Finding the chase and cutting to it

My rental properties were all on rated water bills: this is where a guess is made on water usage based on the number of people living in a property. So, this was a little frustrating at the time, but when I bought a house, this was one of the things I really wanted and got each time.

One of my good friends thought this was insane: why would anyone want that?

I live in the UK, but my grandfather had been based in the middle east for some of his working life and he was keen to instill that water wasn’t a right but a priviledge. I am careful about my usage and fixing any leaks or drips as soon as possible. I havested water for outdoor use, showered to keep clean, and made use of short and eco programmes to save power and water.

To be honest, a water meter seemed like a good way of being rewarded for this behaviour. I have never thought about it more than that. A one bed flat in Bath was rated at £240 a year. My five bed house outside of Ipswich with two adults and a baby was water metered at £180 a year. No brainer!

Until just recently, I never gave it a second thought. 60% of the houses in the UK now have a water meter and that includes all the new builds. On average, people with water meters use less than 82% of the water than those in rated buildings, over the total time in a property. As the population in the UK is growing, water demands and meeting them is not going to be a “someone else will solve this” type of problem.

Conceptually, water demand figures are given in litres, while your water bill is in m³. So, let’s have a look at our family’s usage:

Date	Reading (m3)	Read?	Billed Amount (£)
11/11/2022	623	Yes
29/01/2023	651	No	53.86
10/05/2023	687	Yes	73.13
30/07/2023	715	No	61.53
10/11/2023	753	Yes	82.87
28/01/2024	781	No	61.35
09/05/2024	821	Yes	89.63
11/08/2024	856	No	82.85
21/11/2024	883	Yes	66.90

OKKKKK…

I’m trying to work out “our usage”. Now, using the actual reading fro the 11th November 2022 until the 10th November 2023, we used 130m³ which is 130,000 litres. The time period is 364 days, so 130,000/364 litres/day or 357 litres a day. At the time, there were three of us in the house, so 357/3 = 119 litres a day per person.

We were not “being careful” at this time. We were having 3 – 6 baths a week, between the three of us, for example, daily showers often on the same days as the baths… But the UK is trying to reduce the usage per person from the average of 146 litres per day per person to 120 litres.

Oh, well, you’re OK then! Especially on a wet little island.

Well, let’s look at basic usage around the house. There’s always room for improvement!

Task	What’s using water?	Quantity (l)
Flushing toilet	Half flush	3
Flushing toilet	Full flush	6
Bath (p shaped)	75% full	179
Washing up	75% full	68
Using dishwasher	Eco wash	14
Washing machine	Cotton wash	70
Washing machine	Eco cotton wash	50
Washing machine	Quick wash	36
Shower	5 minute wash	40
Washing a vehicle	Car – mix of bucket and hose	100
Washing a vehicle	Motorbike – mix of bucket and hose	20

There are options, if we want to reduce our water usage…

Choosing devices with half-loads makes a big difference – I miss our half-load washing machine and dishwasher!

I make around 180 decisions a day to keep healthy. Even using my “hybrid-loop”, I cannot leave it to just keep things ticking over because they tend to run me high and that causes me physical pain, or over corrects when I dip low mid-afternoon..

Quality of life is a key aspect most people don’t have to question: if I do x, the consquences are y – pschylogically that may cause issues, but very few decisions cause physical pain.

My condition does not forgive that easily, more so now than when I was younger – my body has figured the way to get what it needs, and that’s by shouting very loud. It shouts loudest at the edges of normal range, muting as things get further out.

Run higher than it hurts, then?

No, thanks, that leads to other issues! Including long term pain from neuropathy. So, I would rather have a little pain to avoid that. More than 80% of the time, my body is is normal range, actually most of the time it’s above 90%.

At 51, life is not pain-free, but compared to many diabetics my age, my duration, I am in amazing shape, sitting by a warm fire in a beautiful house I own – I earnt the money that paid for this sanctuary. I have no debts.

Christmas lights are glittering, baubles and tinsel are reflecting against a window. The sun has nearly set on another day. I am watching junk TV – a bit of a stomach bug has caused diarrehea, nausea, anorexia, and dizziness, means I am laying a little low. A bit annoying when I’m back at work on Monday from my lovely Christmas break, but that’s life.

