Five Easy Ways to Reduce your Energy Bills

The cost of living crisis is having an impact on nearly everybody across the world. Last year in the UK, electricity prices rose by 65% and gas prices by an astonishing 129%. And while we don’t know for sure, it looks like prices may increase by another 20% in April.

One of my passions with writing this blog for the past 15 years has been looking for ways to both preserve resources AND save money. And what better time to do that than when the household budget is being stretched.

Here are five easy ways to reduce your energy bills at home:

Turn appliances and gadgets off standby

I discovered, only within the past three months, that our induction hob was using electricity, just on standby. There’s no clock or anything fancy, just a small red dot that was on all the time. It amounted to over 50p a day or £15 a month, which we found shocking. Fortunately, we were using one of those individual plug in electricity monitors, so we could see exactly what was happening. We have got back the price of that monitor already by discovering this one energy leak. It’s definitely worth investing in an energy monitor, so you can discover for yourself where those energy vampires might be lurking in your home.

Swap your lightbulbs

11% of household energy is consumed through lighting. So if you’re still running CFL or halogen bulbs, it’s time to make the switch. Not only are LED bulbs more energy efficient – using 90% less energy than an incandescent – but they last 100s of times longer than other bulbs too, According to the Energy Saving Trust, switching a 50-watt halogen bulb for an LED could save £6 per year. Although that doesn’t sounds like a King’s ransom, when you tot up the total number of bulbs in your home, the savings can be significant. Companies like INUI, stock a wide range of bulbs suitable for all applications, from panels to down lights to flood lights for your garden and driveway!

Try doing these two things in the shower

Grab yourself a timer and set yourself the challenge of a four minute shower. According to estimates, you could save £115 per year on your daily shower if you reduce it by one minute. Another tip I discovered by accident the other week. It’s a bit of a weird one, but here goes! Adjust the shower head so it’s as close to your head as possible. I’ve noticed by doing this, I can turn the temperature down a little, as the water isn’t travelling through so much air to get to me – so it feels warmer! Give it a try and let me know if it works for you!

Insulate whatever you can

If you have a hot water tank, use old duvets and blankets to insulate it. Get some old fashioned draught excluders to put by your doors and hang thick or thermal curtains around doors and windows. Reducing drafts in your home will in turn reduce the amount of energy you need to use keeping the air temperature warm. Close curtains just before dusk to keep heat in and open them on sunny days to take advantage of free solar warmth. You can also place reflective materials behind your radiators. Make sure your loft insulation is maximum too. Building regs change quite frequently, but the current recommended amount of loft insulation is 250-270mm. There are some useful graphics on the Energy Saving Trust, highlighting return on investment, which you can see here.

Heat yourself

One of the most cost effective ways to keep warm is to heat yourself! This works both from the inside and the outside. Proponents of Traditional Chinese Medicine have discovered that different foods are warming or cooling within the body. For example cucumbers, watermelon and lemon water are believed to be cooling, whereas onion, cinnamon and beef are said to be warming. While that may or may not be true, I certainly find that having warm food, such as porrage with cinnamon is far more warming than cold yogurt and fruit for breakfast. Take your drinks warm, and eat more soups and stews, rather than salads. Externally, layer clothes to trap warm air and use a hot water bottle or heated clothing. Surprisingly, I’ve found one of the things that makes the biggest difference to my body temperature is wearing wrist warmers. Once I’ve got those bad boys on, I’m positively toasty!

What about you? What do you do at home to reduce your energy bills?