Time rich, money poor is the mirror of money rich and time poor, which is the problem of our time as we return to the office at least 3 times a week.
My commute at the moment takes 4 hours out of my week, and it is shattering. Before I took this role, my commute was 30 minutes a day, 2.5 hours a week (unless I was part of a big jam). But it meant I had spare energy.
Next week, when the clocks go forward, cycling becomes an option again. I will be on a fold up bike, heading into the office – so at least my exercise for the day will be met.
But the clocks going forward means it will be day light in the evening. We walk: after cooking and washing up, we pound the pavement.
Except Wednesdays when we hit the gym.
Other things I do to get back some time is working out our meals up front. Google calendar means we share those decisions – it menas it takes out a decision a day. Only 10 minutes or so a day or nearly an hour a week!
While I’m out for my walks, I remotely start the waI’shing machine. By the time I walk through the door, the final spin is happening giving me time to wash and decoat, ready for hanging up the washing.
Normally, I wouldn’t say I look forward to the clocks changing, but next week I get to see the results of our move to an electric heat pump.
We should also, finally, have our 2nd Tesla battery added. Here’s to running off grid for the summer…
It’s Sunday, in March, and I’m cooking a 1.7kg medium(!) chicken from Waitrose.
Why on earth would you do that? So much for trying to be carbon neutral!
Actually, we’re going to get four meals out of this chicken. And that’s excluding the stock, which I will use for a soup tonight and pie later in the week. Wednesday is pie night, where possible…
Doing the chicken in the microwave takes 45 minutes. I do the potatoes, courgettes, broccoli, and some peppers in too. Quick and tasty.
Gravy is delivered from the left over vegetable water from boiled carrots, leaks, and baby sweetcorn. I heat the plates on top of the microwave.
We eat about a quarter of the chicken in this sitting.
I then make chicken stock in the microwave from some saved vegetables, garlic, and most of the carcass. A 1.7kg bird should give me about 500ml of stock in two sittings.
Tonight, a soup with some fresh baked bread will use half the stock. Tonight I’m doing celery and stilton and one of us should have a serving of celery soup tomorrow for lunch.
Tomorrow will be chicken rissotto, from the one of the left over breasts. Sandwiches will come from the other breast and the stuffing – a little recurrent sauce and that is one tasty home sandwich for not many carbs.
Tuesday is quorn chilli night (on a roast chicken weekend). Or potatoes gratin. Or pasta arrabiata. Or vegetable fahitas. Something meat free.
Wednesday is pie night, what-ever the roast, the left overs are done with some onions, potatoes, carrots, garlic, stock, and other boiled green veg. I typically use up the store bought puff pastry with some frozen fruit and ice-cream. It’s delicious and stops us throwing the pastry or wasting the heat from the oven.
Thursday is potato gratin.
Friday is all about the soup, or quiche or pasta, or stir fry. A little something for the weekend.
How do you make the plan stick? I forget the plan half way through the week as the stresses and rush sets in…
Me too. We never got our shit together like this before, but I started something new a couple of week’s ago.
A shared calendar (such as Google) works great for this – we started doing this for our Sunday rota and last week I had the idea for doing it for the week too. (It helps stop repetitive meals too).
The really odd thing is, doing this on a Sunday while cooking resets your expectations. How much left-overs are you expecting? If it’s elaborate, what’s happening work-wise which will act as a distraction? For next week, I’m on version three of the plan, but it looks good now.
That sanity check is vital. But it’s odd how writing something down and communicating it will make it happen.
The UK news channels are all extolling the arrival of spring. Yes, we have finally have had sunny days and today the temperature did rise above 6°C, in fact it is a barmy 16°C.
But with a low front through the early part of next week, it’s short lived and all the flowers triggered by warm temperatures are resisting put on a show at the moment.
But from a solar generation point of view, sunny but cool is your ideal conditions. For the heat pump, early morning sun warming the air feed to the heat pump are your friends too.
Indeed, Friday 7th March 2025 was the first day most of our used energy came from the sun and our battery. The usage was helped by the fact solar gain in our rooms meant we did not need to warm our house…
Our smart meter readings for the 7th March.
From 9am Friday morning, we were off the grid. Our battery got up to a full 100% full – it finally discharged at 5:30am Saturday morning.
This time of year, the UK mornings can be bitter. The past week, it has not been unusual to be below 0°C until 8am. So it will be a few weeks before we can be 100% off grid.
A full break down saw half of all our generation powering the house, the rest going to the battery. Discharge then started at 15:45. Our heating, cooking, and hot water, all came from our battery! The tesla app reported 30% of our power came from the battery, 31% from our solar panels, and 39% from the grid.
