Country Ways and Cottage Days: Money Saving Tip

Monday, 12 December 2022

Hot Tea, Maths {oh! no!}, Yuletide Lads, and Advent Day 12

Hello friends!

I think you've heard me mention the money saving expert Martin Lewis before. Well he has a useful calculation for working out how much an appliance uses and costs to run. I'm not mathematically inclined, and to be perfectly honest the way our bills are presented to us in the United Kingdom you need an “ology” to understand them. However, his calculation is simple and straight forward and even I can manage it! So here it is, and I hope it helps you calculate the costs of some of your appliances as you run them. Of course if you've moved into the 21st century and have a smart meter you won't really need this information but I know there's a lot of us out there who still don't have them.

1,000 watts = 1 kw and a Kilowatt hour is what the companies use to charge you. You will need to check this on your bill, but for sake of argument let's say the average cost is 35 pence per kWh.

say your appliance is using 200 watts an hour. This means if you run it for one hour you are using 1/5 of a kWh. of energy per hour. Or, You are using 1/5 of 35 pence. Which is 7 pence per hour.

I am not mathematically inclined. It took me a while to work this out in my head to where I could understand it, so I hope I've put it down so you can understand it too. And I hope it helps you work out your usage, even if it's only an approximation.

I am drinking gallons of hot tea throughout the day. Ginger tea, or ordinary black tea without milk and a slice of ginger or even chilli in it helps warm you up from the inside.

Today sees the arrival in Iceland of the Icelandic Yuletide Lads. Those of you who follow my blog regularly will be familiar with them, so I won't go on about them again, but for those who are interested in reading about this tradition I have written about it daily starting here. I shall let you read the back blogs on the Yuletide lads instead of sharing a Christmas or seasonal book today.

Well my friends, the mystery of the key deepens as today we're back to a dear little British Robin hiding in the bare winter branches of the tree. What is that key hiding? What secret will it unlock? We must all wait and see now!

Until next time,

stay safe, stay well, stay warm

Debbie xo

Croeso ♥ Welcome

Over the years the concept of my blog has changed and it is now become a vehicle for therapy. For those of you who are following I beg your forgiveness for all spelling errors, punctuation errors and grammar errors that occur within my writing. As many of you know, I have been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. This limits my day to day activities in ways I could not have foreseen nor even begin to understand. One of these ways is that I can no longer type manually and rely on a Dictaphone which has its own mind, just like good old auto correct it decides where the punctuation should occur and how words should be spelled. It even decides what I am trying to say. I plan to keep on blogging for as long as I can. I might not get around to commenting and replying on all of your lovely comments, but they are all read, and greatly appreciated. Much love always.