Managing Our Budget: Electricity & Gas Costs

Hi all.  This is the first post in a series entitled Managing Our Budget.  For this series I'm going to break down all the items in our budget and show you how we have reduced, or how we are trying to reduce, the amount we are spending.

First up is our electricity and gas bills; a major monthly expense.

This chart shows the two year history of the cost of these two items.  Columns 2 and 3 show the pure charge before any online discounts are applied and the 4th column is the actual cost on our bill; Column 5 is the monthly charge to cover the bills.

As you can see the monthly charge has reduced from £121 to £88 already; my new goal is to reduce it to £70.



Things we do/have done to reduce the costs:

1. Pay online and receive an online discount
2. Pay by monthly Direct Debit to receive a discount
3. Use a dual fuel product from one company to save money
4. Swapped utility companies in the past to reduce costs
5. Changed our tariff plan online to reduce the costs
6. Turn off all plugs at the wall every night
7. Stopped using the dishwasher
8. Batch cook to reduce oven usage
9. Made a draught snake for the front door
10. Reduced the amount of washing cycles we do
11. Set the thermostat to 18 degrees
12. Use blankets and jumpers to keep warm in the evening
13. Set a target date for the heating to go on {1st November}
14. Line dry everything
15. Don't own a tumble dryer
16. Switched to energy saving light bulbs
17. Take short showers
18. Never use the bath

It's a good idea to review the history of your usage because you can really see where the spikes in cost occur and where there is potential to save money.  Looking at ours, the cost of winter heating is where we can make the most saving, so it's jumpers at the ready....

Some may consider this extreme, however this is not just about being frugal and saving money, it's about our family using less and consuming less, my overall goal.

Let me know, what are you doing to reduce your electricity and gas costs this year?

Further reading:

• 10 simple ways to cut spending on light and heat

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