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One of the main reasons for us moving from our old house to our new one was to drastically reduce our overheads and household bills. The old house was amazing! It was big. It was old and it had tons of character. We lived there for just over 2 years and we made some great memories.
The winters there were horrendous! It had virtually no insulation and leaky old lead windows. It had an oil boiler which cost a small fortune to run and didn’t even heat the house properly when on full whack so we had to top up with electric fan heaters! (I can literally hear my eco-conscious friends recoiling in horror at the thought of it.)
After last winter we decided enough was enough and we had to move. Fortunately, there are currently a lot of new build developments happening in our area so we decided to go from one extreme to the other and buy a brand new house.
We have settled into our new house really well and we are already starting to see the savings that we are making.
Here are some examples of the savings we have made by moving…
Old House
Heating Bill- 3 tanks of oil per year = £1,500
Electric Bill- £960 per year
Water Rates – £840
Council Tax – Band H average of £2,500 per year
Total Costs = £5800!
New House
Heating Bill – £360
Electric Bill – £480
Water Rates – £438
Council Tax – Band D average of £1,594 per year
Total Cost = £2872!
That’s a total saving of = £2928 per year.
Now I don’t know what you think but I’d say that is a pretty good saving each year.
How good are you at keeping track of your household bills? Do you have a system or do you just wing it?
If you would like some help with your household bills you can visit websites such as the Santander site where they can help reduce your bills by up to 3%.
**Collaborative post with Santander
It’s a real pity that it’s so difficult to effectively insulate and upgrade old buildings to make them not only more cost effective but also more comfortable!
Your ideas and more importantly, actions on this, show that its not sometimes what you earn but what you don’t spend, that make you not only richer but also give a better quality of life.
It’ll be interesting to see if we benefit from the drop in oil prices…
You are right David. We would have loved to stay in our old house but it would have cost a small fortune to retro fit it to a half decent standard. I definitely feel like we made the right decision to move.
Luckily we don’t have to worry about oil prices any more but I bet a lot of people are happy about the drop.
Wow, great savings. I looked for your article in the Sunday Times online but I don’t subscribe so couldn’t read it – sob! But congrats on featuring, and lovely photo of you and your family!
Hi Jess, Thank you. Yes it’s a bit annoying that you can’t read the articles unless you subscribe but I suppose they have to do it like that to make money. We love the picture too 🙂
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