Most of us are aware of how much our energy bills have skyrocketed in the last year and even with government support, this winter will be challenging for many. In this post, I look at ways to reduce your energy costs over the festive period – from the cheapest way to cook Christmas Dinner to whether it’s cheaper to run Christmas lights on electricity or batteries.

Cut The Cost Of Cooking Christmas Dinner

Estimates show that cooking Christmas Dinner could cost as much as £12 in energy this winter. However, there are plenty of things you can do to significantly reduce that cost.

If you have a slow cooker, then this is a great way to cook your joints of meat without needing to switch on the oven, which is one of the most expensive appliances to run. You could them the day before or overnight on Christmas Eve so then the meat just needs to be kept warm on the lowest setting until you’re ready to serve up.

Air Fryers are another big energy saver, especially if you’re only cooking for a few people. They can be used to cook pretty much anything including roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots, pigs in blankets and stuffing balls.

A vegetable steamer is a great way to cook all of your vegetables in one go while only using one ring on your hob. If you don’t have one already you could look out for one second-hand or ask a friend or family member if they have one that they could let you borrow for the day.

Finally, if you do use your oven, don’t forget to leave the door open when everything has finished cooking to let the residual heat circulate and help keep your house warm.

Create Your Own Warm Hubs With Friends And Family

There’s a whole week of the kids being home for the holidays before Christmas year and you might be wondering how to entertain them on a budget while also keeping them warm at home for the days you’re not out and about.

Many towns and cities are creating warm hubs this winter, which include communal buildings such as libraries and town halls, where anyone can go to get warm, especially if they cannot afford to put their heating on.

This is something you could also set up yourself on a small scale with friends and family – where you take it in turns to host and keep everyone, thus limiting the need for everyone’s heating to be on all day every day.

Related Posts

5 Quick Ways To Reduce Energy Costs

How to Make Your Home Cosy for Winter

3 Energy-Saving Tips to Lower Utility Bills

Use Timers To Limit Christmas Lights

While you might be nervous about the cost of using electricity to run your Christmas lights over the festive period, it is actually cheaper to have plug-in lights than battery-operated ones.

You may also be looking to find a balance between having some festive joy, worrying about the cost and feeling like a total scrooge.

Using a timer so you’re in control of how long lights are on is one way to save energy but still fill your home with festive cheer. For us, we’ve been putting our tree and window lights on when it gets dark around 5 pm and setting a timer using Alexa to switch them off around 9 pm when we’re heading to bed.

We don’t have them on in the day at all (as we would have done in the past) but we do still get to enjoy them without constantly being worried about the cost.

Turn The Heating Down When You Have Lots of Guests

Don’t forget that having a lot of people in your house will make it warmer, so if you’ve got a houseful this Christmas you can probably turn the heating down by a degree or two or slightly lessen the time that it’s on for.

Ask For Practical Christmas Presents

There are lots of ways you can reduce the cost of your energy bills but many of them come at a cost. If you were to buy all of them at once, it would probably take a couple of years to recoup the rewards in energy saved.

You could instead, consider asking for some of these items as Christmas presents to help you along your energy-saving journey.

• Hot Water Bottle
• Air Fryer
• Heated Airer
• Slow Cooker
• Electric Blanket
• Heated throw
• Extra Blankets
• Warm Clothing Eg. Dressing Gown, Slippers, Oodie (oversized fleece hoody), Thermal Vests and Socks.

I really hope this guide helps to reduce some of your energy costs this Christmas and over the winter months.