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.

YABU

its the express, hardly a thinking persons rag

Having anything unnecessary on at night is a worry. I’ve seen articles encouraging people to put washers and dryers on over night, worrying.
A neighbour put their tumbler, in the garage, on at night. It went on fire and burnt the garage down. Lucky that it wasn’t in the house.

I'm so embarrassed for that 'journalist'.

So many people seem obsessed with the cost of charging their phones, with some doggedly topping them up at work or on the train - not just because they need charging, but deliberately to 'save money'. However high the electricity rates go, you're still looking at actual pennies for a phone. Using a tumble dryer for one fewer hour a year will probably save you considerably more.

Clickbait is so unutterably pathetic - there was one yesterday about why Martin Lewis is 'being made to hand back his OBE' - the boring reason being because he's being upgraded to a CBE, rather than any kind of controversy or falling foul of the authorities.

The ones that irritate me the most are those that have somehow got my surname from somewhere (probably a 'legitimate interest' cookie from years ago, before I got wise to them and use it randomly in their rubbish adverts as if it were a place: "People in Higgins are being urged to check their policies"; "Why people in Higgins are cashing in on this benefit" etc. What on earth is the point of that? [Higgins isn't my actual surname]. That and the asinine "People born between 1910 and 2010 - this specifically affects YOU!"

its the express, hardly a thinking persons rag

Outrageous: what would Diana think if she read what you just wrote?!

@glassfully There are specific EV tariffs. Octopus Go to name one, and Octopus are taking on customers. Bulb have one too but only for existing customers. Who are you with?

I know people who have had fires in their homes by doing that.

Their kitchens/utility rooms were gutted. Those who had an adult who left the doors open at night had smoke damage in other rooms of their home.

Though luckily not in recent years.

So many people seem obsessed with the cost of charging their phones, with some doggedly topping them up at work or on the train - not just because they need charging, but deliberately to 'save money'. However high the electricity rates go, you're still looking at actual pennies for a phone. Using a tumble dryer for one fewer hour a year will probably save you considerably more.

This annoys me.

You don't need to top up your phone that often unless you want to screw up the battery life.

The purpose of the article is to get you to read it, to gain advertising revenue for the host site...it doesn't matter if it's factually incorrect, misleading, nonsensical or a downright pack of lies. You read it. The site receives the revenue. Job done!

@AltheaVestr1t I understand that, but I wonder what the benefit to the site is.

The adverts make the sites unusable and the articles are clearly nonsense. I can't see anyone then actually going as far as clicking the adverts and actually buying anything, so how does it all make them any money? The advertisers I mean, what is in it for them?

😂 my 'clinkbait demographic decider' seems to think I'm decades older than I actually am.
Always showing pictures of very elderly people holding up their 'pension windfall' or 'free money - aka equity release'.

I wouldn't mind, but I can't afford a pension and I'm decades away from paying off my mortgage so it's salt in the wounds!

And another article

www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-11320083/Beware-Cooking-roast-cost-half-price-ingredients.html

How do you apply for these newspapers?
I am:
Dramatic
Educated yet with questionable syntax
Full of ideas
I also have spare time and questionable math skills.

Looks like I would fot right in

The DM also has the same article every single year, where it shows how you can DOUBLE how much annual leave you get. It does this by telling you that, if you book AL in weeks with bank holidays already in them, you can end up with a full week off and not have to use as much of your AL.

Aside from the fact that it assumes everybody works 9-5 Monday-Friday, gets all BHs off, can take AL whenever they like and that nobody would have any colleagues who might just also want to do the same thing, it's just so unbelievably obvious and just leaves you cringing for the 'journalist' who 'discovered' it.

They might as well share the amazing hack that, if you regularly start feeling hungry around lunchtime, all you need to do is have a couple of sandwiches and a banana and then your 'cunning' will see you right until home-time.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

What, like this?

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/bbc-journalist-mocked-for-video-on-making-sandwiches-as-a-lunch-hack-a3540626.html

Couldn’t agree more. This Guardian article amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/oct/07/expert-winter-tips-winterproof-finances-bills
similarly shite. TOP OF THE LIST Tip #1: move your fridge.

who the hell on a budget has multiple different places in their kitchen that they could just decide to move their fridge to??? Just whack it somewhere else, 5 minute job. I thought it was a parody article to start with.

It doesn’t get better as you read on either. None of it costed in terms of time or money vs benefit. Buy vitamins: doesn’t matter if you overspend and take too many B vits, you’ll just pee out the excess. So yay: the money saving article reassures us that the worst case scenario is you’re literally pissing your money away, what could go wrong??

They need to cheaply fill space as sales as so down.

However tweet them and link in money saving expert - or just email - they will remove it from the site when they realise it’s wrong

YY to the annual leave one, which will resurface soon telling us all that we can take a month off work for only 12 days of our 'precious' annual leave or whatever if we combine it with the Easter and May Bank Holidays and the extra day for the coronation.

Yes because it's OK if no-one goes to work during that time isn't it? Except all the infrastructure, emergency services, retail and leisure sector workers that people who are off work will expect to be still working of course.

My mum rang me to warn me because she'd seen a clickbait thing - passengers in cars no longer allowed to use mobile phones😮.

A quick search established that this was referring to people who were supervising a learner driver not being allowed to use mobile phones.🙄

@BarbaraofSeville

Wow, is he for real?! Does he genuinely think that he's the first person ever to discover what 95% of a supermarket is there for?!

That makes me think of the episode of The Simpsons where something unfortunate happens to the kids and, as a result, the parents are sent on a compulsory parenting/adulting course, which includes such valuable gems as "Hey, people - don't just throw your garbage out of the window - put it into the garbage can!!"

Marge found it deeply humiliating, but Homer was taking careful notes, exclaiming "This is gold!!"

That. Is. Hilarious.

Exactly. They don’t bother checking the facts before printing. Why let the facts get in the way of a good story..

‘Saves you £115 daily!’ Energy expert shares ‘simple error’ to avoid when heating homes

you for pointing me towards the Express and their trove of money saving tips. Apparently i can save £115 every day on my heating costs!!! That's a whopping £42k per year!

See also the deliberately misleading headlines that say things like "We lost 127 stone!" or "We earn £2.5m a year!" - and then you find that it's the combined weight-loss or earnings of a group of 62 people.

I once saw the front cover of a trashy magazine that had pictures of Richard & Judy looking distraught and the headline said something like "Shock - Richard and Judy: I'm leaving you!" If you bothered to turn to the article (I must admit, I did - didn't buy it, of course, though), it was actually a happy (naturally with a few tears) family story about Chloe moving out and moving on with her own adult life.

Viz top tips is starting to look less and less absurd, day by day, when you look at what the mainstream rags are peddling by comparison!

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

They're the same thing, aren't they? Or do you mean, "on the part of the journalist"?