Which will save more money?

[SophieSellerman]

I have an AEG 10kg washing machine (bought a few months ago). The manual is incomprehensible and the website can't answer this very straightforward question.

Which will save more money?

1. Eco setting - 4 hours(ish), has only one temperature option (40 degrees)

2. Ordinary cotton wash - reduced time to 55 mins, temperature chosen by me at 30 degrees

I'm not worried about the relative environmental merits/non-merits; I'm only interested in cutting my energy bills as much as possible. Any advice, oh MN gurus?

Thank you for the manual, Cynderella! I will take it to bed with me.

And thank you for writing the first thing I have understood about kwh this evening.

I think this is the manual for your model.

Your post has prompted me to recheck our elderly machine data now I'm paying almost 30 p for each kwh on top of the standing charge. A 40 degree cotton wash uses .5 kwh whereas the 40 deg quickwash (my favourite programme because it's half an hour) is .35 kwh. It also uses MUCH less water. It's over twenty years old and used every day - I don't think I want a new one!