Most things heal, you adapt while that’s happening. As I get older, some things won’t be that easy and patience will need to be developed. Not always the easiest thing to do.

I’m taking it easy today but that doesn’t mean lying down. Just gentle activities and I’m looking forward to cooking tea tonight. Something simple, light and tasty. Not too much mess to clean up. It’s my turn to cook the Sunday roast tomorrow and I am looking forward to spending some time with my beloved on a skiing holiday in the near future – every time I think of that it makes me smile, although it’s always a little scary. I am nervous about injuring myself.

Going off topic, again! Is the juice worth the squeeze, please?

Yeah, it really is. The day to day is hard, but having a small bug actually makes me realise just how healthy I am, day to day, so to speak…

December is one of “those months”. I am aware of families who take months to recover from the increased costs incurred, but actually, much of the fun a delivered for very little.

Presents.

A small something to unwrap is lovely, but when you get to be an adult, it’s just stuff. Lending a hand in the kitchen for the feast is worth any number of fancy presents!

A beautifully packaged chocolate or cake, especially if made by the gifter really is worth much more…

Children don’t need many gifts – even the stocking can be kept simple for little ones, tasty fruit, gift wrapped traditional sweets are thoughtful but not expensive. Saving a few pounds a month for a single larger gift is really appreciated. Children just love the family getting together and playing games.

Commercialisation of Christmas has made it a multimillion pound gift-fest. The important thing is being together and having a good time, gifts cannot give you that.

Food.

For the past six months, I had been buying odd things ready for the Christmas feast. Frozen veg, materials for the stuffing, wine, potatoes, gravy, for example, can all be got before the big day.

Our food bill over December was larger by £30 – which is £6 a month put away.

I cook most things from scratch. Vegetables are all plain and frozen by us. This can save a good £30 on the meal.

The majority of the vegetables are served plain. The turkey is served with sauces and stuffings, so nothing else needs to be done that way. I cheated this year and roasted most of the side dishes, only the leeks, a few sprouts (for bubble and squeak) and peas were boiled, so we had water for the gravy at the end of the cooking process.

For four people, you only need two baby cauliflower – it’s a side dish not the main course. Two of the people had that baked with cheese sauce. Cool, but again, residual heat from the turkey not a separate oven.

The big cost for us was the turkey. Shop around. A well cooked turkey, with time to rest, can come in at significantly cheaper.

I do not buy any meals for the next week. It’s left over city. The turkey died. I am not about to put anything to waste if I can help it! The previous post shows what can be achieved.

OK, OK, so what did it cost you?

I am going to exclude the things we already had or were gifted – our guests brought the wine, for example. £160 in total or £40 a head. The turkey itself was £72 of that. We had turkey (4.95kg) cooked in bacon, pigs in blankets, chestnut and sausage meat stuffing, peas, leaks, cauliflower (half as cauliflower cheese), sprouts roasted with bacon and chestnuts, roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, cougettes, bread sauce, some plain boiled sprouts, cranberry sauce, redcurrent with ruby port sauce, and gravy.

And a christmas pudding, brandy butter (home made), whipped cream.

You’re living in cloud cuckoo land, that’s a fortune!

Agreed, it’s a huge amount of money.

But if I’d bought the stuffings and precooked vegetables, pre-made sauces, it would have been another £30-40 on top and with less opportunities for left-overs. If I’d shopped around for the turkey, ones the same size could have been got for significantly less (Aldi does one the same size for £16) (which would bring my total down to £104 or £26 per head). To be fair, I could have spent more on the turkey…

Even before the big day, we made a difference. The honey roasted ham was less than a fiver (the same price as a chicken), and we fed 9 meals out of it – a “prepped” honey roast ham from Waitrose is £12.50 and for significantly less meat. Our ham was cooked with locally sourced honey, £0.80 a jar of Suffolk Honey bought four years ago.

That’s not counting the communial spirit, either. We all helped on Christmas day and when cooking the ham; everyone, under the age of 70, cooking one thing.

