Martin Lewis and Angelica Bell returned for a new series of Money Show Live this week and jumped straight into cost of living issues affecting millions of households across the country. The duo started by helping people understand changes coming next April once the UK Government withdraws its £2,500 Energy Price Guarantee when gas and electricity bills are already being forecast to hit £4,350.
The newly-crowned ‘Best TV Expert’ at the recent National Television Awards, has been given a new hour-long time slot on ITV and crammed in key details everyone should know about their energy bills including how to challenge your supplier if your Direct Debit is too high and whether or not you should cash in credit on your account.
One important thing Martin cleared up was around washing machine usage, specifically, if there is a best time of day to do laundry to reduce energy bills. His response will no doubt see a lot of people checking the details of their tariff.
Toni contacted the show and asked: “Can you please clarify if there are peak and off peak energy rates? If I do my laundry at 10pm will it be cheaper than at 8.30am?”
The financial guru responded only “if you have a time-of-use tariff, like ECO 7 or Eco 10 or one of the OCtopus time-of-use tariffs”.
He explained: “If you don’t have a time-of-use tariff then ‘no’, the vast majority of people pay the same rates all the time.”
However, he added that if you have solar panels, you should use your energy during the day to get the most benefit.
Martin continued: “If you do have a time-of-use tariff, you want to use the majority of your energy when it’s cheapest.”
He warned people not to keep tumble dryers on overnight as it could be dangerous to leave the appliance unattended.
Martin also encouraged the nation to think about their energy usage during the winter months following the announcement from the National Grid that there may be emergency blackouts this winter.
He said: “Peak times for energy use is 4pm until 9pm, if you were able to use some of the electricity you use at that time, such as putting your washing machine on for example, outside of those hours, that helps us all with energy security.
“So give it a go, even if it doesn’t save you money.”
The founder of MoneySavingExpert.com also shared a quick way to work out how much any energy appliance costs to run, just by knowing the wattage and kilowatt cost per hour.
Martin explained you first need to find out the wattage of the appliance, which should be listed, then understand that 1000 watts equals one kilowatt, then be aware that one kilowatt hour costs 34p on the current price cap.
From there it is a simple sum to give you the hourly cost which you can then breakdown by the minutes you’ve used it.
Martin used the example of an 850w microwave oven.
This would be .85 of a kilowatt hour x 34p, which equals 29p per hour. Which means if you use the microwave for six minutes, it will cost you around 3p (a tenth of the hourly cost).
Martin also weighed up the options of using an electric oven to perform the same task as the microwave and found it to be significantly cheaper if you were only cooking one product. But for multiple items, it would probably be more cost-effective to cook them all at once.
You can catch up with the Martin Lewis Money Show Live on the STV Player.
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