Useful money-saving tips for Winter 2022

Hay box cooking
Or cook as the Māori do by the hāngī method (hot stones in the earth.

1summer

I like the idea of a heated throw for the winter, does anyone recommend one. A decent one seems to be £40-£50 for one big enough to cover body and legs.

We bought 2 from Lakeland a few years ago, very efficient and still going strong. Unplugged they can be machine washed.

We never have our heating on in the morning & only from 6 til 9 in the evening. We have a 16th century house with very thick walls, we have a log burner in the kitchen diner & that's where I spend most of my days during the winter. We'll be eating a lot of soup made from frozen or stored veg from our garden. We both have plenty of warm clothing - we could probably give a lot to charity as we both have far more than we need.

Yammy

We have an AGA which is switched off at the moment.No other heating in the kitchen other than a pathetic plinth heater. Our dining table is in there and the central heating is oil fired. Has anyone else considered not putting one on this year with no price lock on oil?

We stopped using our oil-fired Rayburn (in a similarly unheated kitchen) several years ago. It took a bit of getting used to the cold in the mornings but we did it eventually. The main heating in the kitchen now is the electric cooker. In cold weather (which is most of the year here, just a bit more so in actual winter) I like to do slow-cooking things in the oven, which heats up the room half-decently for us to eat in it.

Electricity cuts (of which we've had plenty since living here) affect the Rayburn as well as the electric cooker so we keep a wee gaz camping stove. We also have a wood burning stove in the sitting-room on which we can do simple cooking if needed.

I like henetha's hot water bottle idea too. We had some but they were very old and DD said I had to ditch them as unsafe.

You can get silicone hot water bottles so wont degrade like rubber does.

The best thing we bought last year was a heated throw, big enough for two. We also have a single ring gas camping stove powered by gas canisters. We’ve never camped but it’s been invaluable in a power cut, even for a cup of tea with water boiled in a saucepan. They’re not expensive.

IF you have a microwave, "bed buddies" are a wonderful warmer. These are small cloth sacks filled with one of a few grains: rice, dried corn, flax seed, etc. (I prefer rice), sewn on all four sides. Microwave it for a couple minutes and it warms you right up. I like to use flannel, making them around 15"x 10" (give or take). They last at least a couple years.

I just saw this one on Mumsnet -

The tip I always give is menu plan and shop once a week but actually make your week 8 days. On day 8 use up all the odd bits and pieces in the fridge. That way you have 46 shopping weeks in a year and gain 6 weeks extra housekeeping money. This funds our xmas.

I buy a cooked chicken (Waitrose are the best but M and S are Ok). They cost about £7 and from that I can get chicken sandwiches for lunch for 3 days then cook the carcass and left over chicken and some veg into a stew for a dinner plus a smaller portion left over for another lunch. This is for 2 of us so I think that excellent value.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202208/medium-725191-billede1.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202208/medium-900544-billede2.jpg

How cold are your outer doors?

I mean two things by this question. Are there draughts coming in around the doors? Are the inside of your outer doors cold to the touch in the winter?

If so consider doing something about it before the weather gets cold. We all know the kind of self-adhesive rubber strips that can be used along the edges of doors and wndows to keep out the draughts. Buy some now if you have cold coming in.

Some years ago, I bought a used washable quilt in a charity shop, which I washed, dryed and sewed a cover for it with loops at the top to suspend it from a curtain pole by.

Below are the complete directions:

•Measure the width of the doorway against the quilt
•If quilt is broader than the doorway, fold the excess width in at the edge, or edges and sew it in place by hand, using a long needle and strong thread – button hole thread, or pack thread.
•You do not need to sew the entire length of the fold, simply sew three or four times through the folded edge, fasten the thread and cut it. Repeat at equally spaced intervals four or six times down the length of the quilt.
•You probably don’t want a plain white quilt hanging in front of a door, so either find an old duvet cover in a suitable colour and use it, or make a cover using a remnant or a pair of old curtains. You will need to fasten the top edge of the quilt to the cover in the same way as the folded edges were fastened.
•This type of curtain is too heavy to be hung up using curtain hooks, as these will bend under its weight. Use tapes, or sew them of the same cloth as the cover. Make loops of the tape, and insert them in the open end of the cover, tack it and sew it in place. Then hang the curtain by inserting the pole through the loops.

The door I was making this for, is as you can see quite low, so one quilt was enough. For a standard sized door you will need more than one quilt to get the required length. Before cutting the piece off the second quilt that you will need to add to the whole one, sew firmly across the quilt twice, with about ½ inch between the two rows of sewing. Again you will need to do this buy hand unless you have an old industrial sewing machine. Cut the quilt between two stiched lines. This way you don't get stuffing leaking out of what is left.

