Customer conversations
Hear from our customers as they share their top tips, hints, recipes and other useful information.
Sean, one of our tenants, talks about his experience of getting solar panels fitted on his home.
Hi, I’m Sean, I’m a Hafod tenant living in Merthyr, and I wanted to share a few things I do in my home to save some of my pennies. A bit about me, I live with my family of three little stars and a lovely wife who puts up with my collection of good useable stuff!
I’m now making electricity! And no, not by rubbing a balloon on my head! I’m making solar energy in real time, due to having solar panels neatly fitted recently by Hafod. I had a letter and was a little anxious as to how and why and when I would be having the solar panels fitted. Soon though, I had a chap turn up at the door to ask to put some monitoring devices in my home and he told me all about the preparation needed prior to installation of the solar panels.
After the chat I felt like I was happy for him to go ahead, it felt like only 20 minutes later and they had finished and monitoring devices were installed! My part was just cleaning out a cupboard prior to fitting the device.
Later on in the week, a few more people turned up to put the scaffolding up and as soon as they were up the solar panels started arriving! They were installed in a day, yes only a day! It was a really quick job and then I went to have a look and they were on my roof! I felt a bit anxious to start with, but after the panels were installed and the connection was sorted, then all I had to do was install an app on my phone. I felt like I was being quite nicely catapulted into the future of non carbon electricity generation.
It’s a great thing to enjoy free electricity and I can easily monitor on the app how much electricity I am generating on my phone at any time so I really feel like I’m getting a good deal with my living expenses.
Hi I’m Sean, I’m a Hafod customer and a Scrutiny Panel volunteer.
I wanted to share what a fantastic time I had at the recent TPAS Cymru Conference in Llandrindod Wells. It was such a great opportunity to meet so many different people, including other customers and staff from different landlords. Everyone was so friendly, and it was amazing to hear about the great work happening to make sure that customers like us have a say in decisions.
One of the best parts of the day was chatting with other customers about their experiences. It’s inspiring to see how everyone’s voice can make a difference and help shape the future for us all.
If you’d like to get involved and make sure your voice is heard, I’d really encourage you to reach out to Hafod. They’re doing so much to include customers in their decision-making, and you could be a part of that too! Just email getinvolved@hafod.org.uk to learn more.
Thanks for reading, and I hope to see more of you getting involved soon.
Grow your own veggies!
Hi, I’m Sean, I’m a Hafod customer living in Merthyr, I wanted to share a few things I do to grow my own veggies!
Easy tips to start growing now!
As autumn gets cozy, most of the veggies in our gardens are reaching the end of their growing time. But don’t worry! Some cool veggies, like pumpkins, squashes, Brussels sprouts, and lettuce, are still going strong. If you have a polytunnel (a big plastic-covered structure that keeps plants warm), you might be able to grow even more!
This year was my very first year of veggie gardening, and I have to say, it’s been fantastic. Growing your own food is an amazing hobby! Watching plants grow, watering them, keeping bugs away, and then picking your own veggies is so satisfying. If you want to start, here are some easy ideas to help make your garden a success.
Start with potatoes – a super-easy crop
Potatoes are one of the easiest veggies to grow and taste delicious! All you need is a big container like a tub, grow bag, or even a black bin liner with holes in the bottom. Plus, you’ll need some compost and a few small “seed” potatoes.
Here’s how to grow them:
- Put compost in the container until it’s one-third full.
- Place three potatoes on the compost.
- Add more compost until the container is two-thirds full.
- Water the potatoes well.
- Once green leaves poke out, cover them with more compost and repeat until the container is full.
When the green leaves start to wilt and turn yellow, your potatoes are ready to harvest! You’ll love how much better homegrown potatoes taste!
Try broad beans and peas – easy for kids and fun to pick
Broad beans and peas are also really easy to grow. You can plant broad beans right into the ground, and they need very little care. Peas are great too, they can grow even in soil that isn’t super rich in nutrients. Kids especially love picking peas fresh from the pod and eating them!
Keep it simple
Some plants do need a bit of care, like watering and protection from bugs. But there are many veggies, like potatoes, beans, and peas, that don’t need much work. Just make sure to check on your plants now and then, and they’ll reward you with tasty food.
Even though it’s late in the year, you can still plant some vegetables and enjoy growing your own food. I can tell you that there’s nothing like eating fresh food you’ve grown yourself, it’s totally worth it.
Happy gardening!
If you would like to share some top tips please contact getinvolved@hafod.org.uk
Hi, I’m Sean, I’m a Hafod customer living in Merthyr, I wanted to share a few things I do in my home to save some of my pennies with my family.
Let’s start with food!
Nettle tea anyone? ok how about some elderberry and blackberry syrup on your ice cream, a spritzer mixer or some lovely jam on your toast, what better way to be frugal and thrifty, by foraging for yourself and family. When you have time at the weekend or evening with the kids or as a lone forager looking around your neighbourhood for the delights that are free to pick! I’m lucky that I live along the Taff Trail which has lots of different fruits on offer.
Firstly, if you are starting out, I would recommend some gloves, tubs of a few sizes some comfy clothing and suitable shoes as you may need to get to the best fruits. If you are not sure how to start foraging, or want to know more about the right ones to eat and avoid, I’d recommend checking out the BBC food Foraging guide.
It’s blackberry season right now and a good time to pick as many as you can before they spoil. They can be rinsed and frozen ready to add to your crumbles, pies, porridge or turned into jam! For small fruits to avoid crushing them I take a washed used milk bottle and start popping those lovely versatile fruits in. When you have tried a blackberry and apple crumble hand picked by your family, with lashings of custard or cream you know your getting the best in season food.
It’s not all about fruit, I’ve baked a cake made of nettle tops and dandelion leaves, it was a deep green and we called it the grinch cake, the kids loved it!
Recently on the school run I spotted what I thought was conkers on a tree, but it was a walnut tree! I’ll have to wait a bit longer until they are ready, but I made a note of where it was and will be back before Christmas. My advice is get out there and start picking!
There are many other fruits to discover and lots of guides available online and videos to watch on YouTube, so get your walking shoes on and go find what’s hiding in your community!
Keep foraging, you can email getinvolved@hafod.org.uk to share your foraging stories and ideas.
It’s pizza night!
Food glorious food as Oliver would say in the musical, is one of our basic everyday needs and of course, we all want those special meals to go along with the staples. A special meal in our house which we all love is pizza. The average pizza cost is £40 for my family, but if I made everything from scratch, I could get the cost down to just £5 depending on the topings, that’s a whopping £35 saving, making pizza night a winner in our house!
You don’t have to be a chef to cook lovely meals, lots of recipes can be googled and you can even cook along on YouTube! This is one of my favourite sites, Cheap Family Recipes as they have lots of ideas and can tell you how much each meal is per portion for you to be able to budget.