Which meant we were all in the kitchen, so the rest of the house didn’t need much heating.

Not everything went smoothly – the cauliflower cheese was a reach and a little undercooked. Which was a shame because I could have done just two caulis and it would have been perfection.

So, there’s always an ancedote given for free! Same time, same place, next year…

Last year, I saw an interesting take on the 12 days of Christmas being overhauled against the inevitable left-overs following the feasting period.  The is my version of that excellent piece of work.

Really, that’s where you’re going with this, excellent?

Not excellent, obviously. But it is my version… and we’re not aiming for 12 days of left-overs, just the six.

The assumption is you have half the turkey left (around 2.5kg) , and a ham roasted the weekend before Christmas – my family used to have the ham Christmas Eve’s evening, but this gives you some wiggle room in eating many big meals in the space of two days… We’re not feeding guests, but obviously, having more people over gets through the remainder of the food much faster.

You’ll have vegetable dishes and stuffings left too. Here’s our response to not getting bored.

Day 1 (aka Boxing Day or St Stephen’s):

Meal 1 – bubble and squeak.

Today served with fried patties made from the stuffings. Delicious with the added bonus that if you don’t mash the left-overs, there is very little washing up! Remember to remove the broccoli – it really dominates the stir fry and you are looking for sprout heaven.

Meal 2 – Remainder of the stuffings.

Eaten cold, delicious, though being bread based, seriously high in carbohydrate. Sorry, no photo available.

and

Meal 2 – Last bit of cauliflower cheese.

3 minutes in the microwave gives one of you a treat.

The aim is to let your stretched stomach return to its normal size. No picture available.

Day 2:

Meal 1 – Home made ham sandwich.

Easy living – an electric slicer means the bread is the same thickness as the ham, butter on one slice of bread, french mustard on the other, one of my favourite meals in the whole world.

The ham was originally cooked the weekend before Christmas, placed whole in a glass container with a sealable lid and stowed at 0°C stops anything going green or dull. We’ll finish off the remainder of this meat later today.

Meal 2 – Home made vol au vents.

“Vol au vents” means “flying in the wind” in its original French? Puff pastry and a rich sauce with a flavour added with the meat. My mum did these on the day after boxing day. For vegetarians, a few left over vegetables can be used instead with a little garlic and/or onion.

A bit more effort but the microwave is your friend for making the roux. Make a simple roux, then toss in cold turkey and ham, chopped into strips or diced. When using the ham, bear in mind you won’t need to salt the roux, but lashings of black or white pepper really makes this pop.

Make your life significantly easier with premade puff pastry, or store bought blocks or rolls. Happy for you to make the puff from scratch, just start the task just after lunch to be ready for tea at 18:00. The full recipe here: Vol au vents.

Day 3:

Meal 1 – turkey arrabiata.

White meat can be put into a Pasta Arrabiata. Spicy and a bit of a break with the traditional northen european fair. Sorry, no pictures.

Meal 2 – tucchino ad astra.

Bascially, a pollo ad astra but with pre-cooked turkey. Dark meat works well to give a twist. Baically do everything, accept skip the chicken in the oven for 15 minutes!

Day 4:

Meal 1 – turkey and broccoli stir fry.

Last bit of the turkey, dark meat works well here, and any ham, tossed with the broccoli you didn’t put into the bubble and squeak. I do this fried with onions, peppers, left over baby sweet corn, then add cooked basmati into the frying pan before serving. Sorry, no pictures.

Meal 2 – left over dough balls.

From yesterday’s pizza dough, served with home made garlic butter,

Day 5:

Meal 1 – a cheeky sandwich.

We had family over for lunch, so we did a home made french onion soup. A lovely break. For the evening, my beloved was working, so had a canteen meal (not turkey or ham).

Having baked a wholemeal loaf during the afternoon, a cranberry and white turkey meat sandwich served as my repast. The end is definitely in sight – I have carefully saved a lovely chuck of white meat… Sorry no pictures.

Day 6:

The final meal.

Even with modern fridges, the turkey is on its last legs, so to speak. Using the last of both types of meat, a meat pie is made with chicken stock. A few bones are left but I have to say, I did sling them as they did not look great.

