Budget food/living

Any tips on keeping the house warm on the cheap over the winter? We're going to try to hold off on using the gas heating until Novemeber.

We live in an old building with wooden windows, so will fitting that foam insulating tape help much?
I saw adheisive screening you can buy enabling you to cover whole window sections entirely. Are they effective?

Check in your local area sometimes local energy charities will help by providing an assessment and making some suggestions as to where you may make savings.

I had one recently and we made a lot of small changes that have resulted in (seemingly) lower bills (it's hard to compare as we also switched suppliers shortly afterwwards).

The charity had a thermal camera which was a real eye opener too.

Surprisingly, yes. I looked at that stuff and thought 'what is this bollocks clingfilm?' but then one of my housemates bought some and stuck it up and the house went from being like a freezer to merely being like a fridge. It's a fucking faff to put up properly tho (at least, I found it a faff, but I am pretty impractical) and if you balls it up it doesn't work so great or comes loose from the window frame.

I was putting some of this up last year and found that white spirit (which I was using to clean off residue of the last batch) really increases the tackiness of the tape used to stick the film up over the window. Don't, however, knock half a pint of white spirit onto teh bedroom carpet like I did.

Finally got around to putting the plastic sheeting stuff up last week and it has totally removed draughts from the flat, which makes it feel warmer. I think we'll make it another couple of weeks before turning on the heating. Now to put up some reflective radiator foil in advance.

We've just had a thermostat installed. Generally speaking, is it more efficient to use that set at 18deg for example, or set the combi-boiler to turn on at set times of the day? For example, In our previous flat we set ours to come on between 6-7:30am and 4:30-7pm.

Any tips on keeping the house warm on the cheap over the winter?

Saw this, thought I;d share:
BBC: 14 low-tech ways to keep your house warm over the winter
31 October 2013

Lidl are selling very cheap baby pumpkins atm (gf got 2 for 88p), I roasted them up with an onion and some garlic then threw them back in the oven with some left-over penne from the night before...

Absolutely delicious, I'm going back for more later...

Nice one. I'm also a fan of Nigel Slotter's Pumpkin stew with lentils and sour cream, it needs seasoning well but is v.good.

My girlfriend just started a Journalism MA and asked one of her new friends for pack lunch tips, this is what happened.

http://checkthis.com/lunchboxshit

Interesting! Cheers. :-)

Hopefully in journalism school he learns to edit the words "shit" "orgasm" and "yummy" from his write ups. Also coconut and salmon shouldn't be within 5 sentences of one another.

Apart from in Asian cooking.

Hopefully in journalism school he learns to edit the words "shit" "orgasm" and "yummy" from his write ups. Also coconut and salmon shouldn't be within 5 sentences of one another.

She. Also, to be fair it was a private note written to me that she stuck on the web after I bullied her into publishing it. And I can't wait to try coconutty salmon!

moog = afaceforradio?
and she (the friend?) spends £ on call girls?
Is "shit" in every sentence? Have I stumbled on some VICE interns side-project which didn't make it to the editor?
I'm so confused.

Sprinkle lager on chicken? gtfo
Defrosting frozen sushi that you made 2 weeks before and actually eating it? BOOM fully sick motherfucker

Beer steamed crab is insanely good, could work with chicken.

Beer can chicken, yes.
Sprinkle lager on chicken, no

I thought it was funny…

#dontevenpacklunch

If you live in a real farm food costs you nothing, but fun...
currently cider and apple juice

moog = afaceforradio?

no. i am, sadly for him, moog's girlfriend. just wanted to mention that the author is a woman with a sense of humour!

debatable.

If you live in a real farm food costs you nothing, but fun...
currently cider and apple juice

Gaston, in high school I lived on a hippie commune that made organic apple juice. We never had apples like you do in that picture (stacked in cubes with hay separating them.) Is that after pressing? What are you doing with them now? (we used the pressed apple remains for compost I think.)

Just the thing to feed to pigs, I'd have thought.

hmm, but what is the hay for?

I'm going to guess it stops them from forming one big block from adhesion. Much easier to lump the smaller slabs around.

Limits sideways movement of the apples to stop the cube collapsing under its own weight?