New Here: How Can I Make My Energy Bills More Affordable?

Monitor how much energy you’re using (a smart meter will be the answer here). Turn down the flow temperature on your gas boiler, particularly if it’s a combi boiler. Concentrate on reducing use of electricity hungry appliances, generally those with a heating element, such as immersion heaters. Don’t use a tumble drier at all. You need to keep the home ventilated, but give it a 5 minute air change every day rather than leave windows open in cold weather.

It really depends on how your home is set up for energy use and how much it is possible for you to change. I can only advise on what has worked for us. There are a few general things such as: a full freezer is more efficient than a half full one; ventilation and insulation need to be balanced but identify and fix draughts around doors and windows; thermal lined curtains reduce heat loss (close curtains as soon as possible after sunset); closing doors helps to reduce heat loss. This is not an exhaustive list - others will have more (and better) ideas.

How many people live in your home? How often are they home? This also is a factor for energy use. There are just two of us, both retired and home 24/7.

Anything that heats things up or cools things down uses the most energy. We use electricity for everything except heating, hot water and a gas hob. We bought our first air fryer in August 2022. This graphic compares our electricity usage from August 2022 - February 2023 with our electricity usage from August 2021 - February 2022. 

In September 2023, we replaced our old gas boiler with a new one. At the same time, I did some investigation about radiators and the area they are designed to heat efficiently. Every single radiator in the house was a different size and none of them were designed to heat anywhere close to the area they were attempting to keep warm. Our living room, dining room and kitchen are all open plan and are heated by two radiators. We decided to replace the radiators as they were the same age as the boiler and were, to be honest, pretty useless! We also had a simple controller for heating and hot water - basically, we could decide a time(s) they were on and a time(s) they were off and what temperature they were set to. We installed Hive heating and hot water controls with Hive Thermostatic Radiator Valves on each one. This system allows us to set a time and temperature for each area or room in the house. This graphic shows the difference in our gas usage for January to March in 2023 and 2024.

These are the things that made the greatest difference to our energy usage. 

In addition, unless it is an emergency, we never use the tumble dryer. We also only heat water just before we are going to use it. Our tank has as much insulation as it is possible to have and does hold the heat well. One of the reasons that we chose not to replace our boiler with a combi boiler was that we did, some time ago, have a gas leak that required our gas to be turned off until it could be repaired. Being left without heating and hot water in the middle of January was not wonderful. We were glad of the option to heat our water with the immersion heater. 

I hope this is of some help.

Don’t use a dishwasher if you have one, like tumble dryers they use huge amounts of electricity. Wash you plates and dishes by hand preferably in a bowl or plugged sink.

Use your washing machine on the short 30 degree programme rather than a longer higher temperature programme.
Most washes are for garments that have only been worn once or twice, so a quick 30 degree wash is all that is needed. Save the longer, hotter, washes for when they are really needed.

Heating the water in the washing machine from 20 degrees to 40 takes twice as much energy as heating it from 20  to 30, heating it to 60 takes four times as much energy as heating it to 30.
Plus as the higher temperature cycles run for much longer they are doing that heating every time they change the water. So a 60 degree wash can use up to 10 times more energy than a 30 degree wash.
(PS When I have advised that before on this forum people have reported large energy savings by that simple change of washing programme).

You’ve had some good advice about how to reduce the amount of energy you use. The other factor affecting the size of your bills is how much you’re paying for each unit of energy you use. This can vary a lot from one supplier to another and from one tariff to another, so you might want to have a look at a couple of price-comparison sites to see whether there are savings to be made by changing the tariffs you’re on. Sadly, the price-comparison business is just as complicated as the tariffs they compare, but here’s somewhere to start: Which Energy comparison websites have OFGEM accreditation? | Energy Review