For next year, I am going to take the bones and make stock in the microwave on Christmas day. It will make a lovely addition to the meat pie (though it might need to be frozen).

Looking forward to doing this all again next year. Happy 2025!

If, like us, you are putting off having food for as long as possible today, due to overeating yesterday: I don’t blame you.

But as I sit quietly with my family, I wondered how much energy did we use yesterday, catering for a large number of people and being in each other’s company all day? Not our calories or political energy but the draw on the national power grid…

It was a cold Christmas in the East of England. But almost all businesses and offices are closed. People come together, running their houses cooler, while spending time with the people cooking the feast. Yes, cooking a turkey or other roasts (even nut ones) takes power, but instead of people sitting in their houses individually cooking small meals on their ovens, they come together and a modern, insulated oven is amazing once up to temperature. We only used the hob for a couple of things.

We had family stay over, so water consumption was up, rooms that are normally not used for sleeping are drummed into use. Washing machines will be cycled for the extra laundry… But on the day, we mostly sat in the same rooms – a person in a room raises the temperature of a room by 1°C, so again, once a room is up to temperature, maintaining a cozy room is much easier.

The main dinner itself was mostly done in the warm oven. We roasted almost everything, reusing the warmth. I even did the plates on the microwave while I baked some cauliflower cheese. Cooking the roux for the cauliflower in the hob took seconds and very little power.

MWe are not alone in this, demand for power is typically 30% less than a typical day, though most of that power is used between 10:30 and 15:30 in the afternoon – a normal working day, the peak usage is between 16:00 and 20:00. In 2018, peak demand was 36.6MW at 13:30!

Of course, over the intervening six years, many things have changed. Electric and gas ovens coming off production lines thanks to the Energy Related Products legislation (aka ErP). This states the energy use per product and ovens are a major consumer in the kitchen. Ours has an energy efficiency rating A and B for the different ovens, mostly because the top oven doesn’t have a fan, so only gains a B rating…

Feeding the hoard, I used all three ovens – the Neff’s top and bottom and our Panasonic’s combination microwave. I did not preheat unnecessarily.

I also got things out of the fridge early. Vegetables in particular cook quicker if you are only raising the temperature from 19°C rather than 0°C – 4°C. Having accidentally bought a huge amount of sprouts, defrosting the sprouts to stop them going off meant that they only needed 5 minutes or so blanching to be really tasty.

Of course, we cooked too much food. When you have that many options, halve the quantities so everyone can have something but there isn’t took much left over.

In fact, we had the Christmas Pudding for tea at 18:00, which was cooked in the microwave (steam for an hour over boiling water or 90 seconds in the microwave, and stand for a minute before serving?).

So, how much did you use?

Oh, sorry, 36.6kWh, with only 0.8kWh of that coming from solar and the battery. At £0.24 per kWh, that’s Our average for that of kind of weather day is 45kWh, Sunday lunch cooking, etc.

Mostly due to people being in the same rooms.

We have four meals off the remainder of the turkey, only one for the stuffing and veggies (bubble and squeak for the veggies and we fry up the chestnut and sausage meat stuffing to go with it).

We keep prezzies to a minimum, so not much angst about waste.

Hope you have a green and happy new year.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to kick back my heals, and I am currently sitting in my lounge, planning some lunch, watching my favourite cookery programme.

I’m a foodie. I have always liked delicious food – after all, who doesn’t. I love food combinations when I am doing something special. My everyday food belies that, probably, but great ingredients beautifully cooked taste amazing. They don’t need much else.

That said, we had a honey roast ham, yesterday, traditional fare for us the Sunday before Christmas. I’m saving some of the ham for light lunches, and of course, vol au vents. Boxing day is bubble and squeak with sausage meat fritters, and turkey and ham vol au vents.

But what to do to rest between the feasts? We are intermittent fasters, meaning we don’t eat much during the week but go free rein during the weekends. It ensures we get the nutrients we need without getting too heavy.

But the winter feasts, the holiday season, the parties, can ruin all that. In fact, in the UK, we typically put on 2.3kg or 5lbs of weight.

