A frugal life is an easy life!

Fact: Saving energy and water costs you more money.
I want to save energy, the more I save energy and change the way we do things in our house, the more I find that I am paying more money out of my pocket!

There are those that say, yes the initial payments for products and installations may come out of your pocket, but once they are up and running the savings are there for all to see.
Well I'm not so sure... as I will point out, on some items, the initial over-inflated costs to your pocket is not recovered within the lifetime of the product, using their own figures!
All the "experts" and industry promoting bodies, never mention or factor in the costs associated with insuring products against repair or for servicing do they?
Why not?

There are also questions about exactly how much "energy saving" goes on as regards making products - in todays throw away society, can it not be the case that repairing things with a part rather than buying a replacement machine would be the best way of saving energy? How much energy is used up to make products? To dispose of products?
These factors are never mentioned, again, why not? 

Look at what the so called experts/media are saying about energy saving measures;

Installing a new boiler to replace your G rated boiler will save you money on your fuel bills.
- Not according to British gas billing department it won't!
When gas bills remained expensive after a new "Energy efficient boiler" was installed, I contacted British gas about it. They stated twice... "A new boiler does not use less gas than an old boiler!"

- According to the energy saving trust's own figures, a new boiler "could" save you upto £230 a year on your energy bills.
The energy saving trust's own figure of average cost to buy and install a new boiler is £2500.
Taking the maximum you could save per year and dividing it by the average cost of buying/installing a new energy efficient boiler, it would take you 10 years 8 months to break even!
A vital cost to your pocket, is significant by it's absence in the energy saving trust's figures - boiler maintainance and repair costs! (They do not mention it once when saying a new boiler will save you money on your energy bills!)
Taking the minimum contract cost of £8 per month (British gas) and not counting the first £50 for parts that you have to find for each repair, you would have to pay out another £1152 (This is £8 per month over a 12 year period)
When added to the energy saving trust's own average figure for buying/installing a new boiler of £2500, this brings the total outlay you have to find out of your pocket to £3652

Taking the maximum the energy saving trust say you "could" save each year on your energy bills by having the new boiler fitted and maintained, of £230 per year, it would take you 15 years and 8 months to break even!

The average lifespan of a boiler today according to the energy saving trust, is 12 years - later than this parts become obsolete, harder to repair, etc.
The boiler would need replacing after 12 years, but the projected estimated savings (based on industry data from manufacturers selling you the boilers and energy companies which sell you the energy, ie, not independant) would mean you are seriously out of pocket. Your boiler would need replacing again and you'd still have another 3 years 8 months of bill savings to go, just to get your money back from your initial outlay!

I thought saving energy was supposed to save the customer money? It doesn't look that way according to figures published by the energy saving trust - who tell us that we will save money if we replace a G rated boiler with a new energy efficient boiler.

Saving water is another big plus point we are told - yet our new energy efficient boiler uses up five pints of water each time before hot water comes out of the tap, that's all waste water!
Whilst the water is going from cold - warm - hot, it is also using electricity and gas, none of these factors are included in "energy" studies.

Fitting double glazing will save you upto £140 a year on your energy bills.
- Our house was kitted out in the latest energy saving double glazing just three years ago. Total cost came in at £2800
At the projected savings on our energy bill rate, of £140 per year (energy saving trust), it would take a staggering 20 years of maximum bill savings to recoup the money we paid out to have the entire house double glazed.
It would take that long to break even with this energy saving measure, that the warranty for the windows and doors would have lapsed 10 years previously (yes a full decade before they pay for themselves)
This makes the 10 year guarantee on the double glazing we bought and had fitted, not worth the paper it was written on. (Again the warranty is never mentioned when stating costs!)

I thought saving energy was supposed to save me money?

Shop around and switch your energy provider/tariff.
- The top price comparison websites are marketing anything and everything about getting people to use their website and change tariff/energy provider to "save money" with promises of savings of anything between £100-£200 per year on energy bills.

Take a step back and look at the reality of this practice.
Every single customer of the big six energy companies, is subsidising the millions of pounds they are paying out each year to the top comparison websites.
According to which? around 60% of your energy bills are for wholesale energy costs, 5% is VAT, leaving 35% of what you pay for your energy every month/year, for services, pipework, and for their profits, marketing, schemes and the biggest elephant in the room, price comparison website commission payments!

When you try to breakdown your bill, the companies make it as difficult as possible to do. Statements are misleading, prices quoted on price comparison websites differ from your statements/bills as they do not include VAT, etc.
The energy companies' staff cannot agree on how they arrive at the prices they charge (Can they british gas!) as the energy companies don't allow them access to simple basic information, such as what the company are using to work out each account's usage, eg, the CV figure.

Yet strangely, you get as close as you can to getting factual figures to see how your bill is worked out and it almost balances, based on energy use!
Very bizarre, as 35% of your bill is not based on your energy use!
Why else do you think that both the top price comparison websites and the energy companies are resisting opening up their books to scrutiny so that the British public can see what our money really goes on?

If you ask a seller how much commission they are receiving for a particular product or service, by law they have to tell you prior to a sale being made.
Try asking a price comparison website how much they receive of the energy companies when you use them to switch... I wouldn't hold your breathe!

