Ready to lower your gas and electricity bills? You can save over £200 a year on energy just by making some simple changes to your everyday habits.
In this guide we take a look at a few adjustments you can make around the house that may not seem like much on their own, but when you add them up, they can save you a significant amount.
And the best bit?
The changes can be easily built into your everyday routine so you can save on your utility bills and lower your carbon footprint effortlessly.
10 ways to save on your energy bills
Load up your washing machine
When you’re doing your laundry, wait until you have a full load before putting dirty clothes on to wash. When you do, you can save around £5 on your energy bills a year.
If you can’t wait until you have enough clothes to fill the drum, use the ‘half-load’ programme instead, if you have one on your machine.
Wash your clothes at 30 degrees
Since we’re talking about the washing machine, did you know washing your clothes at 30 degrees can save you up to £7 a year on your energy bills?
That’s because wash programmes that use lower temperatures use less energy than their hotter counterparts, they don’t need to get so hot, after all!
Air dry clothes instead of tumble drying them
It’s estimated the average tumble dryer costs around 67p per cycle. So, if you used it once a week for a year, it would cost you £34.84 in total. However, if you ditch the noisy tumble dryer and naturally air dry your clothes, you’ll save that instead!
If the weather is fine, pop them on the line or move your clothes horse outside and your clothes will be dry in no time (and they’ll smell wonderfully fresh too).
Only boil the amount of water you need
Make sure you only boil the water that you need for your morning coffee or afternoon tea break and you could save up to £6 each year.
Plus, it’ll take less time to boil so think of what you could do with all that spare time – it will soon add up!
Turn the heating down by just 1°
Popping on an extra layer and turning your thermostat down by just one degree can save you £80 a year on your energy.
If every household in the UK did this, it would help stop 8.8 million tonnes of CO² entering the atmosphere, which is the same as getting almost 2 million cars off the road.1
Switch appliances off at the socket
This one may surprise you. Did you know leaving your appliances on standby uses energy and could cost you around £35 a year – and they’re not even in use!
To make sure you keep this money in your pocket and not wasted on idle appliances, make sure to switch your TV, phone charger, radio, computer, etc., off at the socket each and every time you’re done using it.
Turn off the lights
Don’t forget to turn off the lights when you leave a room and you could shave another £13 off your annual energy bill (we recommend making sure you’re not leaving anyone in the dark, though!).
(Swapping to LED lightbulbs can save you even more.)
Shower for just 1 minute less
Step out the shower 1 minute sooner than usual and you’ll enjoy a saving of around £10 per person a year – that’s well worth cutting short your shower karaoke session, especially if you have a busy household!
To put this into real life context, if you have 4 people in a household who each shower for 10 minutes a day, it’ll cost around £496.30 a year. Reduce this to just 9 minutes a day, and it’ll cost around £446.67 a year – that’s a £49.63 saving!2
Wash up in a bowl, not under a tap
Let’s face it, nobody likes doing the washing up. However, it can be made a little more fun if you know you’re saving money while doing it!
You can save around £25 a year by filling up a bowl with bubbly warm water to wash your dirty dishes instead of doing it under a running tap.
Switch UP your energy supplier
Ok so switching energy supplier isn’t something you’ll do every day, but it only takes a few minutes to see if you can get a better deal on your gas and electricity and it can save you hundreds each year!
So why not get a quote with Utility Point today and see how much you could save on your energy!
1 Data supplied by www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator.
2 Calculated on www.omnicalculator.com/everyday-life/shower-cost