It will be a while before we’re at 100% self-generated, but the hope is there!
All I want to be talking about here is how we’re doing with our heat pump.
But at the end of the third week of February, we still have 25 days until the end of winter:- 20th March 2025 is our first day of spring in the UK.
So, I cannot do that.
What I can say is I seem to have finally broken my infection – today it felt like spring when I woke up! My sheets were sodden – a good fever will do that, but I can breathe easily and my head no longer feels like it weighs a ton.
Ironically, I owe this to allowing a hypo to ride last night after my body decided to put up a fight – stubborn highs that cannot be fixed by normal corrections, that will be an infection.
Our anatomy is no different to a non-type 1 diabetic’s. A non-type 1’s body will trick the body into releasing a huge amount of insulin just to get a hypo – what’s different is the scale and speed.
A non-diabetic will do this in a matter of a couple of hours. Because we’re gently trying to bring down the low, we can go a couple of days like this – all the while feeding the bacterial/viral/fungal infection with some excess sugar.
Our immune systems are different and expecting them to behave the same maybe a little unrealistic.
Sounds logical-ish. What’s the answer?
It’s easy to say don’t be afraid of the hypo, but that is actually the answer. And many of the “hybrid loop” systems in use today are exactly that – so when we’re feeling our best, we need to step up and take control.
And everyone is different, and every infection is different. Worse than that, my body is killing and reproducing new cells, every day to the extent that no cell in my body is older than seven years. Today really is a completely different day to yesterday.
Ah, that’s sounds like a nightmare!
It’s one of the reasons many type 1’s look knackered most of the time.
What worked for me yesterday was hanging in there, not panicking when I started to drop, fasting most of the day, drinking 3 litres of water and not doing a thing. I was lazy, I achieved very little, although just living I did get 3,250 steps under my belt. I passed a kidney stone.
I’m not going overboard today either. It wasn’t my turn to do lunch or clear up. I did do some washing, took the soft plastics and glass to be recycled. I will have a bath in a few moments. I will recalibrate my watch’s blood pressure monitor.
I’m considering my post for the 23rd March. I’ll draft it asside from the final figures next week.
Because, patience is a virtue. As well as being utterly annoying.
My husband and I celebrate our birthdays within a couple of days of each other, so it is always tempting to combine the celebrations.
Especially as we’re down to one wage.
But there’s no need if you have some skills in the kitchen, a bit of time and energy, and patience.
For my husband’s day, I asked him what he’d like to have, and the answer that came back was my home made French onion soup. I will be deploying my food processor to finely chop the onions and grate the cheese, but the only thing I’m really doing is expending some time.
A lovely bung ’em in the oven sourdough baguette will make a meal fit for kings, all for less than £4 a head, and a bit of washing up.
We’re having some friends over on the Saturday for a roast chicken dinner. Two people don’t eat complex carbs – and one of those doesn’t eat any – so I’ll be working a couple of special side dishes for them and a lion’s share of the main protein. But again, this is not an expensive pleasure.
One of our good friends makes the most amazing cakes. So, we might skip making an option no-one will take!
Hopefully, a good time will be had by all, with smiles all round 🙂
The ancient Christians (in fact most religions) understood the benefits of Having something to look forward to. Be it heaven or the next public holiday or feast, they understood the need to celebrate life.
These days we call it Wellness, but that feeling that things are OK and can only get better is powerful, hope is everything. Indeed, some forms of torture are based on breaking someones hope.
Hope can be intangible, as simple as one small step to make things better, to ease an area of suffering. In medicine, it was given a name in drug trials: the placibo effect.
Of course, for many, where there is no life-impacting condition, contentment is seen as good enough.
But hope is a fire, a light in the dark. Hope is a driver, an end goal, a life-raft to cling to amongst the dreary everyday…
That’s very philosophical!
I guess so…
What’s brought it about?
We’re on holiday, skiing in France and it’s the first time we’ve done this trip by train. Not the easiest journey but as 90% of 800 odd miles was powered by electricity, a relatively green one.
It was not plain sailing: our first train, and indeed the whole track, was closed due to a tree falling down. But we made use of an alternative route and as it was our time, we got to recover.
The international stations were amazing, pianos were available and talented passengers regaled us with music – some from memory.
Lyon station had a room with many wheelchairs, walking frames, and walking sticks to help those with mobility issues. On top of that, every staircase was mirrored with a ramp and lift. As we had wheeled cases, it made our lives so much easier. We live in a county town – the equivalent in Suffolk of Lyon, but the facilities in the SNCF stations meant the transfer times were not unentertaining.
