to wonder if journalists think before they write money saving articles?

[cakeorwine]

Not going to do the link as it's clickbait.

But in the Express, there's a headline saying "Save £100s by doing this simple trick when charging your phone"

A tech company said that people should charge their phone at night if they are on Economy 7 as it's cheaper. Which is true - electricity is cheaper at off peak hours.

An Express journalist has done the maths - unless it came in the press release.

Electricity costs 34 p per KWH. Daily Phone charging is about 2 hours - so according to the article it costs 68p per day, £21 a month, £268 a year to charge a phone.

They have made massive error. If they actually took the time to think a bit and then think about their own bills at home, they would actually be very disappointed in the cost of charging a smart phone versus what it actually costs.

Which is about 0.1p an hour. Or 0.2 p a day (about 2 watts of power)

I can just see people worrying about this cost though and deciding to charge overnight - which is not really recommended.

I charge overnight because its more convenient to me. To be honest I don't think about the cost of charging my phone, its something that I can't really avoid so it doesn't matter how much it costs, it's got to be done. And no, I am not on a massive salary with no need to worry about energy prices.

It's more the alleged cost saved.

The key thing here is - electricity does not cost 34p an hour! The only way it can cost 34 p an hour is if the power is 1000 watts.

It's a massive misunderstanding - either on behalf of the journalist or the person sending the press release.

That’s embarrassingly bad. If my phone charger was drawing a KW in an hour I’d be bloody worried.

YABU to even consider the idea that journalists think before they write any article at all.

That is a really stupid mistake - the journalist obviously did not do well in their GCSE physics! Or couldn't even be bothered to steal the correct answer from Martin Lewis or something.

Also, 34p is the standard tariff not economy 7. Economy 7 is about 40p daytime rate and 16p nightime so would have to factor in the difference between day and night.

That's not lack of thinking, that's thickness so huge that in the public interest they need to be prevented from ever writing for the public again. Not just sacked from their job, but prevented by law from ever having a similar job.

And actually what goes for the writer applies even more to editors or whoever allowed this to be published. The paper itself should be fined for poducing nonsense like this.

They don't think. 'Huge savings' is just clickbait these days.

I once read an 'article' wherein a journalist had been challenged to not spend anything for five days, I think. I thought it was going to be one of those budgeting "feed your family for a fiver" type things. But no, he had a fridge and cupboards packed with food. The 'challenge' was that he had to walk past shops/stalls on his way out of work, and every day he said things like "I didn't do too well today, my colleague wrote a book so I had to buy a copy for £19.99" or "did much better today, only spent £11 on an artisan coffee and an acai bowl!" Tone deaf was an understatement.

"Britons save £100's by using this simple trick"

That's not quite what it said - but close enough.

If I was a journalist from another newspaper reading this, I would be tempted to do this as an article.

Anyone who uses the Daily Express to guide them in life is probably beyond help tbh.

Using OP's figures, so assuming it takes 2W for 2 hours to charge a phone, the annual cost of charging a phone once a day is:-

(2/1000) kw x 2 hours/day x 365.25 days/year * 0.34 pounds/kwh
= (0.34 * 2 /1000) pounds /hour x (2 x 365.25) hours/year
= 0.0068 pounds/hour x 730.5 hours/year
= 0.50 pounds / year.

50p a year.

"Britons save 20p a year by using this simple trick" isn't just the same headline.

There is so much misinformation on how much what costs it's just unreal!
Then these dummies add to it 🤦
And that's how we end up having to explain to people that candles are NOT cheaper than lightbulbs

One of my figures had a missing zero, should have written 0.00068. Doesn't change the rest, just typed that wrong.

It gets worse

"According to the energy regulator Ofgem, the cost of electricity currently stands at 34p per kWh.
The “recommended” time to charge a smartphone is two hours and 40 minutes, according to U Switch.
This means that in the UK, the average cost of charging a phone for around two hours every day costs 68p and £248 a year."

"While this may seem minimal, many of us charge them for much longer, bringing the cost up.
While the cost of charging smartphones every day is relatively low, laptops are much more expensive.
According to U Switch, laptops should be charged for seven hours a day."

So a msunderstanding of charging, and also the idea that £248 a year is relatively low.

I wonder if someone would have realised that if they had done the same maths for charging laptops, then the cost would be about £1000.

Notwithstanding the diabolical maths ... it is only cheaper to charge overnight IF you are on an Economy 7 tariff. Which most people aren't.

Just think how much Express journalists think it must cost to run a lightbulb for 8 hours a day. And then you have lots of them in the house.

Eleventy billion pounds a year.
Save dosh by taking lightbulbs out and buying solar lights instead
#lifehack #kerching

Not just newspapers though. I remember watching one of Brown's Budget on the BBC one year. He'd just announced he was increasing the upper national insurance limit and the BBC so called "expert" lauded it as a benefit for higher earners, when it fact it was the opposite.

You should do a Tik Tok video.

Then it would appear in the Daily Mail with the headline "Mum saves billions with this amazing hack"

It might have been Gordon Brown who introduced the 10 p tax rate and announced it as a tax cut for lower earners, when in fact, the changes that were introduced actually meant that people earning under £20k would pay more tax.

I don't know if it was an oversight or deliberate disguising of a rise as a cut, but it was fairly obvious looking at the changes that people on lower incomes would pay more tax due to adjustment of the bands or something, so they can't have put much thought or calculation into it.

Of course, you could take your phone to work and charge it there.

I think the campsite we stayed at on holiday must have read that article. They seemed a bit obsessed with the costs of guests charging their phones.

There was a sign in the restaurant/bar area saying that if you wanted to charge your phone it would cost 50c and another sign in the toilets telling people not to charge their phones in there.

The fire service also advise against charging electrical devises overnight, it's a fire risk.
Most of those articles seems to be aimed at poeple with no common sense, save money by taking in a packed lunch, only eat out once a month in fancy restaurant. Do people need telling this stuff.

There is a really good thread on MN
www.mumsnet.com/talk/cost_of_living/4618028-the-how-much-does-this-cost-to-run-thread?page=1

Maybe they should get the journalist pay😂

I wonder how many people are on Economy 7 these days. DH got an electric car earlier this year and nobody was offering that tariff anymore.