A frugal life is an easy life!

One thing I have learned in recent years, is that a person can only be frugal in any way, when they introduce CHOICE.

Choice has become the enemy of business in recent years, once the individual has a choice, then they can see right through what the business is doing.
A prime example of this is with our energy providers.

I don't care what the big energy providers tell us and lead people to believe, in my opinion they are operating a monopoly.
They take it in turns to increase prices and no matter how many wind turbines are put in place, the price to the customer continues to increase.
In the past 12 months I have tried to limit the use of gas, setting a timer, thermostat, even fitting a brand new boiler in place of the 35 year old back boiler we had. Every year it is the same result, we magically use close to 300 units from mid november to mid december (and every other winter month until March) despite having the heating on for the same amount of time.

From mid October to mid November last year we used 85 units of gas - same as the year before.
The following month, we managed to use just short of 300 units of gas, despite having the same gas use as the month before.
As a result of this mysterious increase in usage, which British gas cannot explain, the monthly cost increases from around £45 per month, up to £130 per month over winter.

I asked British gas for a price per unit of gas, so I could keep tabs on how much we use, three staff couldn't tell me, the fourth could only tell me the formula, which is used to work it out.
Even armed with the formula, multiply number of units by some obscure 0.1233455 (for example) multiply by days in a month, think of a number would be more accurate, this formula only worked out right if I had an old imperial meter, the new metric meters work it out differently!

God only knows how people on direct debits cope with gas bills?
I know of many people who have been paying a set amount each month throughout the year, all well and good, until year end then find they are left with a huge lumpsum to pay, as there has been a mix up, or the meter reading is estimated or the price has changed, etc.
It's a rip off plain and simple.
Changing gas company might save me £25 after masses of paperwork and waiting for four weeks for it to transfer over, not to mention the increase in cost to me because the comparison website's commission has to be paid for (on average £60 per switch over), which is never pointed out to the customer, but has to be found from somewhere!

Gas is not going to get any cheaper as resources run out.
So I have just made arrangements for a friend to come in next week and price up and fit a solid fuel/coal fire.
We never use the gas fire here, too much dry heat, too expensive to run it, we rely on central heating. Falling for the new boiler is more efficient scam, we now see clearly from the money missing from our pocket, that the costs remain the same.

Efficiency is paramount we are told by the powers that be, reduce carbon emmissions, blah, blah, blah...
Efficiency ALWAYS costs more money in my experience.
The only efficiency I am interested in, is to be able to heat my home for a price that doesn't leave us cutting back on our food budget (already thrifty) just to keep warm.
A friend told me they used to have a coal fire, their gas bill PER QUARTER was just £35
They fell for the new boiler/central heating scam, got rid of their coal fire and now are sick of paying out £5 every other day!

Even a cost of £500 to fit a chimney liner and fire surround along with the actual fire, would still pay for itself within one winter.
More importantly, having an alternative source of heating for the house, gives me a CHOICE!
If I don't want to continue paying vast sums to rip off gas companies, I simply pick up a sack of coal from my local farmer (around £8 for a 25kg sack as I write) and away we go.
I shall post pictures and information next week, when hopefully, I'll be sweating cobs in my toasty new house, with around £90 per month more in my pocket.