Living with no heating.

Okay, I'm going to let you in to a little secret.....
We have no heating.
By this I don't mean out boiler is broken or we're waiting for an engineer, we just simply don't have central heating that works properly. When we moved into our new house it was the middle of summer and blistering hot, the thought of heating didn't even cross our minds, so when it started getting a bit chilly around the end of October we popped the heating on a few times, imagine our horror then our MONTHLY bill arrived and was £195! I did some research and it turns out that our storage heaters are not on E7 which means they don't run on a cheaper night rate, nor are they connected to a timer to make them come on at night, you have to turn them on manually, wait for them to heat up and then get your heating, extremely expensive if you forget to turn them off and they don't really kick out enough heat to get the room about 15C. Brrrr!
Since then we've been and bought an oil filled radiator for £25 and we have run two of these every day, sometimes all day and haven't had a bill higher than £90 and are getting less.
These last few months I've worked hard trying to keep the house nice and warm and prepare for when the temperature really drops in February and now have a little routine that is working well and keeping the house no lower than 18C with is quite comfortable.
One thing that I have found absolutely essential is when to open and close your curtains, if its still dark when you get up, don't open them! You will lose so much heat just from opening or closing them at the wrong time, as soon as the sun starts to go down you need to draw them, it really is that simple. Make sure all of your windows are covered, it's were most of your heat will escape, if you don't have curtains make them out of anything you can, we spent about a month with a shower curtain in our bedroom window, it might not look pretty but it will help keep you warm.
Another tip (which is a no brainer really) put on a jumper. You can't expect to be able to sit around in your underwear and be warm when you have no central heating, it just isn't going to happen I'm afraid, wrap up in your dressing gown, put on socks and just dress snugly.
I use lots of ways to heat up the house that I will cover in more depth in the near future but unfortunately I have housework to be getting on with *sigh* which, incidentally is another great way to keep warm!

Five Day Frugality!

How many times do you find yourself nipping to the shop for a bottle of milk and coming home £10 lighter?
Well for me it's regularly, I'm really really terrible for impulse buying, especially when it comes to food, then I get home look in my shopping and think "Why on earth did I buy that? Crap, I forgot the thing I actually needed!" It absolutely burns money, I have never sat down and added up actual figures from receipts but I estimate that I can easily spend £25 a week on "milk". It's ridiculous seeing as I make a weekly meal plan and budget, but it seems I forget that just because I've bought what I've budgeted for doesn't mean everything else doesn't completely blow the budget.

So today I'm challenging myself over the next five days to spend no money whatsoever. There is of course exceptions for direct debits, or absolute essentials like petrol, nappies and milk (JUST MILK!) but ultimately my aim is to just not buy anything. Nothing from the shop, nothing online, nada!

Wish me luck, I think I may need it.