Judith Proctor's Journal

 When I got my car insurance renewal from ASDA, it was £1869 (and they could no longer include breakdown cover in that as the car was getting older).

Thank goodness I shopped around.  My new premium is under £800 and includes RAC Roadside.  And my new insurer has a telephone number.  ASDA used to stress me out terribly as you could only communicate by email - and they didn't always reply even then.  Most things had to be done by logging onto the policy and manually editing it to change anything (like a new driver) and I just hated it.

I'm now with IGO4, via Moneysupermarket.com

If that sounds like a bit of an advert, I guess it is.  Saving £1000 means a lot to us at the moment.  And having an insurer where I can also speak to a human being (I phoned up to ask a question about one part of the policy and had an instant helpful answer) is important to me.

When I changed banks, several direct debits went missing.  Most of these were not a big issue, I contacted each person who complained of a missing payment and sorted it out.  In the case of my credit card company, it was more serious.  I  ended up with penalty payments and interest charges to the tone of over £50.

It's taken several phone calls (and telling them firmly that their offer of refunding half the interest was unacceptable), but we've got there in the end.  I now have printed proof in my hand (in the form of a BACS record provided by First Direct), that MBNA were indeed informed of my change of bank 12 days before they billed my old bank and charged me all those penalties.

They're refunding the extra charges in full.

That's saved me writing a letter to the financial ombudsman.

Been pottering a mixture of things the last few days.

Mowed the front lawn, raked it and mowed it again.  I had to take occasional breaks.  The great tits are nesting in the box above our front door, the chicks are quite noisy now and the parents tend to be nervous about visiting the box when I'm using the mower, so I gave them some chances to get in and feed the young.

There are blackbirds nesting in the ivy in the back garden.  Their main concern is a long-hair tortoiseshell cat.  I've got very good at recognising blackbird alarm calls, so if I'm in the kitchen/lounge and I hear them calling, then I come out and chase the cat away.  They're not afraid of me if I'm working quietly in the garden, which is rather nice.

I'm working my way through the house, gradually clearing piles of stuff from here and there.  The only problem is that some of the older piles are a bit dusty and the dust sets off my allergy and makes my hands really itchy.  Occasionally I wear disposable gloves, but they do make your hands rather sweaty, so I prefer not to use them if I can help it.

The sock is making progress.  I'm past the heel and about half way down the foot now.

Thanks to those who recommended Ravelry to me - the people there have already helped me solve one knitting problem.

The allotment is making progress.  I've been watering because it has been so dry of recent, but the recent showers (while not really enough to soak into the ground) will at least have stopped the soil blowing away every time I hoe it. 

The peas are several inches tall, spinach and beetroot seedlings are emerging.  Rocket is growing in the way that rocket does.  Rhubarb is being harvested (cook it with ginger for best effect).  Sorrel has been split and replanted and survived. (dead easy to grow native perennial.  Leaves taste of lemon and are nice in mixed salads).  Ramsons (wild garlic) are flowing in the garden.  They look beautiful, grow in awkward dark corners under trees and have leaves that are delicious in cheese sandwiches as well as in cooking.



I was going to be learning some Cotswold morris tunes from a friend today, but he's got to go and have a blood test, so I'll probably do some more work on the garden and the allotment.

Richard and Henry are massively busy today with an important work deadline.

I've got a jumper of Henry's to repair.  (Got it in a charity shop originally, nice chenille knit that I thought he'd like).  The sleeve caught on something yesterday, but I think I can fix it okay.

We've had steady income for over a year now, but the habits of eight years of little/erratic/no income die hard (and I'm not sure that I'd want the habits to die).  I still buy nearly all my clothes in charity shops.  I still scrutinise every annual renewal of insurance, gas, etc. and nearly always save at least 5% by either changing supplier or by simply phoning and asking for a reduction.  If the premium goes up by more than inflation and I haven't made a claim, then I always ask for a reduction.

Many habits remain because they have environmental gains as well as monetary ones.  I still don't use my tumble dryer (I may Freecycle it at some point).  Hanging the washing to dry on the line is free, as well as reducing CO2 emissions.

I've been with Southern Electic for a while via a tariff that gives money to the RSPB.  However, I had a salesman round this morning from Scottish Power who reckoned he could undercut them.

Being a regular reader of Money Saving Expert, I was instantly suspicious, especially as Martin Lewis had been complaining about salesmen saying that he recommended them when in fact he doesn't.  And indeed, they were quick to cite him as an authority, although the price comparison site they suggested wasn't his favourite (though it was one he does mention).

I got them to wait while I did some checking online.

Turns out they were partly correct.  Energyhelpline, Martin's top comparison site, confirmed that they were cheaper than my existing supplier.  Unfortunately, Ovo's all green tafiff undercut even further... (and the rate is fixed for the first year - as was Scottish Power's, to be fair to them)

So,  I've just signed up with Ovo.  I reckon the RSPB were probably getting a tenner a year from my previous supplier.  I'm saving over a tenner a month with Ovo, so I've just increased my monthly direct debit to the Charities Aid Foundation by a tenner  a month and both the RSPB and I will end up with more money!  And I have a green supplier into the bargain.

And becasue I used the link from Money Saving Expert to energyhelpline, I should get an extra £15 cashback...

I should add that the Charities Aid Foundation have quick, efficient and helpful staff on their telephones.  If only my bank was that easy to use! 

For those who don't know about it, the CAF allows me to have a direct debit every month from my bank account, which will have gift aid added automatically.  Whenever I get the urge, I can log onto their web site and give money from my account  (by name or anonymously) to any registered charity of my choice.  It keeps a list of my favourite charities: Marine conservation Society, Durrell Foundation, Dorset Wildlife Trust, Bumblebee Conservation Trust, etc. and I can add new favourites at any time.

