Cost of living crisis 2022 - what have you cut back on?

[PotNoodleTech]

I am only heating my bedroom and bathroom now the rest of the house is growing icicles.

[LeMarchand]

Really noticing food inflation when I went tesco yesterday.

e.g. used to be two packets of cheese for £3 - now £4 with one packet of mozzarela £2.60

that is 33 percent inflation and gas/electric way higher than that.

So headline figure of inflation is not representative of typical cost increase to average person.

 

The onions I buy used to be sold by weight, and one would cost around 12p. Now they're 30p each. It's only 18p so it won't break me, but as a percentage it is eye-watering.

 

VAGUELY related (sorta) but sausages I noticed are flippin' £2/pack in Sainsburys, and if you do buy them there's often TWO DAYS until they expire.

 

Heck is going on??

 

I've often felt the "shopping basket" seems to bear no relation to the increase that I'm paying and, if it did, inflation would be MUCH higher in the reports.

[mavhc]

But also inflation would be much lower at other times, they like round/9 numbers so delay.

[LeMarchand]

Does anyone have their own OBD2 dongle for their car/motorbike and have any software they recommend?

 

Depends what you want from it, I guess. All I use mine for is to read what the error is and maybe reset it. If you're planning on tuning etc you probably need something more advanced than what I use.

 

Dongle, I have this type (cheaper on eBay especially if you don't mind waiting for it to come from China): https://smile.amazon.co.uk/MMOBIEL-OBD2-Scanner-Bluetooth-Android/dp/B0B9YPPTLC

 

App (Android): OBDClick

[Ditto]

Water bills up by an average of 7.5%, being reported as below inflation. All well and good if you are getting an inflationary level pay rise, but I honestly don't think I know anyone that is. There seems to be no end of price increases and with a new financial year starting in about 8 weeks, I'm not seeing any sign of the waters calming.

[Dos_Box]

It really worth getting a digital programmable thermostat it seems the last thing anyone bothers about in their home.

 

Does anyone have their own OBD2 dongle for their car/motorbike and have any software they recommend?

 

What car do you have? I generally get the smallest one (dongle) I can as some ODBII ports can be quite hard to fit a longer one into. I would recommend for a car Torque Pro - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torque&hl=en_GB&gl=US&pli=1 - but often there are specific apps for brands.

For my Mondeo I had ForScan Lite which was great and allowed me to do lots of things with it (resetting dash warning lights when I had a faulty sensor etc.).

Edited February 8, 2023 by Dos_Box

[noelmm]

Torque Pro is very good for the average user with any compatible Bluetooth dongle from Amazon. The only thing I've noticed about it, it doesn't always read the manufacturer specific codes compared to my other diagnostic tools. Edited February 6, 2023 by noelmm

[nicholab]

This for a VW Golf mk5, Triumph Tiger 800 and Santa Fe (new so unlikely).

[HarryMonkey]

It really worth getting a digital programmable thermostat it seems the last thing anyone bothers about in their home.

 

 

I have a Tado device which allows me far more control over my heating in terms of when it switches on/off and at what temp. I can also control it via my phone which means I am more likely to turn it down if I haven't got to get up to do it.. It also knows when the house is empty so turns it all down, only to turn it back up again as I/we get closer to home. It also responds via Alexa which is also useful (Alexa, set the heating to 17). You can add more granular control if you have rads which have a thermostat that you can swap for a Tado smart one (we don't unfortunately and I don't fancy spending loads to upgrade the landlord's heating system).

[MartinT]

I have a Tado device which allows me far more control over my heating in terms of when it switches on/off and at what temp.

 

I installed a Tado at my previous house. Brilliant device.

 

I would love to have one again, but our large converted barn has 5 timers and 4 thermostats

[nicholab]

I installed a Tado at my previous house. Brilliant device.

 

I would love to have one again, but our large converted barn has 5 timers and 4 thermostats

 

Why not move to sonoff timers and thermostat as they are cheaper.

[PotNoodleTech]

I installed a Tado at my previous house. Brilliant device.

 

I would love to have one again, but our large converted barn has 5 timers and 4 thermostats

 

Heating the east wing has always proven difficult.

 

Jeeves put some coal on the fire now and fetch my caviar!!!

 

[nicholab]

Is anyone celebrating Valentine’s Day today to save money?

[Dos_Box]

I installed a Tado at my previous house. Brilliant device.

