Gas and bills
22 January 2021 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI got another letter from the gas company telling me that because I am "using less gas" my monthly payments have now been cut to £10. Since they also showed that there had actually been a shortfall in what I paid versus what I had been charged since July I found this a bit alarming, but given that they are sitting on hundreds of pounds' worth of accumulated overpayment after spending a year billing me at fifty pounds a month, I suppose it makes sense that they want to reduce the excess a bit faster.
The extra five pounds a month helps counteract the increase in council tax, even if it doesn't go far towards the concurrent increase in the telephone bill...
I ran the figures for the last ten months' expenditure.
I'm spending on average £215 per month on utility bills and £120 per month on food (of which about £80 is fresh fruit and veg, and most of the rest meat and dairy products).
Unfortunately this is misleading, and my actual expenditure has been closer to £850/month than £340/month, thanks to insurance/NI (budgeted for), the luxury of very expensive music lessons (budgeted for), plus unbudgeted spending on *two* defunct computers, handmade shoes that needed resoling, and ongoing home repairs (all of which have to come out of the £1,500 annual 'contingencies' allowance). I've already spent more than my estimated 12-month budget, minus contingencies — but I've had rather a lot of the latter.
I haven't been to a supermarket since August, which means that I'm now paying about £5 a month more both for meat and for dairy products (the allowance being about a pint of milk, 3 eggs and 8oz of butter for all cooking/baking purposes per week, and one meat product on average every other week -- since that can mean e.g a whole pound of venison, it does go quite a long way!) It also means I'm paying more for my fruit and veg (and, for example, getting down to the bottom of the sacks of flour and of sugar that I bought in the summer). My diet used to consist of a lot of special offers; the nearest I've been to a 'special offer' of late was spending £2.50 on two Scotch eggs that were down to half-price on the butcher's stall on account of having been misdated! (The meat component of four meals, when cut in half and frozen; not too bad.)
Given that I haven't been paying for various things that *were* in the budget, however, like dental checkups, bike overhauls, film society membership, choir fees, and gas at £50 a month, it's rather dispiriting that living under siege and on a shoestring I'm still managing to exceed my means...
The extra five pounds a month helps counteract the increase in council tax, even if it doesn't go far towards the concurrent increase in the telephone bill...
I ran the figures for the last ten months' expenditure.
I'm spending on average £215 per month on utility bills and £120 per month on food (of which about £80 is fresh fruit and veg, and most of the rest meat and dairy products).
Unfortunately this is misleading, and my actual expenditure has been closer to £850/month than £340/month, thanks to insurance/NI (budgeted for), the luxury of very expensive music lessons (budgeted for), plus unbudgeted spending on *two* defunct computers, handmade shoes that needed resoling, and ongoing home repairs (all of which have to come out of the £1,500 annual 'contingencies' allowance). I've already spent more than my estimated 12-month budget, minus contingencies — but I've had rather a lot of the latter.
I haven't been to a supermarket since August, which means that I'm now paying about £5 a month more both for meat and for dairy products (the allowance being about a pint of milk, 3 eggs and 8oz of butter for all cooking/baking purposes per week, and one meat product on average every other week -- since that can mean e.g a whole pound of venison, it does go quite a long way!) It also means I'm paying more for my fruit and veg (and, for example, getting down to the bottom of the sacks of flour and of sugar that I bought in the summer). My diet used to consist of a lot of special offers; the nearest I've been to a 'special offer' of late was spending £2.50 on two Scotch eggs that were down to half-price on the butcher's stall on account of having been misdated! (The meat component of four meals, when cut in half and frozen; not too bad.)
Given that I haven't been paying for various things that *were* in the budget, however, like dental checkups, bike overhauls, film society membership, choir fees, and gas at £50 a month, it's rather dispiriting that living under siege and on a shoestring I'm still managing to exceed my means...
