Handy Tips & Money Savers

[Kurt Cocaine]

Something to help out in these times of forced austerity but also to help the environment too.

I should have mentioned this a few months ago but......

If you keep your heating on as low as you can bear during these cold winter months. By keeping it on as low as you can and leave it on 24/7 you'll save money and oil/gas too, thus helping the environment.
A colleague of mine used to do BER energy ratings on properties before moving to our company.
He said the hardest thing on fuel energy is trying to heat cold water to hot. Keeping warm water warm is very easy and cost efficient.
When you have your heating set to come on, let's say an hour before you get home from work, it's blasting full power to get all that cold water warn to circulate around the system. Especially expensive if you have a house with up to 8 or more radiators to heat.
We've been doing this since October and have been using 3 x 25 litre drums of Kerosene each month.
It's about €10 a drum here on the border, so by March we'll have heated our two bedroom house (with 5 radiators) for about €180... Not bad at all.

Any tips or tricks you guys have, please feel free to share and I'll add more myself.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Shit in work.

[Kurt Cocaine]

You obviously don't work with the filthy pigs I do.
Home every time, unless absolutely necessary.

[Kurt Cocaine]

Someone put a thread up here before with a deal from Tidal music (Spotify variant).
I've been using it since that time (about 13 months) for the princely sum of about €13.....
I signed up for 6 months at a cost of €5. Then I got my missus to sign up for the same and I just signed in under her name. Then just before Christmas they offered me 4 months for €3...
Leaves me with spare money to purchase from the artists that I happen to come across on there.
I'm sure you can get similar deals on some of the other music platforms if you look for their deals.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

You obviously don't work with the filthy pigs I do.

It would be some commute if I did!

[astfgyl]

Something to help out in these times of forced austerity but also to help the environment too.

I should have mentioned this a few months ago but......

If you keep your heating on as low as you can bear during these cold winter months. By keeping it on as low as you can and leave it on 24/7 you'll save money and oil/gas too, thus helping the environment.
A colleague of mine used to do BER energy ratings on properties before moving to our company.
He said the hardest thing on fuel energy is trying to heat cold water to hot. Keeping warm water warm is very easy and cost efficient.
When you have your heating set to come on, let's say an hour before you get home from work, it's blasting full power to get all that cold water warn to circulate around the system. Especially expensive if you have a house with up to 8 or more radiators to heat.
We've been doing this since October and have been using 3 x 25 litre drums of Kerosene each month.
It's about €10 a drum here on the border, so by March we'll have heated our two bedroom house (with 5 radiators) for about €180... Not bad at all.

Any tips or tricks you guys have, please feel free to share and I'll add more myself.

Is that an actual thing? I've heard about it but I asked a plumber and he said he didn't know if it made any difference so I thought it was a bit of an urban myth.

Shit in work.

Not an option for me, being the only bloke in the place!

My contribution to this is I suggest to drink the cheapest lager possible and be as jakey as you like without breaking the bank. Another one for anyone who smokes just buy the rollies instead of the fags. 200 quid a month back in the pocket and that's even without getting the cheap 50 gram. With suggestions like that, I foresee a future of lurking in this thread for me.

[Kurt Cocaine]

You obviously don't work with the filthy pigs I do.

It would be some commute if I did!

Be worth it to see me. XXxX

[Kurt Cocaine]

Something to help out in these times of forced austerity but also to help the environment too.

I should have mentioned this a few months ago but......

If you keep your heating on as low as you can bear during these cold winter months. By keeping it on as low as you can and leave it on 24/7 you'll save money and oil/gas too, thus helping the environment.
A colleague of mine used to do BER energy ratings on properties before moving to our company.
He said the hardest thing on fuel energy is trying to heat cold water to hot. Keeping warm water warm is very easy and cost efficient.
When you have your heating set to come on, let's say an hour before you get home from work, it's blasting full power to get all that cold water warn to circulate around the system. Especially expensive if you have a house with up to 8 or more radiators to heat.
We've been doing this since October and have been using 3 x 25 litre drums of Kerosene each month.
It's about €10 a drum here on the border, so by March we'll have heated our two bedroom house (with 5 radiators) for about €180... Not bad at all.

