Saving money in the home

Running your home in a cost efficient manner can make you huge savings each year. With talk of energy costs on the increase, the first thing you should do is cut your bills. There is no use simply thinking about doing it, or putting it off until tomorrow, do it today.

You may have never thought about shopping around for the best utility prices, the the worrying fact is that there are millions of people out there paying over the odds. Take a few minutes of your time and come and check out the Which4u website. By entering a few simple figures based on your current usage you can find out instantly if you could save by switching providers.

Once you’ve done this you can move onto the next step and reduce your usage.

There are a number of ways you can reduce the amount of electricity you use, most of which are common sense, but many not followed. Always ensure you switch electrical appliances off when they are not in use. This includes having your television or DVD player on standby, and leaving your computer on when not in use. A standard PC left running for 24 hours will use approximately £70 of electricity over a year - if you only use it for 2 hours a day you could be making big savings. It only takes around an hour to fully charge a mobile phone yet many people leave them plugged in overnight.

Turning the thermostat down on your heating can reduce your heating bills by 10%.

You probably won’t notice the difference in heat, but you will certainly notice a reduction in your bills.

Try to fill your washing machine rather than using all that electricity and water to clean a few shirts, and use a cool wash whenever possible.

The electric kettle consumes the most energy than any other cooking appliance in the home - 29%, compared to 23% by electric hobs. UK households could save £1million a week by not over-filling their kettles. If everyone in the UK only boiled the amount of water they needed, there would be enough energy saved to power all the UK's street lighting for 7 months.

Try to avoid having baths and switch to showers and only stay in for a short period. If you don't have a shower, buy a shower adapter for your bath. This will reduce your water and gas bills. A single shower can use between 6 and 10 gallons of water per minute. Reduce your shower time by 2 to 3 minutes and you’ll notice the difference in your bills.

Your whole house does not need to be lit up when you are only using a few rooms. Make sure that when you leave a room, you switch off the light. Energy saving light bulbs are also a good method of cutting down usage. Around 30% of your domestic electricity bill is spent on lighting your home.

Energy saving light bulbs can help to reduce the typical domestic electricity bill by producing the same amount of light as a standard light bulb at a fraction of the cost.

If you haven't already, it's worth considering double glazed windows and insulation. Around half of heat loss in a typical home is through the walls and loft. There are several places in a home that can be insulated, including the walls, floor and loft.

Double glazing cuts heat lost through windows by half and installing double glazing could save around £140 a year on your heating bills.

These are just a few really simple measures that any of us can take to reduce our energy usage. Better than feeling the heat when the bills drop through the letterbox.

Written by Sam Gooch