Helpful & useful- energy use reduction methods and ideas to save money

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I've seen the many messages about people panicking about the huge increases in fuel prices but I haven't seen any threads to suggest and actively encourage using less fuel and decrease your home energy bill so I thought this might be a good idea and a good way to start.

I am totally skint and it genuinely is a choice between eating and heating (and other fuel usage) which is not a nice place to be.

I have found a few ways of cutting down gas, electric and water bills; maybe now is a perfect time for us all to share our energy and motor fuel saving ideas. It's a horrible time but let's do each other proud and support each other. I'm just going out now but I'll add some of my energy saving ideas later and hope to come onto a full thread.😁😁

If you are cooking a meal with, say, potatoes and two other different vegetables, don't use three different hotplates, either boil the potatoes with steamers on the top for other veg or, if you don't mind a mixture of veg (I don't worry about this but DH likes his veg cooked separately) put everything in one saucepan (at different times, obviously, because different things take different times to cook). Either way, only one hotplate used instead of 3.

I thought I'd added all the previous threads of tips but when I went back to re-read them either the watching didn't work or I lost in the update and now I can't get the hang of the search to find them again

One of the best bits of advice I've had on MN is, if you have the right type of combi boiler, you can reduce the flow and make a 10% saving in gas without changing your target temperature. It's more suitable for some than others but we did this in January and reduced our gas usage by about 10%.

More details here.

www.theheatinghub.co.uk/articles/turn-down-the-boiler-flow-temperature

Drive slower & calmer, no need to ever do above 70mph

Keep tyres well inflated and roof-racks off when not in use

No need to flush for every wee

Keep doors shut in rooms you're using to retain heat

Open oven door after cooking to use the heat in the home

Wear base -layers

Only wash clothes & towels if they're smelly or dirty

At school we were always taught to save money by always using saucepans with lids, steaming, and turning pans off just before things were cooked and relying on the use of residual heat to finish cooking. Also using only the minimum amount of water required, and steaming where possible so we only used one ring on the cooker.

My mum always used a pressure cooker to reduce cooking times and to make use of cheaper cuts of meat.

The aren’t particularly original tips, I’m afraid.

I can offer tips that I used when I lived in an old cottage with flagstone floors, knackered central heating (and no fireplaces). And no money.
Choose slippers with cork soles that keep you well insulated from the floor. Furry Uggs and similar are not brilliant as the soles aren’t thick enough.
Layer up your clothing well. And wear a hat.
In the evenings, sit in a sleeping bag with one hot water bottle at your feet and one on your lap. Then take it to bed and sleep in it under your duvet.
Stay at work/ in the library/ at the sports centre for as long as possible to make use of their heating. As a bonus, you can read their newspapers and charge your laptop.
Use showers at work/ at the sports centre if you can.
If showering at home, leave the plug in the bath. The heat from the water you have used takes the edge off the cold in the bathroom. You can leave it there until it goes cold, but it can make the house damp so I used to open the window once I was dressed.
Use bubble wrap on the inside of windows. Especially frosted bathroom ones as you can put layers on and it doesn’t show from outside. Use a clear shower curtain as an additional curtain at the window - it lets in light but provides extra insulation.
If your walls are damp old stone, leave a good air gap between them and any furniture as they can get damp.
Upstairs is often warmer than downstairs, so see if rearranging the house would work for you. I had a sofa and TV in my bedroom. I did eat downstairs to keep the smell of curry out of the bedroom, though.