Well I heard on the news this morning that energy provider Scottish Power will be raising its prices by 19% and can only assume that the other major energy suppliers will be following suit soon.
I knew prices would go up, but Im genuinely shocked that it will be by this much considering the amount energy prices have risen in the past few years already!
I also find it annoying that they have timed this for the summer when our minds are focused on wishing for the sunshine and hot weather and not concentrating on our huge winter fuel bills.
Despite my best attempts to save on energy last winter we were still left with massive bills that were difficult to pay, and as the other half will confirm Im pretty tight when it comes to the heating at the best of times!
Lucky for us our children will be toddlers not babies next winter so I feel slightly less worried about keeping the house a few degrees cooler and wrapping them up in some big jumpers, but I know that not everyone is so lucky.
My reason for posting though is to remind everyone to be like Scottish Power and catch people off guard with the summer time. Now is the best time to buy insulating ad heating items for your home. Alot of the major retailers will still have these thing on sale making room for more appropriate summer stock, and your local paper/ebay or gumtree are great sources too as people are included to sell these things to make space in the summer, but there are much less people buying so if you are in a position to consider savings for the winter now is the time to act!
After moving into this house last summer we wanted to experience a winter in it to see where the problems lie.
The major things I will be fixing prewinter are making sure the heating is set on a timer only and not 'sneaked on' during the day! and investing in a freestanding electric fire for the lounge. We wasted alot of money last year by heating the whole house when we were only in one room, so this year Im going to put a fire (and fireguard!!) in the lounge to reduce this problem. Also we have very draughty flooring in our lounge so a tick rug along the edge where the gap is should help too.
(dont forget when looking for rugs/carpets to consider posting a message on your local freegal as people are often changing their colour schemes and happy to give away their old rug/carpets).
Also if you have draughty windows that you cant change (as we did in our old house) then hanging thick lined curtains will at least help to retain the heat!
If anyone else has some great tips to share then please leave a comment!
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