Saving energy where we can #fivefrugalthings

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind. This is because we had an overnight stay in London at the start of the week for my birthday and we crammed in as much as we possibly could over the two days there. We are both completely shattered, but it was a very enjoyable trip. You can see what we got up to on my YouTube channel here.

I realised as I was writing this post that, aside from our trip, most of our focus has been on saving energy. Here’s what we got up to this week.

Not frugal but fun!

I can’t say it was particularly frugal to have a night away. We stayed in central London and ate out a couple of times whilst we were there. However, we did cut the costs in a couple of ways. For example, we sought out free museums to visit. In this case we went to the V&A (which was fabulous – my favourite) and the Natural History Museum. The Sky Garden was wonderful and was also free to get in, although we had a meal in there as a birthday treat. I really recommend the Sky Garden at night. Amazing views over London.

We had to pay to get into St Paul’s but we made the most of our visit and were there several hours. The climb to the very top gallery was exhausting but also amazing – 527 steps that turned our legs to jelly!! Neither of us had done it before and it was a great experience.

We also popped into Boots for a meal deal for our lunch on day two. This was much cheaper than getting something in a restaurant.

The train there was really cheap – only £12 each. We booked ahead because we didn’t mind getting a particular train. However, we couldn’t do that on the way home because we didn’t know what time we would be ready to come back and didn’t want to rush. That was almost three times the price! Train prices in the UK are pretty silly when you consider that we need to dramatically cut our carbon emissions and should be encouraging as many people as possible to travel on public transport.

As I said in my YouTube video, it isn’t frugal to have a trip to London. But the point is that we do without in other areas so that we can have weekends away and holidays. It’s a priority for us, whereas eating out every week, going to the cinema all the time or regularly drinking in a pub isn’t.

Investing in an Instant pot

As it was my birthday last week, I asked my family for vouchers so that I could buy an Instant Pot. I have wanted one for a while, and have been watching Claire from Claire’s Journey on YouTube using hers from time to time.

With energy prices at an all-time high, it makes sense to cook as quickly as possible. The Instant Pot acts as a pressure cooker, a slow cooker, it has a sauce function and you can even make yogurt in it!

Everybody raves about them on my Facebook group, so I decided to invest. I have chosen the Instant Pot Duo Eco Plus 10-in-1*. The basic 7-in-1 model was cheaper, but after reading the reviews I thought I may as well get the best I could afford. It didn’t cost me anything anyway since my family gave me all of the money for it!

I can’t wait for it to arrive so I can start experimenting with it and saving energy whilst cooking.

Keeping cosy

Another item I have been wanting for a while is a heated throw*. I spent the rest of my birthday money on this. Again, with fuel prices going up so fast, this will hopefully mean I can sit at my laptop working with the throw over my shoulders to keep me warm instead of having to put the heating on, thus saving energy.

We can also snuggle up under it whilst watching the TV.

I know we are coming out of winter now, but I figure that I may as well get one whilst I have the money. My daughter has had hers for a couple of years and thinks it is brilliant!

Gardening efforts

We have had very little time to spend in the garden this week. The tomatoes and courgettes are doing well. However, the frost got my runner bean seedlings, even though they were in the greenhouse. I thought they would be safe there, but it seems not!

Also, so far, my peppers have failed to germinate. I have another pack of seeds so plan to sow a few more this week as back up. 

I love the idea of a productive vegetable patch, but in reality we only have time for a few plants. However, with the price of food at the moment, every little helps! Hopefully, we will have some successful crops again this year.

Keeping an eye on the meter

Regular readers will know that we finally got a smart meter last month. It is interesting to see the variations in our energy spend each day. Cooking and heating are definitely the activities that see our usage rise a lot. With that in mind, the heated throw and Instant Pot seem like really worthwhile investments!

I don’t obsessively watch the meter, but I do keep an eye, especially since the price cap was lifted at the beginning of the month. If I think it’s going up too quickly I start to scale down, turning off the heating and lights. Let’s hope the bills aren’t too horrific! All we can do is try not to waste energy and be as efficient as possible.

Anyway, these are my frugalish things for the week. For great ideas on how to live a more thrifty life, come and join my Facebook group, My Second Hand and Frugal Life.

I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.

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