Some of you will remember that a couple of weeks ago, I celebrated Richard's new job by going out and buying a new doormat.

Well, today, I hit the real heights.  Not only did we renew our National Trust membership and venture into their tearooms after walking round the snowdrops at Kingston Lacy, but I also bought -( Wait for it... )

The bad news is that I had to visit the emergency dentist - I had a temporary filling yesterday on a sore tooth and today it got a lot worse. Severe pain with even the gentlest bite (it was when I hurt to bite a banana that I knew I was in trouble) and hyper temperature sensitivity.

Have been given antibiotics for an abscess. Oh Joy. Eating soup at lukewarm temperatures. that hurts a bit, but not nearly as much as anything else.

I'm going to try and find an NHS dentist.  I'm fed up of paying what I'm currently paying.  I'm even more fed up of paying it when I need to visit an emergency dentist a day later...

On another front, Tivo has become a lot less useful as the thumbs up facility no longer works (a general problem affecting all UK Tivos, though I gather there may be a hack that would solve it.)

Decided to see whether it was worth going back to Sky in order to get Sky +

Price online - £99 with any normal Sky package.

I don't read Money Saving Expert for nothing. I phoned up Sky, pointed out that I was a former customer who'd left nine months ago for reasons of cost (all verified by their records), that I had a Tivo and thus felt Sky + wasn't worth as much to me as to everyone else, and asked what the best deal they could offer me was. Net result? I'm getting Sky + for free (no cost for box/installation) as long as I keep a Sky contract for twelve months, and if I cancel Sky TV before then, I only have to pay £10 a month for the first year to keep the Sky + box, and that's no more than I was paying for Tivo anyway.

Not bad for someone whose tooth feels like a lance has been stabbed through it every time I drink a sip of warm tea.

I've found this little gadget from Maplin to be wonderfully useful and mine has paid for itself several times over.

They have them discounted for the next week, so now's a very good time to by one for £15 plus postage.

Find out which items in your home eat electricity and which you don't need to worry about.

If you're concerned for the climate, get one to save CO2.  If you're worried about your wallet, get one to save cash.

If you're me, do it for both reasons!  (I'm finding that almost everything I'm doing to save the planet is also saving me money.  As a rough rule of thumb, if it doesn't save you money, then it probably isn't environmentally friendly, no matter what it says on the packet.)

Started as I mean to go on...

I've obviously spent too much time reading http://moneysavingexpert.com/    I'm far more willing to haggle than I used to be.

It's almost too late to plant raspberries, but not quite impossible.  This also means that the garden centres have precious few canes left and they aren't in the best of condition.  The ones down the local garden centre were priced at £1.20 and didn't look terrible happy.

I offered them £4 for the lot.  We settled on £4.50.

So, I have nine canes that look as though they will live, though not all will fruit this year, and a couple that may/may not live thrown in for good luck.

We're probably one of the few people in the country who didn't have one already, but after having discovered how easy it was to use auntygillian's when I was cat-sitting recently (hers has a broken timer, so if that's easy to use, then the rest must be child's play), we decided to get one ourselves.

By way of a bonus, they use less than a quarter the electricity of a conventional cooker, so, less CO2 emissions as well. It's hard to calculate exact savings, as I can't measure what the normal cooker uses. However, according to a site I just looked at, the large ring on an electric cooker uses around 2kW and a microwave is less than 1kW (think of a small ring as just over 1kW). Things cook in roughly a quarter of the time in a microwave, so the electricity usage will be between a quarter and an eighth of what I'd normally use.

Sticking a finger in the air, I'd expect to save at least a tenner a year in electricity if I get in the habit of using the microwave regualarly.

Quicker, cheaper and less CO2. Works for me.

(the microwave was thirty something quid, so will pay for itself in less than four years, without adding anything for the convenience)

I just got my electricity bill. It's a lot less than the comparable bill for the same quarter last year. £30 less.

There's inevitably going to be some random variation depending on when they actually read the meter and when they've estimated and got it wrong, but I'm still pretty confident that the saving is real.

The usage was 686 kWh as opposed to 1201 kWh

That's a reduction of over 40%!

I'll wait and see what the bill is next quarter before I cheer too loudly, but it looks as though the measures I've taken to cut the electricity usage (without reducing our standard of living) may be having a real effect. That's a lot of carbon dioxide saved, as well as hard cash.

The gas bill is also well down, but the weather has been very mild, so I don't yet know how much of that saving is due to the double glazing and other insulation work.

Last year, 5 October to 5 December, we used 1202 kWh of electricity.

When I get my next electricity bill, I'll see if I've managed to reduce that.

Think of it being like a dieting challenge. How much can you reduce your electricity usage without reducing your standard of living? Instead of shedding pounds, try shedding kilowatthours. Any reduction at all gains you Brownie points, as the general trend is upwards rather than static. (I'd award a prize, but we probably all get bills on diffent dates, so I couldn't really pick a suitable finish point)

Anyone else like to give it a try? fjm is going to go for it.

(I'd do the same for gas, but the mild weather means that we haven't switched on the central heating yet, so the comparison with last year would not be a valid one)

I'm very happy with my new fridge/freezer's electricity consumption. I plugged my little meter in and had to wait quite a while before it regsitered anything at all!

After a couple of hours, it's usage appeared to be around .03kWh If if had to cope with this kind of temperature all year round, it would still only cost me £23 (assuming 9p per kWh)

The old one cost vastly more than that. Around £70 per anum if memory serves. THe payback period is about 4 years. And a lot of saving in CO2 emissions as well.

Now, I wonder what else is eating electricity in the house...

We just reduced our Sky package by dropping channels we no longer watch. That's £6 a month or £72 a year that we're saving.