Indirectly, many people do not realise that by using price comparison websites, they are inadvertantly pushing up the price of energy for everyone.
"But I'm saving £150 per year if I switch!" - have you factored in the extra costs of energy to recover the price comparison website's commission payments that everybody is paying for?
Have you considered any early termination fees that your former energy provider may try to impose upon your wallet? It varies between energy suppliers, but on average it is around £60 per switch. Are we to seriously believe that the energy companies do not pass these "costs" on to customers?
Next add in any "admin" fees to your total bill. How much are people paying as a whole, for leaving energy contracts early? Are these "admin" charges recovering actual loss, or loss of profits that they would have had, had the customer stayed full term of their energy contract?
All is not what it would at first appear... why do you think the price comparison websites push you into switching with articles and forum questions (started by owners of the website to generate interest) that are loaded with keywords so they appear on the first page of search engine results, etc.
It's a marketing trick - they couldn't give a monkeys about you or I, all they want is as many people to hit their websites so that they receive a nice commission payment and increase their own profits. They also make big profits from selling your information on but that's for another post.

The sooner people wise up and realise that price comparison websites put up the prices for everyone the better. Although it's a different post all of its own, just look at everything that's rocketing in price - Insurances, loans, gas, electricity, water, holidays, mortgages, etc, all flying up in price and are the main income earners for price comparison websites. Coincidence? I don't think so!

Buy A rated energy efficient appliances.
- Two tumble dryers, one is a condenser dryer with a plastic tub at the bottom so that every two or three cycles, I can pull out the tub and pour the water down the sink and back into the system.
The other tumble dryer has a huge tube which is hung out of the window or via a pre cut hole in the kitchen wall. The water vapour is put back into the atmosphere, where it will gather in rain clouds and fall as rain much later or in another country, etc.
The ordinary dryer with hose, costs £180-£200. The condenser dryer that I empty to save water and put it back into the system, costs anything from £280 upwards (ours cost £320).

Why is the energy/water saving model more expensive?
Where is my incentive to help the planet, energy and water companies?
Both dryers use the same amount of electricity, both dry the same load of clothes in the same time, the only difference is that the condenser model puts 5 litres of water back into the system.
I am collecting the water here, giving it to water companies that are filling in reservoirs ready for sale to developers, at the same time as connecting more new builds and converted houses into flats to the water system and putting up their charges.
Three weeks without rain in some eastern counties are being given warnings that drought notices maybe issued shortly if they don't get considerable rainfall.

We pay in higher charges, we pay more for our appliances because they have a sticker giving them a high rating on them. When do the people benefit?
The less we use, the more they charge to maintain their level of profit.

Recycle as much of your rubbish as possible.
- To help the planet each home is seperating its rubbish as never before. Reducing landfill is a major factor.
In recent years the amount of landfill needed and used has fallen dramatically. When do we ever hear from the media that this is the case?
When are our council tax bills going to be reduced? Yes that's right reduced!
The less we use landfill, the more they put up their price, we cannot win.
What are those in power and supposedly those that are lecturing us all on what we should be doing, actually doing to stop the businesses that are producing all this waste?

How many recycling centres do supermarkets have? The "waste" in them is sold to other countries, so it still ends up in land fill, only in other countries so it's not our problem.

One of THE biggest producers of waste is the supermarket.
How many times have they been fined or closed down for producing this waste, that WE have to pay increased taxes to put into landfill?
I haven't even touched upon the amount of CO2 emissions that are pumped out when supermarkets are allowed to grow things abroad and keep it chilled whilst it travels halfway around the world!

Make less trips in your cars, use public transport!
- That's why public transport costs have more than trebled in recent years is it?
A short 12 stop bus ride I made recently, to and from a town no more than 2 miles away, cost £4.40 - I could have used my car and made the same trip for much less. Surely if it's the way forward to use public transport, to save carbon emissions and energy, shouldn't the price to use it be, at the very least, reasonable?

Where's the incentive to get out of the car and use the train/bus?

Don't even get me started on trains, take five minutes to view a few of the #ripoffbritain posts on twitter, the prices of using our trains is astronomical.
How are workers supposed to use public transport to get to their place of toil, when half the time buses don't even go there, or the worker has to get one bus 2 miles in the opposite direction, to catch a bus that will get to the small town where they work? Extra costs in ticket prices are extortionate.
What about all those workers who graft on an industrial estate where buses never go?

When will we hear of "energy" and "climate" campaigners using their pressure groups to pressurise the government of the day to provide bus services that get to where people want/have to go?
When was the last time you read a god knows how much costing report, that pointed out that workers are being neglected at the same time as paying record prices for, public transport?
I cannot recall a single instance of this, why not?

So why do we bother at all?
I say again - I want to save energy and money - so why do they make it so damned expensive and difficult to do so?
Did you know that the electricity system in the UK is set up so that with simple equipment, energy can be generated and put back into the system/on the grid, using a simple 3 pin plug.
Why are companies sitting on this basic technology?
I'd wager that an entire gym could be powered by linking their gym machines to equipment that could put electricity back into the system... so why aren't we told about this?
Every energy saving measure/equipment is designed to promote the industry and increase turnover.
Put simply, the more energy we save, the higher the price of energy rises. It's not good enough!

UPDATE:
Centrica (Owners of British Gas) have confirmed that consumers are being financially punished (punished is the right word for it) the more we save energy, via the price we are all charged for heating our homes, cooking and hot water.
In an interview given to the daily mail, Centrica quoted three reasons for the need for future price rises in energy, one of which was, "because of lower consumption"

Providing energy for homes, should never be, an opportunity for any energy company to make good profits.
The majority of profits for the energy providers should come from other sources of business, such as replacement boilers, boiler insurances/servicing contracts etc.
The actual energy provision, energy companies would do well to remember, is a service that every home requires and is essential to the entire population.

It cannot be morally or ethically right, for an energy company to put up the price of energy we all use and need, for reasoning that we are all using less energy, whilst at the same time, being encouraged by the very same energy company, spending yet more money (that comes from OUR pockets via our bills) on promoting that we should all use less energy!

This would explain why the Energy saving trust and British Gas are keeping very quiet about it and not answering questions over on our twitter feed!