In the middle ages, this behaviour guaranteed survival during the times when food was scarce. In our part of the UK, the coldest months are about to roll-in. Before central heating, the weight put on over this period meant you could weather that weather.

Trouble is, under the age of 80, it can cause more harm than good.

So we’re conciously snacking for our main meals today and tomorrow, until family arrive: soufflés for lunch today with carrot soup this evening. I have ham sandwiches tomorrow while Jon cooks waffles.

Not using diet food, then?

No. But keeping the portions down, and removing things like thick wedges of bread. Nice, light meals.

The trick is keeping your carbon footprint down too. Looking at my show, they do not appreciate how much power can be saved cooking the soufflés in the microwave, instead for the hob.

It’s not about the money, honey. I’m looking at our power usage compared to last year. Most of my food is now cooked at home too, so our electricity is a little higher this year. But the power saving is dramatic – cooking with the smaller oven, microwaves when possible – and of course our heating is with electricity now…

Oh, well it’s a lot warmer in the UK now…

Not on individual days, actually because of a lack of solar energy (it’s been cloudy), there is less solar gain in our rooms, and we’ve had to heat our rooms much more than last year.

And we’re cooking at home more. We’ve had to turn down the thermostat in our bedroom in the morning, because it was way too warm in December, with the heating on how we had it.

Looking good, then?

Yes, I think it is. Merry Christmas🎄.

One of the things you hope for when ripping out your gas boiler and putting in a heat pump is things are not going to be worse for you.

Obviously, having our own solar generation capability means that unlike distilling our own natural gas, we can generate our own electricity. So, if it’s sunny and cold on a winter’s day, all should be good.

But, let’s be honest here, I live on a small island in the atlantic ocean, which is much closer to the arctic pole than the equator. During the winter, our shortest day is on the 21st or 22nd December and is 7 hours and 50 minutes. The sun is not necessarily going to be putting in an appearance, and is certainly not something you can bet on.

But in December 2024, I am looking out of my window and seeing a shining sun – more importantly, my solar cells are not only heating my house right this moment, but also charging my home battery.

This is kind of important because it means we can heat the house later today, after the sun sets which some stowed energy.

Which is hard to do with a gas boiler.

Interestingly, this year we still have all the figures for our gas heating. I know this because that’s all we were doing with the gas: heating the house and our water. Our heat pump provides similar figures in a handy app.

This very day in December 2023, we used 73kWh to heat the house and water. This year we’ve used 12.2kWh.

Now, it could be a much warmer day in our home town. So, last year the temperature varied between 4°C and 11°C. Not that dissimilar, our range today is 4 °C and 8°C (we’re a little colder today) . We haven’t changed our thermostats or settings, all we’ve done is switch the source of the heat… In fact, the past couple of days, we’ve turned down the thermostat in our bedroom because it was way too warm for us given how we had things setup.

Of course, that benefit could be happening right now!

Yawn, so?

Consider this, at the moment, right now, every 1kWh of electricity costs £0.24. Every stored unit we can make use of means we are not using electricity that has been generated by burning gas. You can see that in 10 minutes, we went from discharging the battery to feeding in excess today – the thermostats in the radiators and rooms turned off the draw from the heat pump, thus reducing our need for electricity and allowing us to charge the battery.

Now, because of the efficencies, an electric heat pump out performs a gas boiler, so environmentally it is a sounder choice. But we get the benefit of this right here right now, unlike our V2G. We’re hoping that during the summer, we can be completely off grid…

But haven’t you spent an awful lot of money to get to this point? The photovoltaics, heat pump, battery, smart thermostats…

Yes, we have invested to do this. Not all in one go, we did the solar cells in August 2014. The battery in November this year, and the heat pump was in July. The smart heating was over six months in 2021.

But this investment is giving us a big return thanks to high inflation. The solar cells paid for themselves in 5 years (and that was before electricity was £0.24 a unit).

In the next 20 years, we’ll both be retired, but it will cost a small fraction of our pensions to keep warm and have hot food during the winter. All thanks to having made the investment now.

