You’ve been cooking your dinner all wrong – five mistakes adding £70 to bills and how to fix them
DINNER time can be stressful enough without thinking about how much it costs.
But fixing a few small mistakes you’re making in the kitchen could help you to save £70 on your energy bills.
At the moment the average energy bill is capped at £2,500, but the exact amount you pay can be higher or lower depending on usage.
Despite the cap, households are still looking to save where they can.
And you might not know that the way you’re cooking your dinner could be ramping up costs.
We spoke to Natalie Mathie, an energy expert at USwitch, to find out how you can save £70 by making small changes to the way you cook.
Don’t forget your kitchen gadgets – save £23
It can be easy to forget the kitchen gadgets tucked away in cupboards, but some of them might help you save money on energy bills.
Natalie said: “Air fryers have soared in popularity as a quick and healthy alternative to using the oven or frying food on the hob.
“They are usually more energy efficient than cooking in an oven as they have a shorter cooking time and do not take as long to get to the correct temperature.
The average household uses their oven for around three hours a week costing around £33.80 a year.
While an air fryer costs roughly 7p per use, according to The Energy Saving Trust, or £10.92 across a year if you used it three times a week.
Switching to an air fryer would work out at an annual saving of £22.88.
Slow cookers are still useful in summer – save £24
Slow cookers are usually associated with making hearty winter stews and soups but they are useful for much more than that, Natalie said.
“You can use one in the summer to make meals like pulled pork, chilli con carne and curries”, she added.
You could save around 91p per meal by using the slow cooker instead of the oven.
If you choose to make meals in your slow cooker rather than your oven three times a week, you could save £24.44.
Use the microwave – £15
If you are only making a meal for yourself, using a microwave can be much more efficient than heating up the whole oven for one thing.
“Microwaves dramatically cut cooking times for certain meals, making them much cheaper to run”, Natalie said.
“Cooking a jacket potato in the microwave, for example, could save you 60p versus cooking in an oven.”
The average household spends around £19.24 a year on running their microwave.
This is £14.56 cheaper than using an electric oven.
Put the lid on – £6
It’s something many of us forget to do, but putting a lid on your pans could help you to save some cash.
This is because it decreases the time it takes the water to heat up, and reduces the amount of energy you are using.
Natalie said: “Not putting the lid on could more than double the amount of time it takes for the water to reach the right temperature — meaning the cost of energy for using the hob has more than doubled too.
Using a 1,500W hob for four minutes would cost 3p — but using it for eight minutes would add up to 7p.
This is a difference of £6.24 over the course of a year.
Making sure you use the right sized hob for the pan you are using can also help you to save on your energy bill, Natalie said.
She added: “If the pan is much smaller than the hob, then you will be wasting energy up the sides of the pan rather than focusing it on cooking the food.”
Doing this won’t save you a significant amount of cash, but it could add up to a saving of a few pounds over the course of a year.
How else can I save on energy bills?
There are plenty of ways to reduce your energy bill and some of them are pretty simple, like closing your curtains in the evening.
When temperatures naturally drop, you should draw them to keep the heat in, and then open them in the morning when the sun comes out.
You can also buy draught excluders which can be cheap – we spotted them on Amazon for £7.99 – but you should always shop around for better offers.
And always think about how much money you’re spending on household appliances – the kettle is ranked one of the costliest, after the shower, heating and a fan-assisted oven.
You can read about how much they cost and how to keep prices down in our guides – like this one here.
Also, Energy Saving Trust estimates that between 9-16% of electricity used in homes is through appliances in standby mode.
On a bill of £500, this could account for as much as £80. We’ve rounded up the worst devices to leave on standby.
And remember installing a smart meter is free and usually provided by your energy supplier.
They keep a real-time record of your energy consumption so you can keep an eye on what you’re using.
Meanwhile, we reveal the best way to use gadgets like air fryers and microwaves.
Plus, one family slashed their energy bills in half by ditching the oven and using an air fryer – we even cooked Christmas dinner in it.
Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk