A money-saving pro has explained how he saves £725 each year on his energy bills by washing his clothes at night and showering in the early hours.
Consumer champion Scott Dixon, 51, from Edinburgh, also uses a slow cooker and heats just one room of his home to keep costs down.
Scott started looking at ways to slash his energy bills one year ago, when he first noticed that his monthly costs were rising.
The energy price cap — which sets a limit on the rates you pay for each unit of gas and electricity — also shot up by £139 last month.
Scott, who runs thegrumpygit.com blog, is currently on a variable tariff with Bulb that is split into a day tariff and night tariff.
This means the unit price he pays for his energy usage depends on the time of day and is cheaper at night.
Scott soon realised he could take advantage of cheaper rates - and now a third of his energy consumption happens during the early hours.
His night tariff costs 14.10p/kWh - 34% cheaper than what electricity and gas costs on the day tariff at 21.28p/kWh.
The night tariff kicks in at 11.50pm, and ends at 8.50am.
Speaking to The Sun, Scott says he saves around £13.50 per year by only washing his clothes at times where he pays night tariff rates.
How do you save money on your energy bills? Let us know: mirror.money.saving@mirror.co.uk
“I set the washing machine on a timer to start at 6am in the morning,” he said.
“It’s usually a two hour cycle, which means it finishes at around 8am - 50 minutes before the night tariff rate ends.”
Scott estimates that he forks out 28p per wash at these times, whereas it would cost him 43p per wash if he washed his clothes during the day.
He also makes sure to shower in the early morning to cut back on energy costs, and reckons this saves him £36.50 per year.
This is based on a 10 minute shower costing him around 20p at night instead of 30p a day, with his shower using 80KwH of energy.
Other ways Scott keeps his energy bills down include using a more energy-efficient halogen oven, which he says saves him £65 a year, and using a slow cooker which costs him just 2p an hour to run, and saves him £60 a year.
He also never uses a tumble dryer, saving him an estimated £60 by letting his clothes dry naturally on an airer.
But the biggest saving - an impressive £490 a year - comes from Scott only heating one room, instead of his entire flat.
Scott only heats the room he is using in his flat - usually the lounge - and says it costs him £1.35 just to heat the one room per day.
He sometimes uses a small halogen heater to dry his clothes a bit quicker if he needs to.
The extra money Scott has saved will more than cover the £535 nine-night Christmas holiday to Benidorm he has booked for Christmas this year.
