Fahed makes an effort

Fahed was having a little moan about never having any money yesterday. I offered him some options, pay less mortgage and don't not seven to ten years off the repayment time, sell Crete house and be mortgage free and then some, spend some of our savings. He said a grumpy no to all of those and decided there must be something I am doing wrong instead. Well, cheers. I grumped off to the loo and by the time I had come back he was already feeling sorry for being mean. We came up with a few ideas.

Install Solar PV Panels and sell power back to the national grid. Costs seven to ten thousand pounds. Saves around £100 per year (yaay, we pay for the system in 100 years). At the moment you can also sell £800 back to the government. Recovery time is then ten years. Also I am not sure that this is guaranteed. If it evaporates then we are back to ten a century again. Still under consideration but probably not.

Wood burning stove - actually not wood burning but multi fuel. Idea abandoned as we have a back boiler with a lot of life left in it.

New cover for the hot water tank - Jamal's bedroom is always hot as the airing cupboard is in his room. We figure more insulation will be less loss heat and colder bedroom for Jamal. That will mean he can shut his bedroom window in winter. Yes, need to measure up.

Drive the car on gas instead of petrol. Half the price and better for the environment. Fahed can't be bothered to fill up with gas when he still has petrol left, then he moans how much it costs to fuel up.

Home gown vegetables - Fahed says, rightly this time, we don't have time for an allotment. I saw lets make more effort in the garden. That's what we are going to do. I am waiting a while before I mention that I want a greenhouse.

Chickens - Cute. little, fat, fluffy chickens. I tried but no chance.

Ebay-we will get on with it instead of just talking about it.

Library - Haven't been for ages. Dust of the card and get a card for Fatso. This would be useful for Fahed to access audio books.

Bit of a mix of ideas but some good ones. Another thing that drives me nuts I thought of today. The down stairs bathroom has an out side light switch. Some of us are able to switch it off but a couple of family members don't seem to be able to. I am planning to buy one of those time delay light switches that European hotels always used when I was a kid travelling with my parents. You get a limited amount of time to get to your room before everything goes dark. I am finding the idea of plunging the loo into darkness after 10 minutes highly amusing.