Since my lovely Carol passed away in December, my financial situation has been in meltdown. You may have read in my blog posts about my situation regarding Housing Benefit and Teachers' Pensions as well as more recently Pension Credit and the fact that the D.W.P. had discovered that Carol had paid into a pension when she worked in Bournemouth. Still no response regarding all this but those people for work for these government departments work slowly. (One speed, slow and stop.) But elsewhere I have managed to reduce my outgoings, Anglian Water have cut my bill to an amazing £6 per month and I recently ditched Sky television. I now have a Panasonic Freeview box which does virtually the same as a Sky Q box, including being able to record television programmes as well as having catch-up services such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, ITV Hob (is it called ITV Player? I don't know.) as well as the Channel 4 catch-up service. No real difference in picture quality or any loss or anything-quality and, frankly, I don't miss Sky in the slightest, except possibly the amount I paid per month. I am still with their broadband, nothing changed there, and it's around £28 per month, and also I have Sky Mobile, which I set up around 4 months ago, with a brand new iPhone 7 and my monthly bill for that is an amazing £19.50 and they doubled my data usage for the same price, which can't be bad. Also, at the end of each month, any data that isn't used can be saved and either added to the next month's data or can be cashed in for accessories for your mobile, which is one of the reasons I chose to move to Sky Mobile.
The last thing that needed sorting was my car insurance. I knew it was about to need renewing. Then I got a letter in the post marked Swinton Insurance, the company which I have the motor insurance with. Last year's premium was just over £1000 and this year the just under half of that, with a monthly payment of around £48. Which pleases me, as you can imagine.
Then earlier in the month I got a telephone call from SSE, and they can reduce my yearly payment for gas and electricity by around £300. Being on a pay-as-you-go meter system it means you never get behind with a bill and can see from the meters how much you are using, but I would like to have a smart meter because you can see how much power you are using and also pay via an app or on-line rather than having to top up at a shop. But, as you will know if you read my blog posts, that I've had two companies say they can install a smart meter but when they arrive at look in the meter cupboard, they say they can't go ahead because they would need to drill a hole through into the house, basically because the gas meter is on the outside, in the meter cupboard, whilst the electricity meter is on the inside of the house. Why on earth were they not put together in one place? It makes life difficult if the gas runs out in the winter, you have to go outside with the step stool and a torch, especially when it's cold and dark, and it's quite an effort to then put the card in the slot in the meter and go through the process of checking the amount left on the meter etc etc. But the work has to be done by my beloved landlord who doesn't want to spend any money on anything in this house, and that would include dealing with the smart meter.
I have now learned that my current tariff includes what is called Economy 7, which means that the cost of electricity is a good deal cheaper over night, which I never knew. Which means in the long run it would be cheaper to do my washing at night and hopefully save quite a considerable amount on my electricity bill. Goodness knows why I haven't discovered this fact until now I have no idea.
The last thing that needed sorting was my car insurance. I knew it was about to need renewing. Then I got a letter in the post marked Swinton Insurance, the company which I have the motor insurance with. Last year's premium was just over £1000 and this year the just under half of that, with a monthly payment of around £48. Which pleases me, as you can imagine.
Then earlier in the month I got a telephone call from SSE, and they can reduce my yearly payment for gas and electricity by around £300. Being on a pay-as-you-go meter system it means you never get behind with a bill and can see from the meters how much you are using, but I would like to have a smart meter because you can see how much power you are using and also pay via an app or on-line rather than having to top up at a shop. But, as you will know if you read my blog posts, that I've had two companies say they can install a smart meter but when they arrive at look in the meter cupboard, they say they can't go ahead because they would need to drill a hole through into the house, basically because the gas meter is on the outside, in the meter cupboard, whilst the electricity meter is on the inside of the house. Why on earth were they not put together in one place? It makes life difficult if the gas runs out in the winter, you have to go outside with the step stool and a torch, especially when it's cold and dark, and it's quite an effort to then put the card in the slot in the meter and go through the process of checking the amount left on the meter etc etc. But the work has to be done by my beloved landlord who doesn't want to spend any money on anything in this house, and that would include dealing with the smart meter.
I have now learned that my current tariff includes what is called Economy 7, which means that the cost of electricity is a good deal cheaper over night, which I never knew. Which means in the long run it would be cheaper to do my washing at night and hopefully save quite a considerable amount on my electricity bill. Goodness knows why I haven't discovered this fact until now I have no idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment