ENERGY prices look like they are finally coming down – but don’t ditch your thrifty habits.
Now that the heating is off you will be using less gas and electricity, plus rates are predicted to dip by July.
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But with so many other costs still soaring, you can still make huge savings by reducing the energy you use.
We challenged journalist Lynsey Hope to dust off her smart meter and put some popular tips to the test. So for one week, the 41-year-old mum-of-three, from West Malling, Kent, kept tabs on the family’s normal power use.
Then the following week, Lynsey, her husband Nick, 42, and their kids Jacob, eight, Olive, six, and Ivy, three, changed their energy habits and totted up the savings. The results were staggering.
Here’s how the family slashed £1,500 from their annual energy bill . . .
1. Four-minute shower
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MY usual ten-minute showers were costing £1.45 each. With five of us in the house, and the girls still having baths, the bills were mounting. So I limited my shower to four minutes.
Washing my hair felt a bit rushed, but it saved me 54p a time. I got my husband and son to use the timer too and was stunned when the annual saving was nearly £600.
- Weekly saving: £11.45
- Yearly saving: £595.40
2. Fill your dishwasher
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I SOMETIMES put on the dishwasher before it’s full if I’ve run out of crockery, but it was costing 45p per time.
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As a test, I also tried washing its contents by hand. It took forever and it was more expensive at £1.43.
So the answer was not to ditch the dishwasher but to make sure it was full, which meant we did two cycles over the week instead of three.
- Weekly saving: 45p
- Yearly saving: £23.40
3. Turn gadgets off standby
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WE are guilty of leaving devices such as the TV and games console on at the plug. Clocks are always flashing on the cooker and microwave.
When I turned everything off at the wall each night, I saw my energy bills coming down by about 30p a day.
Some gadgets’ clocks reset to midnight, which niggled, but I don’t need three devices to tell me the time.
- Weekly saving: £2.09
- Yearly saving: £108.68
4. Switch to an air fryer
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THE smart meter digits rose alarmingly fast after using the oven for a Sunday roast. So I borrowed a large air fryer, the Ninja Foodi Max Dual Zone AF400UK, £199 from ao.com.
I roasted a whole chicken in one basket and potatoes and veg in the other, which took an hour. The chicken was beautifully crisp on the outside and the meat was succulent.
- Weekly saving: £3.97
- Yearly saving: £206.44
5. Use microwave to reheat
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I USUALLY use the hob to warm up leftovers and cook porridge for the children’s breakfast.
But in a bid to save energy I swapped to using the microwave instead.
The food tasted exactly the same, it took up less of my time and over the week the savings really started to add up.
- Weekly saving: £1.46
- Yearly saving: £75.92
6. Turn lights off
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OFTEN I forget to turn off the kitchen light when I’m in the lounge watching the television even though I’m forever running around after the kids switching off bedroom and bathroom lights.
During the challenge, I drilled into everyone the importance of turning lights off once they leave a room and it really paid off.
- Weekly saving: £3.21
- Yearly saving: £166.92
7. Don’t use tumble dryer
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IN a normal week I tend to use my tumble dryer about four times and I was shocked to discover each cycle was costing us around £2.54.
During my challenge, I managed to halve my tumble dryer use to two cycles.
It was a great saving but in cooler weather it took a very long time for clothes to dry.
This should be much easier when summer arrives.
- Weekly saving: £5.08
- Yearly saving: £264.16
8. Don’t overfill the kettle
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WE boil the kettle at least three times a day to make cups of tea and for cooking.
But I often fill it all the way up when I don’t need to, which is a big waste of energy.
Boiling a full kettle cost me around 9p, but heating only the amount that I needed cost around 6p a time – a saving of 3p.
- Weekly saving: 63p
- Yearly saving: £32.76
9. Cut laundry costs
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WITH three kids getting mucky, we do five loads a week, normally at 40C. Instead I washed everything at 30C and it all still came out clean.
I cut one weekly cycle by putting whites in with coloureds and using a Dylon Colour Catcher sheet (£5 for 40 at Sainsbury’s).
After the cost of one sheet (13p), we saved 42p over the week.
- Weekly saving: 42p
- Yearly saving: £21.84
10. Turn off the fan
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IT costs around 15p to run a fan for 12 hours at night and 10p for eight hours on a weekday when I’m working at home. Doing this for eight weeks over summer would cost £12.40.
Last year I got an Ikea cooling pad for £12 to use on my bed at night and my office chair by day to avoid the fan. It pays for itself over a summer, but I hope to use it for years to come.
- Weekly saving: £1.55
- Summer saving: £12.40