Any tips or tricks you guys have, please feel free to share and I'll add more myself.

Is that an actual thing? I've heard about it but I asked a plumber and he said he didn't know if it made any difference so I thought it was a bit of an urban myth.

Shit in work.

Not an option for me, being the only bloke in the place!

My contribution to this is I suggest to drink the cheapest lager possible and be as jakey as you like without breaking the bank. Another one for anyone who smokes just buy the rollies instead of the fags. 200 quid a month back in the pocket and that's even without getting the cheap 50 gram. With suggestions like that, I foresee a future of lurking in this thread for me.

Absolutely agree with the beer thing but get a couple of decent beers to start off with and when your taste buds start flagging, hit the cheapo stuff.

[astfgyl]

That's a fuckin great idea. Gonna do that next time instead of going straight in with the cheap shit

[Kurt Cocaine]

Another great booze tip is: say you're having a Jameson, Ginger Ale & Lime....
I get a couple of glasses and put about 50ml ginger ale in each glass and freeze for a couple of hours.
Take your glass out of the freezer, put in your shot of whiskey and top up with more ginger ale, add your lime and hey presto, you have an ice cold drink with no watery ice diluting it.
And stays ice cold till the final drop coz of the nice round mixer ice at the bottom of the glass.
Works with any mixer you choose, cola, 7Up, apple juice, etc....

[ochoill]

Seconding the drink tip, get a couple of nice ones and then a rake of cheap cans for after that.  Or, if you're like me and like cheap lager anyway, it's a win win.

Budget.  An obvious one maybe but a surprising amount of people don't do it.  It is not even remotely hard to sit down and see your outgoings vs. income for the past three months, and that will easily let you plan three months into the future.  Expand it.  Spreadsheet that fucker and build it to do some projections for you.  Even if you're living week to week and on the bare minimum, it will help you to plan it right out and you are more likely to stick to it if you can directly see the benefits.  I am gone so bad for this that for the past five years I have built a yearly budget in excel and I keep it on my phone, it runs weekly and I put absolutely everything into the fucker.  Before my phone was capable of doing that properly, I used to draw one out and keep it in my wallet, and note everything on it.  The visibility will help you consider where you are wasting money, or what's hitting the hardest on you and needs to be looked at.  Regularly vetting it saves the money.

Simpler ones:  Always cook and freeze extra portions with your dinners.

If you're stuck some week, remember you can make about 6-8 portions of soup for about €4 worth of veg and it will hold for 3-4 days in the fridge.  I used to just buy whatever veg was on special in tesco the day I went shopping and knock together a soup out of it to do two of us for a few days, if you go for the extra reduced almost gone off stuff you can go cheaper again.

Buy all of the exact same colour and type of socks so you don't have to throw the pair out when one tears.  This also helps with not having to match them when doing a wash.  Nobody looks at your fuckin socks anyway

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

My múinteoir gnó would have absolutely loved you!

[Blackout]

Hooker -100 blips

Girlfriend - 100000 blips

[leatherface]

Cheap lager all the way but then limiting consumption of said lager is hard.😳

A bag of potatoes for homemade chips. Fry them up with some olive oil. Goes with almost anything.

Noodles too. Noodles can be picked up cheap and combined with other things (tuna for example).

Giving up smoking helps (if you smoke),  start vaping and you won't need to buy much liquid to keep going. No more '20 a day' pack everyday.

(..but I am not the best example of a financially responsible person, I like collecting vinyl, comics, old magazines..money goes somehow 😓)

[Trev]

It's always worth doing a balancing statement with the revenue every year. Usually end up getting a few quid in back taxes, hit the jackpot this time and getting a two grand refund in the next few days