Hello, mighty money savers. The first energy bill at the new tariff has arrived. Three slugs of cooking brandy and a large chunk of fruit cake later, I felt better.
That feeling was short lived as ‘im indoors perused the itemised bill and began to splutter and cough.
The cost of energy used had doubled. This prompted ‘im indoors to research energy saving ideas to hopefully reduce our bill.
We already have good fitting windows and doors. We use “sausages” at the bottom of doors to prevent draughts. ‘Im in doors was determined to reduce costs, so off he went on his quest.
Later in the day I was sat quietly contemplating the contents of my coffee cup when ‘im indoors shuffled into my line of vision “have you heard of vampire energy?” Well, that makes a change from ‘im indoors grunting “Blackpool illuminations” over and over again.
Vampire, or stolen, energy refers to how much energy is used when an appliance is on standby. That glowing red light you can see on the TV is actually the eye of a vampire thief stealing energy.
According to ‘im indoors we could potentially save over £200 per year if we turned things off, rather than leaving appliances on standby when not in use. We’ve got TVs on standby, and a PC, printer, washer, tumble dryer, fridge freezer, coffee machine etc are just some of the items in our house stealing energy 24/7.
So far he’s turned off the washing mid cycle. Cut the plug off the tumble dryer and disconnected the faux flames on my living room fire. Thank goodness some appliances use batteries.
Time will tell if turning things off, rather than leaving on standby, saves energy and money. I’ll let you know.
Bye for now – the Auld git from Armley.
For all the ‘auld git’s penny pinching tips, follow this link.
