SAVVY saver Scott Dixon saves £725 a year on his energy bills by washing his clothes and showering in the early hours, as well as using a slow cooker to save cash.
The savings that Scott, 51, from Edinburgh, has made more than covered a £535 nine-night Christmas holiday to Benidorm he has booked for Christmas this year.
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Scott started looking at ways to save on his energy bills twelve months ago, when he first noticed that his bill was going up each month.
“I started looking a bit more closely at ways of saving money,” he said.
He realised that by using a number of hacks, he could make the most of his variable tariff that he is on with provider Bulb.
Variable tariffs is where the cost of your gas and electricity is set by your supplier – which means it can go up and down at any point.
This varies from a fixed-price tariff, where customers can lock in their energy bill costs for one or two years.
Scott’s tariff is split into a day tariff and a night tariff as he is on an Economy 7 meter.
His night tariff costs 14.10p/kWh – which is 34% cheaper than what electricity and gas costs on the day tariff at 21.28p/kWh.
The night tariff kicks in at 23:50, and ends at 8:50am.
He washes his clothes and showers in the early hours of the morning in order to save up to £50 a year on his energy bills.
It means that a third of his energy consumption happens at night – keeping costs as low as possible.
It’s not the only nifty money saving tip he follows to drive his costs down.
By using a halogen oven instead of a conventional oven and using a slow cooker a few times a week to cook his meals, Scott saves £65 a year.
While heating just one room of his flat, instead of the whole thing, saves him a whopping £490 a year.
His savings have helped him to beat the recent sky-high price rises to energy bills.
The energy price cap — which was brought in to limit how much consumers can be billed — was raised by £139 last month.
We sat down with Scott to see how he made his savings – and how you can too.
Washing clothes at night – £13.50 a year
Scott makes sure to wash his clothes at times where he pays only night tariff rates.
“I set my alarm at 6am in the morning and put on a wash,” he says.
“It’s usually a two hour cycle, which means it finishes at around 8am – 50 minutes before the night tariff rate ends.”
Scott estimates that he forks out 28p per wash at these times, whereas it would cost him 43p per wash if he washed his clothes during day tariff hours.
He washes his clothes around 90 times a year which costs him £25.20 – a saving of £13.50 compared to £38.70 if he washed his clothes during day rate times.
Showering at night – £36.50 a year
Scott also makes sure to shower in the early morning to make the most of his night tariff rates.
He estimates that a 10 minute shower costs around 20p at night instead of 30p a day, as his shower uses 80KwH of energy.
Using the cheaper rate therefore saves him £3 a month which totals £36.50 a year.
“Using the shower and washing machine during night time rates saves me about £50 a year,” Scott says.
Using a halogen oven – £65 a year
Scott estimates he saves around £65 by using a halogen oven – which is more energy efficient than a conventional one.
His halogen oven uses 1,400W of power, Scott says, compared to the standard conventional oven which uses 2,000W.
Scott says his halogen oven costs 25p a week to run as he uses it three to four times a week, whereas it would cost £1.50 a week for him to use a standard oven.
This saves him £1.25 a week, which tots up to £65 a year.
Using a slow cooker – £60 a year
Slow cookers are a great way to whip up a meal with minimum effort.
Scott’s slow cooker runs at 100W and costs him 2p an hour to run.
He uses his slow cooker a couple of times a week to save on his energy costs – he estimates he saves £5 a month compared to the cost of running his oven constantly.
That totals a saving of £60 over the year.
He boosts this saving even more by buying yellow sticker food to spend as little as he can on meals.
“Buying reduced to clear food can save up to 75% as well and I do a lot of my shopping around that – I only spend £25 a week on groceries,” Scott said.
Ditching his tumble dryer – £60 a year
Scott never uses a tumble dryer to dry his clothes.
Instead, he uses an airer to let them dry naturally – which costs him nothing.
Uswitch estimates that a tumble dryer uses roughly 4.5kWh of energy per cycle – which clocks up to roughly 67p per cycle.
As Scott does roughly 90 washes a year, that’s saving him £60.30 a year.
Heating just one room – £490 a year
As the chillier weather rolls in, it’s tempting to whack the heating on and get your house feeling toasty.
But Scott only heats the room he is using in his flat – usually the lounge – to save cash on his energy bills.
He says it costs him £1.35 just to heat the one room per day.
By not heating every single room in his flat, Scott says he is saving £9.45 a week, racking up to an impressive £490 a year.
He sometimes uses a small halogen heater to dry his clothes a bit quicker if he needs to.
“To keep the heat in, use draught excluders to stop hot air escaping,” he said.
“It’s worth looking at the small savings you can make, as everything adds up.
“All the extra money I’ve saved will be going towards the holiday in Benidorm that I’ve booked for this Christmas.”
Here’s how one savvy saver, dubbed the female version of Martin Lewis, saves thousands of pounds for herself and friends and family.
A couple is on track to pay off their mortgage early by the next eight years.
One couple retired 10 years early – here’s how they did it.
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