Isn’t that what it’s all about? Saving the future…

I am from the UK. That means many things but ultimately, we’re a discrete people. Quiet, laid back, we don’t like fuss. We do like to talk and share, but, you know, through quiet means.

Eh, what, what’s going on?

‘Morning. Just about to talk about what’s happened since we had our gas meter removed in August.

Oh, it’s Saturday – I’m heading back to bed…

Mmm, least said about that, the better…

Where was I, oh yes… So, that apparently kicks off some “automated” processes in our energy supplier’s customer handling processes. Two weeks ago, while checking our daily usage, we found we were “moving to a new supplier”.

We were not. At least as far as we knew… A short call, and we were assured they would not be ceasing our electricity nor refunding our balance – due to V2G, we had quite a sum to see us through the winter…

The refund happened this week. We still have the banner on the customer portal telling us we’re leaving.

Now, our info to log-in to N3ergy no longer works.

Other things are a bit hit and miss. This diagram is only sometimes available when we ask for it:

Now, we’re assured that electricity is going to be delivered through the grid by our supplier, but it all seems a bit fussy, if you ask us!

Although our electricity direct debit is now only £162 a month…

Few people like surprises. Some say they do, but when you ask them, it’s about fun things not things like a spider dropping down on a thread before their eyes while they watch TV.

Really, do you have to?

Sorry <shame>.

One of the things we were not expecting with our Smart Meter when we got it in 2014, I wasn’t expecting it to just work off one “reader” in the house. Or how much energy said reader would consume – we soon plugged ours in having had it chew through batteries in short shrift…

But a pleasant surprise came with our new house battery, as it gives us that basic information, and more.

We can see how much of the energy we’re consuming is coming off our solar panels or our battery, and how much we’re having to pay for. That’s to our phones, so making real decisions at the point we want to make them is trivial.

If fact, I find I am not longer using the meter application attached to the solar cells. One stop at the battery app gives me all that.

Of course, there are other surprises that are not so great. It has been a cold and, more importantly, dark winter so far. But from the look of things, we should be able to go completely off grid in the summer for all our needs. Heating, hot water, cooking, cleaning, and travel with the car.

What’s not to love?

Going off grid for the summer?

Probably not. I have had “standing charge free” tariffs, which tend to be more expensive per unit but if you don’t use anything, you don’t owe anything.

Those tariffs are few and far between. Especially if you just need electricity.

Our contract is £0.24 per kWh used and £0.4842 per day for the standing charge. During the summer, if we really don’t consume anything from the grid, we’ll be paying £15.01 for the 31 day months, and £14.33 for the 30 day months.

This is important because it helps the UK pay for power generators, transmission lines, fixing issues when storm damage happens, like today when the tail end of Storm Darragh is blowing across the UK.

Obviously, to help more people make the move to solar panels and more, a cheap standing charge and expensive price per unit is the way to make it happen. But I think we’re a long way from that being the case.

How tempted were you to call this piece “shocking things”?

Very, but let’s not go there….

Black Friday is a relatively new thing in the UK because it has never been an opportunity for us to shop.

I work full time, in the UK. We do not have Thanksgiving day, there is no bank holiday in November and, because we don’t have that celebration, we did not have it fixed to the fourth Thursday of November by the American President F D Roosevelt in 1939. This strategy, a planned date for Thanksgiving bank holiday is that it fits in with two goals.

Goal 1: the American tax year runs January to December. Without this bank holiday where people traditionally shop (since 1939), shops find it difficult to keep going. Clearing stock for the tax year is very beneficial to the American business model and many retail organisations return their figures with the tax year dates.

Goal 2: It was done to boost Christmas shopping figures for shops. Like most other celebrations in our modern world, this was done for commercial reasons. The Christmas decorations are out in all towns and indeed Turkeys are the favourite fare on the American tables.

Globalisation has meant American companies have made the discounts globally available. But unless you have a computer, that’s pretty academic, until this year, and things were tagged up in UK shops.

Why? This is completely artificial for us in the UK. Our big shopping day, for similar reasons, is Boxing Day.

So I was not desparate to be parted with my cash yesterday.