Not posted in a while and I will try to restrict myself to things other might actually find useful ...
Others may call my lifestyle masochistic, but I would live this way no matter how wealthy I was - except that I would live in a better-insulated home and have solar power and perhaps even a wind turbine. (I'm hoping to do that in any case).
Apart from the cost, there are environmental and geopolitical factors.
I fully acknowledge that it will be very different for people who don't live alone or who are not as lucky as I am with regards health and fitness and I realise how cruel it is when the wealthy are rubbing it in our faces.
A couple of weeks ago, before the vile Tories kindly loaned us our own money, I found myself faced with an electricity bill I had become accustomed-to like a frog in a saucepan, first doubling and then tripling - and then there was the kettle "advice" and the rest...
So I finally bought a plug-in energy meter and set to working out where I was wasting electricity... I disconnected an inefficient 12 volt PSU and a 4 port ethernet switch I didn't need ...
Fridge - 2kwh per day
PC - 1.5 to 2 - acts as heating in winter.
cooking total - 0.6 :-
tea - 0.43 (boiled spuds and sauteed veggies from scratch)
breakfast (coffee and toast) - 0.09 (includes heat wasted by steel kettle and 2-slice toaster)
bread baking 0.355 / 6 = 0.06
I happily bathe at the basin with cold water and only heat water for a bath/laundry about once a month and I should lower the thermostat temperature (or perhaps fit one of my electronic ones ?) so I don't need to add any cold water to bring it to 40 degrees C. Being about 3KW, that probably accounts for between 6 and 9 kwh over 30 days =
0.25 kwh
Even adding a fairly sophisticated thermostat to my tiny camping fridge set to 10 degrees with generous hysteresis and switch-on delay, I can't get the usage down - but apparently even good modern fridges average 1.4 - so I will be consciously switching to alternative methods of storing my food once it gets colder - since I can't see myself reclaiming the 87 watts to heat my room ...
Of course there is
heating to be factored-in for the winter months ahead, but last winter I saved several KWH over previous years thanks to slippers and a fleece waistcoat and I'm seriously considering electrically-heated clothing to substantially improve on this and hopefully see me doing work around the house and garden. (I have a stash of reclaimed 18650 cells).
My only heating last winter was a small fan-heater under my bench/desk and I should fit a better thermostat to this (perhaps under my clothing rather than in the room ?)
I could save even more if I went out for serious exercise in the evenings in place of my modest daily park walk - to replace my cycle commutes that used to see me cooling-off shirtless in 13 degrees C.
Perversely, at my recent yearly average consumption, once the £400 is factored-in I will be paying slightly less over 12 months.
Perhaps due to my focussing on it, I have recently been using less than I did last year - though this chart is misleading because of varying sampling intervals.