Frugal Friday | Competing

Over-eating

In the western world lots of people over-eat and it causes problems like obesity, diabetes and heart disease. I don’t eat so much now and often don’t put so much on my plate. I also eat far more vegetables. My chicken and chips with broccoli is healthy and frugal. Just half a chicken leg is enough for me now.

I always remove the skin from that chicken and so the meal is relatively low calorie. I have been looking at the Tefal Actifry low fat fryer today. It uses just a spoonful of oil to cook chips. I could half the cost of chips by cooking them from potatoes instead of using oven chips. It could be a good investment for £99.00 I shopped around on the net and found the cheapest was Amazon, Curry’s and Dixon’s. One of those would be good if you’re trying to lose weight too!

Competitions and contests

It can be quite frugal to enter competitions on the internet and it’s very frugal if you win a prize. Try to pick those that might not have many entries to give yourself a better chance of winning. You also have a better chance of winning something if you enter lots of them. If you’re regular reader you’ll know I entered a photography contest. There were a few hundred entries and so not that many and it is judged on skill (not luck). My entry got into the top 12 photographs and it will be very frugal if I win the top prize which is an expensive camera. I might even get a little free publicity for my writing and photography.

Driving

I’m trying to cut the cost of running a car a little. My car will go  in for a service and testing in 2 weeks time to a local garage that I trust. I can only really cut down by shopping around for petrol and doing less miles. I can plan journeys a little better. My car uses less fuel on roads where I can stay in a higher gear rather than narrow roads with speed humps. Sometimes the long way around uses less fuel. I tested the fuel consumption and when I’m on major roads in a higher gear I get 50% more miles to a litre of fuel. Speed humps and other traffic calming measures costs billions in wasted fuel.

“Don’t leave appliances on standby. It could waste up to 7 KW of electricity a day .”

That was a tweet I read earlier. My TV uses 1W of electric at most on standby. 24 mWh a day, That works out to 9 KWH a year. So leaving your TV on standby costs about £1.00 a year. I wonder what that guy does to use 7 KWH a day, leave his shower on standby? He also says you can save 10% on heating by turning the thermostat down 1 degree. That will save £60, he reckons. If you want to save on heating, don’t leave doors and windows open for any longer than necessary. Wear a sweater to keep warm. Go to bed early! Get up a little later. Time your heating to go off before you go to bed! I don’t think the Tweeter even knows what a Kilowatt hour is…

I just read a Tweet that said landscape your garden with edible plants. That is a good idea, many edible plants have nice flowers and foliage. Brassicas in the borders and fruits in the flower beds?

I’m thinking about going shopping to Poundland and Peacocks. I could wait until tomorrow when the market is on, but it will be busier and parking will be difficult. A little thought before you travel can save a lot of hassle and save money on the shopping. I might have to park somewhere away from the market and walk a little. I’ll save on petrol but wear my shoes out!

There are more blogs on the Home Page. It was Thrifty Thursday yesterday.

 

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