A TikToker has shared how you can save up to £28.50 off your electric bill each month by cutting four laundry loads a week. The mother suggests using this £1 B&M spray to freshen up your clothes instead of chucking them in the wash basket.
Heidi Ondrak, 51, a project manager from Plymouth, Devon, shares her money-saving hacks with her 18k followers on social media, @duchessofthrift. In her latest TikTok Heidi shared how she cuts her energy costs by using B&M’s Fabulosa Spray & Wear to freshen her clothes instead of washing them.
The simple hack could save you serious cash, up to £342 a year if you cut four loads a week. In the TikTok Heidi tells her followers: “This seems like a really obvious one. But another energy saving hack is reducing the laundry loads that you put through the machine every week and the only way you're going to do that is by reducing the amount of washing that you've got.
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“So with things like cardigans, jeans, and jackets, and some tops, depending on if you’ve got a manual job, you don't need to wash your clothes every wear. Check the collar and cuffs and if things don't need a wash and they're not soiled I just use one of these sprays and hang it back up in the wardrobe.”
The average six litre hour-long laundry load costs a fraction over 28p under April 2022’s price cap, using around 1kwh per cycle. Whilst a 9kg vented tumble tumble dryer, using 5.34 kWh a cycle, costs an estimated £1.50 per load, IdealHome reports .
By cutting four loads of washing a week you could save £28.48 a month in energy - £4.48 in energy used by the washing machine and £24 for the tumble dryer. The cost of the average kWh of electricity under the October price cap will be announced by Ofgem on August 26, and is expected to be much higher than the current 28p.
Heidi said: “I think we're just in the habit of chucking stuff in the basket whether it needs a wash or not.” She warned that children can be the main culprit in most households, not wearing items for longer than half an hour to “film a TikTok video”.
Heidi bought the £1 Fabulosa “Precious Gold” edition clothes freshener from B&M, but says it is also available to buy in The Range and Poundland. The spray is scented and claims to eliminate “99.9% of bacteria and viruses that cause unpleasant smells”.
The mother advises doing the “sniff test” on your children’s clothing if you don’t think they’ve had any wear out of the item. She said: “Just by being a bit more stringent with your wardrobe and then hanging it back up if it really doesn't need a wash you can shave three or four laundry loads off per week.
“You're going to save on the detergent, you're going to save on the water, you're going to save on the actual energy that your machine uses to do that cycle. And then there's the drying on it as well.”
One follower commented on the TikTok: "Do they smell like fabric cleaner though? Im looking at spot washing for particular stains." Heidi replied: "This Fabulousa one smells lush, bit of laundry detergent on your finger to spot clean."
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