Money matters

I don't know if I mentioned it before but I live out in the country and we are not connected to the Gas network. We have the option of heating and cooking by either electricity, LPG or domestic heating oil. I chose LPG.
Last year as everyone knows winter arrived early and in November the LPG increased. It increased regular until in February this year the increase was from my original price to over 40%. When I had a top up in March. It was exactly 5 weeks to the day and the cost was just a few pence short of £250.00. Easy to work out that it was costing me £50 a week give a copper or two. I mailed them and told them I could not continue to spend over 50% of my weekly income on LPG just to heat my home also heat water and use it for cooking. All I really got was an excuse that there was a shortage of LPG and the cost would reduce as soon as possible. I just thought what a stupid thing to say. In other words, the cost of LPG will drop when nobody needs it. Unfortunately a tank of LPG will only last a few months at most. My tank holds 1400 litres and I use about 4000 litres a year. I thought something must be done to get the cost down somehow.
Today I took the first step by ordering a more efficient A rated boiler that is supposed to be 90% efficient, my old boiler is about 65 to 7o% efficient. Yes it will cost me around £1500 but hopefully I will save the first year about £300. I will monitor the situation but last winter gone by I spent around £1500 on LPG. I hope to spend a lot less this year. I also hope that the winter will be kinder to us all. Last winter was the coldest for about 80 years.
Update on my grapes. I went to Grantham as you know yesterday and took a couple of bunches to my sisters. They were quite sweet but looking at my diary, I noticed that my Italian friend bought me a bunch of grapes in mid September so I will leave them on the vine for a while longer. They should get a lot sweeter then hopefully. I am getting plenty of plums it is sods law, my neighbours daughter has a couple of plum trees and this morning there was a bag of plums left for me. I am stoning them, freezing them to use as stewed plums during the winter. I am just hoping I will have enough space to freeze my plums down too. It is funny but it always seems the way. Either feast or famine, still I will not complain.
Finally my neighbour must have bought my refuse bins in off the driveway for me yesterday while I was away. It was nice because I live on the main A52 and the refusemen just leave the bins on the edge of the property generally blocking the driveway. This would have meant stopping on the main road to shift the offending bins. I will mention it to them when next I see them. It was good of them. More soon.