Saved £67!

Yes indeedy my wonderful Fiance Mike had the task of trying to find cheaper Gas and Electric providers. We are currently with  NPower for both services and a few months ago they raised our direct debits from £100 a month to £162!!! We weren't impressed!! So Mike had a look round and inputted the meter readings and found that the Co-Op would charge us £95 a month for both!! This is cheaper than the original fee with NPower!! I couldn't believe it! I'm just hoping this includes the £60 annual fee too :-s altho as we're saving £148 a year, it would still be cheaper so... Either way, it should be win - win :oD so today my tip is:

Frugal Tip #2

Check around for cheaper service providers for energy, internet, phone etc. Take a note of any information and quotes given over the phone and look it all over before phoning them back and accepting.

Bloggy bit: We managed to find a new Sky+ box on Freecycle today :o) we were originally going to buy a new control as the one we have is very unresponsive (we got it second hand so it's been going a long time); the programmes we record also have a habit of jumping and going silent for the odd second here and there but we could have lived with that. Well, we've put up with it for about a year already lol so... But I noticed someone offering one so I emailed and voila he said we could have it :oD so fingers crossed this new one will run smoothly and we will also be able to press the play button, i button and the volume buttons will also work well too on the control :oD If the machine has more gigs than this one then that would be awesome, but not essential. We'll just have to make sure to not record too much / make sure we watch everything in a timely manner!

I also gave to Freecycle today too :o) Some crafty bits and some greetings cards that I was given and knew I'd never use. Feels good and also helps to declutter! I'm still busy stitching with the deadline coming up soon so I will need to buckle down tomorrow and get a load done to catch up for the days I missed due to Christmas, laziness and pure procrastination of which I am highly skilled at.

I am quite proud of myself today, instead of putting the heating on this afternoon I put on my hat and scarf :oD oh and drank lots of yummy hot tea! It's amazing how extra nice a hot cup of tea feels when you don't have the heating on lol! :o)

Off to do a bit of stitching then I think I'll go and watch the first episode of Mountain Men whilst I snuggle up in bed :o) I'm hoping it'll be like Yukon Men coz I love that show :oD and Alaska: The Last Frontier. I would love to live a subsistence lifestyle although I don't think my body would cope :o( (dodgy muscles, back and the whole body is dodgy or so it feels at times lol) but one day as long as we can have our own house with some land to grow our own fruit and veg and maybe have chickens too... Then I'll be happy :o) I'd just like to have more freedom and live more naturally, how nature intended... But with a flushing loo and a hot shower.

What about you, readers? What would your ideal life be like? Does it include money or freedom? Or do you think money is needed to be totally free? I would love to hear your thoughts...

Hugs xx