Right at this moment, I am watching it snow. In fact, it’s a bit of a white out from our chalet’s window. We’re choosing not to ski today, having got a 5 days skiing out of a 6 day ski pass.
I’m cosy, sipping a fruit tea, trying to get my wayward glucose ranges back under control. And resting my achy breaky knee.
I had hoped it would be better by now. It hasn’t turned out that way, but I am skiing and the fresh snow tomorrow (once pisted) will be incredible.
Yesterday, on our second train of the day, the TGV from Lyon to Lille, there was a proud poster which I could read while queuing for the loo: using this train is by far the best way to travel to reduce the impact on the environment.
Indeed, https://www.sncf-voyageurs.com states that France’s electric trains cost 3g of CO2 per km compared to 260g of CO2 per km a flight would have cost us.
Which was why we let the train take the strain. Here’s what the cost was.
Going there.
We live in Ipswich – one of the best things about that from an ecological point of view is that the trains to London are all electric. So our first leg, Ipswich to London was planned on being electric down the East Anglian line from Norwich to Ipswich – a distance of 103km. First bill is 309g of CO2. Plus the 3 miles the taxi took to Ipswich station = 141g.
Only it wasn’t. To be fair, I was gladdened by the taxi showing up and being electric – we should have been doing the whole journey as minimally impactful as possible. But we were scuppered at Ipswich, finding that all the trains had been cancelled due to a train taking out the powerlines and the power coupling on the train trying to pass underneath at the same time – thankfully no-one was hurt…
The advice was to travel to Cambridge then down to St Pancras – actually, great for us, as we were staying there over night. Thanks to delay, repay, more than cost effective. Only, those trains are not electrified: instead of 3g of CO2 per km, we’re now costing 106g per km and travelling much further than 103km: 71km from Cambridge to Ipswich and then the distance from Cambridge to St Pancras, another 76km – so that CO2 cost is 15,582g (71+76 = 147km * 106) or 15.6kg!
Now a night in a hotel, and we can set off for the next 3 trains across France.
All electric to Lyon.
The Eurostar is electric to Lille, as was the TGV from Lille to Lyon. Going we had some long transfer times, but as we were taking it easy, that wasn’t an issue.
So, distance to Lille from St Pancras was 245km, so 735g Lille to Lyon is 556km, so that’s another 1,668g or 1.7kg of CO2.
We then swap to a diesel train to do the last leg, again a diesel train: so 106g per km doing 132km, so the charge is 13,992g or 14kg in terms of CO2.
So that ( 13,992 + 1,668 + 735 + 15,582 + 141)g from home to the alps. Not including the transfer bus (16km for 108g per km, so 1,728g), again diesel, from the station to our chalet, a grand total of 33,846g or 34kg of CO2. For a holiday.
But this was better than us taking the car across the channel to the same location and significantly better than taking the plane, which would have been 260g per km, at 760km that would have been a whopping 197,600g or nearly 200kg. Driving down would have been around 100kg.
What about the big cost: time? What did it cost you in terms of time?
So, including transfer times, we travelled from 5:30am Saturday morning to 19:30 local time – so 11hours.
A granny stoppers is a device used on a public path that is intended to discourage “grannies” or the less physically able to progress with a route. It is widely used in the UK as a means of excluding people from what other people have deemed “unsuitable paths for them”.
They can be narrow stiles, which do not let wheelchair users ascend a path, or steps, or anything that makes this as awkward as possible. And they have been widely used over the past 50 years on our footpaths and national parks.
Thing is, it’s not just grannies who get discouraged – it’s people nearly in wheelchairs or prosthetics, people with pushchairs… Get outside is often cited as a brilliant means to lift your spirit, allow you to escape the everyday grind of living with a disability. Then such routes are built on purpose to be inaccessible.
There are campaigners doing their bit to change this – it is not about putting in concrete paving, but just removing the purpose built barriers – let people decide what is accessible to them.
Sounds good, I think. So what?
Well, all of life needs to be that. Having had antibiotics a few weeks ago, I finally decided I wasn’t kicking out a small bit of thrush it encouraged to grow and on my way to getting my insulin, asked for a treatment combo I know will kick it into touch.
The pharmacist refused to sell it to me – you need a referral to the doctor, it’s the law.
No, it’s not. You have made a decision that because I’m on insulin, I cannot possibly be controlling my diabetes and need permission from a pressed GP service – and possibly you think my GP is going to tell me what to do with my insulin doses.
