With the current cost of living crisis and the looming energy crisis that will be bearing down come winter, many people are rightly worried about paying their bills this year. But as costs soar, everyday people are wanting to know what they can do to cut the size of their bills and be more efficient at home.
Which is why we’ve put together a few tips you can use to get a jump on your utility bills this year, of course none of these will be ‘do-it-all’ solutions, but they should hopefully slim your utility bills down a bit, so you’re not feeling so hard hit.
Insulate Your Home To Keep Warmth In
When you think of high utility bills, your mind probably jumps straight to your heating bill, they’re often the most expensive utility bill we have and this year, the price of heating has increased at a scary rate. The best way to cut your utility bill is to insulate your home, this will mean that your home holds heat in more efficiently, which will allow you to use your heating less to stay warm.
Depending on your budget, there are a few things you can do. With a big budget you could fully insulate the walls in your home, or swap old windows out for more efficient double glazing, but unfortunately these are expensive projects. So, if you’re on a tight budget, doing things like installing thermal blinds on your windows, blocking off draughts and keeping internal doors closed will help improve how well your home retains heat.
Be Smarter When Cleaning With Appliances
Appliances like dishwashers and washing machines are incredibly convenient for day to day life, they take chores that no-one really enjoys and does them automatically. But one downside in using these cleaning appliances daily is that they aren’t incredibly efficient when it comes to water use and energy spent heating the water.
No-one is saying that you should wash all of your clothes by hand, or wash up by hand every day, but if costs are starting to squeeze you, being a bit smarter with your usage can help you. Firstly, for both dishwashers & washing machines, avoid doing ‘half-loads’ as you’ll use more water & energy than needed; also, when using your washing machine, run it on a lower temperature, a wash at 30°c will be cheaper and just as effective as washing at 50°c most of the time.
Use Smart Tech To Avoid ‘Stand-By’ Power Usage
Did you know, that even when you turn some electronic appliances like TVs, computers and games consoles, they will still use your electricity, even though you’ve turned them off? While one device using electricity on standby isn’t a big issue, if you have multiple appliances secretly stealing energy from you, it can be a problem.
There’s an easy solution and an easy techy solution to this problem. The easy solution is to unplug your devices from the wall when you’re finished using them, this will stop them silently siphoning your electricity, but can be a bit of a pain when plugs are hidden behind furniture.
The easy techie solution, is to install ‘smart plugs’ in your home, these plugs can be fully turned off remotely when you’re not using your devices, meaning you can avoid wasted electricity without having to pull your TV unit away from the wall every time you want to turn it off.