 

I would love to have one again, but our large converted barn has 5 timers and 4 thermostats

 

I have Tado too, and it is so good to have the kind of granularity it offers to heat your home. Now just heating one room is a doddle with no faffing around at individual TRV's on radiators.

[DrCheese]

I have Tado on my upstairs & downstairs thermostats - Yeah it's a great piece of kit

 

Haven't been impressed with the TRV's tho - I bought one for the downstairs bog but it doesn't work right because the TRV is close to the radiator, so it detects a really warm temp not long after it comes on so.. turns it off.. and on and so on

 

Tado's solution to this is to buy another wireless thermostat and put that elsewhere in the room, which is fine but they are £70! If they were more affordable I would have put them in every room by now, but to pay another £70 on top of the £50/60 TRV is a nonstarter for me.

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

Is anyone celebrating Valentine’s Day today to save money?

 

Friday is going to be valentines for me and the Mrs,

We do it most years, we usually get a voucher at Christmas from family for Pierre White or something restaurant.

The voucher cant be used at Valentines so we just delay to the following weekend

 

Besides weekends are so much better i find than week nights.

[Ditto]

On the TRV, what make - I've have Drayton TRV 4 in more than one house and can't fault them. It's it just some TRVs giving this issue or all. I wonder if your system is balanced correctly. The symptom you mention suggests the return flow is too hot or maybe overall flow rate is too high.

[DrCheese]

On the TRV, what make - I've have Drayton TRV 4 in more than one house and can't fault them. It's it just some TRVs giving this issue or all. I wonder if your system is balanced correctly. The symptom you mention suggests the return flow is too hot or maybe overall flow rate is too high.

 

ah no sorry I meant specifically the Tado TRV's - Because mine sit at the top of the radiator in vertical setting, they get warm too quickly & turn off the heating. It's a known issue with the Tado TRVs but their "Fix" is just to buy more hardware.

[Andrew_C]

It's a known issue with the Tado TRVs but their "Fix" is just to buy more hardware.

How's your soldering? I suspect it wouldn't be beyond the wit of many to open it up, whip the thermistor out and move it a few cm away.

 

That said, it may well all be surface-mount and impossible to separate the component.

[nicholab]

I have Tado on my upstairs & downstairs thermostats - Yeah it's a great piece of kit

 

Haven't been impressed with the TRV's tho - I bought one for the downstairs bog but it doesn't work right because the TRV is close to the radiator, so it detects a really warm temp not long after it comes on so.. turns it off.. and on and so on

 

Tado's solution to this is to buy another wireless thermostat and put that elsewhere in the room, which is fine but they are £70! If they were more affordable I would have put them in every room by now, but to pay another £70 on top of the £50/60 TRV is a nonstarter for me.

 

Use a sonoff temperature sensor and ifttt to the tado valve on and off.

[XiJ]

I’m just doing to stupid 18 month dance with sky as my discount package ended and they want double. I’m never going to pay full price - and in the potosi on where I have other other options for what I want to watch. So I can barter hard or walk away.

[flyinghaggis]

I’m just doing to stupid 18 month dance with sky as my discount package ended and they want double. I’m never going to pay full price - and in the potosi on where I have other other options for what I want to watch. So I can barter hard or walk away.

 

Sky must be feeling the pinch at the moment as I'm sure it's one of the first things people will cut back on in the current climate. Especially when there are so many streaming services/etc out there now.

 

I'm still with Sky for internet but I cancelled the TV service as they weren't willing to budge on pricing and I wasn't really interested in haggling with them over it. I've reached the point where I'd rather just pay for internet on it's own and sign up to TV services separately.

Edited February 15, 2023 by flyinghaggis

[LeMarchand]

Is anyone celebrating Valentine’s Day today to save money?

 

We went a day early as it's looking after elderlies week otherwise. We've never had much luck on the actual night, with the normal problem being getting sat near to annoying people though one year we had our booking cancelled at the last minute as they had allegedly inadvertently over-booked (and not because a rich regular offered extra, oh no).

[hardtailstar]

Bought some Tapo plugs, went through and set up timers etc. Already forgot I had them and wondered why my monitor on my desk wasn't on!

[elsiegee40]

Is anyone celebrating Valentine’s Day today to save money?

 

As my birthday is also Valentine’s day we celebrate it on the weekend before or after every year. It’s really not worth paying double the money for a limited menu and everything pink.