Angry does not cover how humilitating this experience was for me. On one hand, my endocrinologist is telling me I’m not diabetic and a pharmacist is telling me I cannot have medication that a non-diabtic could by in similar circumstances.
Thing is, I know my value to that pharmacy – I can buy the canestern somewhere else. If I get such treatment again, my contribution to the profit line of that pharmacy will go with me.
On paper, January looks like the end of winter, the days are getting longer, work is in full swing, all should be good.
The problem is, in the UK at least, the December pay check comes a week early and, for many, the next pay check is the last working day of the month… January’s will come on the 31st, which is a Friday. That means for many there are 42 days the money from December has to last.
Council tax – our land tax – is taken in January, but not in February or March, if you pay monthly. When we were paying the mortgage, we would put the “missed payments” off against the mortgage on those months as it was money we don’t use.
Gas and Electricity or Electricity usage is higher as the days are short and the nights are long and cold. I’m writing this while the peak of today has been -0.3°C (today’s max so far), the minimum has been -3.8°C. What’s amazing is that at -0.3°C, the heat pump doesn’t need to put the electric heater on during the day thanks to some solar heating benefits!
One of the surprising things we’ve seen with the heat pump is the formation of ice infront of the compressor fan. The heat exchanger rips the heat out of the air and exhausts cold air, freezing any moisture in front of that path…
Ice formed from the Heat Exchanger.
If you sit and consider what’s happening, it’s obvious why this is the case, I just wasn’t expecting it to be so dramatic.
OK, so January is a tough month, money is low, so, just grin and bear it!
There are some great deals out there. We have been enjoying heavy discounts to lighten the mood on things like eating out and make the most of what we have left so far.
In the old days, when cash was king, I’d withdraw the money I was going to spend a month into my wallet and when it was running low, economise. These days, I do the same electronically – spending money in the joint account and savings taken early. If we need to dip into them, we can, but it is a clear decision maker – beware of dipping into overdrafts which can be costly.
Of course, the direct debit for the power means we should be fine for the duration of the month, the excess we pay in the summer is being drawn against – by the time we get to renewal, the balance should be a tenner or so positive and a low payment the next couple of months despite the higher costs. Even with the heat pump, the typical cost a day is between £5 and £13 excluding standing charge, compared to -£15 and -£10 when we’re feeding in during April.
Dry January is a big saver: alcohol is taxed quite heavily, so cutting out this expense is really beneficial to the bottom line.
We’re gently dieting, living off the weight put on over Christmas. It is a strategy that has worked for millenia.
The heating is not set at 21°C 24/7 but varies between 16°C and 19°C. Making use of temperature appreciation and warm clothes, just adding an overcoat to go out is really beneficial. A walk before tea means the house feels warm, as it is compared to outside.
I draw the curtains when it’s dark, providing an extra layer of insulation. Meals cooked in an oven are cooked with roast vegetables – making the most of the heat.
It sounds odd, but going to bed earlier means we don’t light unnecessarily. During the summer, we stay awake much longer, barely lighting the house for more than 2 hours – we don’t carry this to excess in the winter but a bed time of 21:30 to 22:00 means rest away from the telly and phone, using paper or e-paper which is easier on the eyes. Critically, only 6 hours of lighting big rooms and hallways. (I do appreciate lighting is a relatively cheap use of electrical units, LED bulbs being much more efficient but 0W is a saving over 3W for example – staying awake until midnight can mean 4 or 5 lights on at 3W for 8 hours, and that’s excluding the TV!).
It’s been three months since my husband was made redundant. We were lucky, having already paid off our mortgage, he’s been able to use the money from the redundancy to just live and not pay off any debts.
We had no car loans, and no loss of a car package with his role. We have savings put asside to run our vehicles. Moving to the heat pump and disconnecting the gas meant that redundancy payment is not being asked to do much.
Life is cheap. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shock or that we didn’t take that deep breadth and question everything. Do we need that? Does that make our lives significantly better or safer?
We still shop in the supermarket we used to. We had already moved to making much of our food from scratch – this is so much cheaper than buying ready meals. We do not throw much away at all. We buy food that’s in season.
We walk into town as much as possible, rather than take a vehicle. It gets exercise in as well as saving money on fuel or electricity, tyres, and parking. It’s often quicker too. I’ve been reusing carrier bags since 1992 when our local Sainsbury’s gave you a penny off your shop for every bag you reused.
We’re saving money each month at the moment, to the point where we can take a holiday and get coffee in town when we go in, or a restaurant meal once a month.
And my beloved it’s searching for a new job. It is tough out there, for anyone else out there doing the same thing, good luck for your search.