Old fashioned draught excluders along the bottom of doors are a good idea too, either laid there, or taped to the door with duct tape, so that door and draught excluder move together when the door is opened. Draught excluders can be made entirely of old newspapers, or stuffed with them.

You can use thin top mattresses instead of quilts if that is what you can get hold of cheaply.

I have insulated the backs of our attic doors by simply stapling old quilts to them. (You need a very heavy duty stapler, or a staple gun attachment to a compressor.)
This one is Mr. Lang and made of a pair of worn out denim jeans and stuffed with the left over cloth and other bits and pieces from my rag-bag. His eyes and nose are buttons found in a charity shop, as my button box had nothing suitable.

Does this sound ridiculous….. I sometimes light a few candles around the fire and it just takes the chill off. My aluminium hot water bottle sits on the woodburner during the evening and is hot and toasty to take to bed. I bought it six years ago and I’ve never filled it. Warm in bed is a must…. Whether that be a hat/socks or extra duvets. Wash on cooler cycles . Just buy a better washing powder. Dry everything outside or on a sheila maid. Open windows…don’t coop yourself up too much - we all need a bit of clean fresh air occasionally. Dry yourself off with a dry flannel after a shower. Not only for a brisk rub down but you don’t have damp towels around the place. Buy thinner towels and thinner tea towels. Thick ones take forever to wash and dry. Move about more. Walk briskly everywhere. It makes your body warmer and if you are having hot flushes - don’t knock it. It’s free inner body heating - and let’s face it……. If you’re in your in your 50’s or 60’s - well when was the last time you blushed!

Sorry, about the lack of editing. Mr. Lang is of course the draught excluder!

We have just added another layer of insulation in the loft and replaced our very senior air fryer with a new model. Think I’ll def look into another hot water bottle and heated blanket.

If you are using the oven: fill it up.

I baked bread, cooked meat roll, stewed rhubarb and stewed apples all in the course of the same 35 minutes by choosing baking tins and dishes that could stand alongside each other in the oven.

All this inspired by my grannie's hand-written tips on wartime cookery - she lived through both world wars and knew a thing or two about saving fuel.

Doodlebug
"I wouldn't bother. I did that and don't like the PC function on the multi-cooker. The multi ones are BIG and heavy, so unless you plan to get rid of the existing appliances you will lose worktop space. If I knew what it was like before buying I wouldn't have. I just wanted the AF function, as I already had the other things, but anyway prefer the oven type air fryers to the pot-based ones."
Thanks Doodlbug. I'll stay with what I've got.

You can make a decent draught excluder by stuffing legs from jeans and tying each end with tape or string, or a rolled up big towel, or rolled up old sheets

Warbler, I light a candle to warm my living room, would easily keep a chill away but I do have a very insulated new build

I have a lined front door curtain on an ikea pole and already covered the glass part of the door with film, just needs a bit of washing up liquid to slide and fit and can be removed. The only curtain in my home. I used a combo of wooden plantation shutters and perfect fit hive blinds for heat or cold insulation

I am waiting for an updated smart gas meter from octopus plus, hopefully, a monitor. I have no idea how much I am saving by switching stand bys off at the wall, the jury is out on that wrt effort and convenience

We insulated our front door by screwing a sheet of acrylic plastic in a plastic frame to the upper glazed half and putting a sheet of polystyrene backed aluminium foil over the lower half and screwing a thin bit of ply wood over it with a with a decorative moulding round it and then painted it to match the door.

I have curtains over all the exterior doors, even though, apart from the front door, they are all modern double glazed, fully draft excluding doors - and, as soon as the heating goes on they are used every night.

DD bought me an oodie for Xmas. Lovely and snug and saves putting heating on. Will be buying one for DH.

The very threat of power cuts is alarming since electricity is essential in this house - heating and gas hob depend on it and I have no alternatives. All suggestions welcome!

GrannySomerset, I'm probably being dense, but if your gas hob, like mine, has electric ignition, a power cut doesn't mean you can't use it. You just use a match.

as Iceland will not open a store anywhere near me - the discount would cost more than the bus fare . I have to wait another 17 months for my bus pass- that is if the government does not remove them!

I have found 2 useful savings - the hoover costs 39p an hour so I shall be reducing my hoovering and likewise ironing!!!

The very threat of power cuts is alarming since electricity is essential in this house - heating and gas hob depend on it and I have no alternatives. All suggestions welcome!
If the power cuts are advertised, which I'm guessing they will be, you can keep hot water in thermos flasks, and if you have a spare one you can make hot drinks in advance. Food flasks will keep stews or soups hot, too.

Heads up to any aquarium owners for power cuts, you can get battery powered air pumps.

My son had a 500L tank, I used to have to boil the kettle on the last heat from the Aga top and fill pop bottles to float in it.

pandapatch

I have found 2 useful savings - the hoover costs 39p an hour so I shall be reducing my hoovering and likewise ironing!!!

Now you’re talking!