Plug It All Out

An easy way of saving loads of money off your electricity bill with pretty much zero effort is to simply turn stuff off you're not using.

You see those plugged-in chargers, lights left on, TVs, DVD players and games consoles on standby, might not look like they're using much energy, but the constant trickle of power they drink up hour after hour, day after day, all adds up. Taking all our gadgets and gizmos off standby alone could save us £37 off our electricity bill a year. And as a nation we could save a colossal £800 million off our energy bills just by turning off all the machines and lights we're not using.

If your sockets are hard to reach, or you just want to save your achy back, there are brilliant devices on the market which can help. For example the Intellipanel will automatically detect when your appliance is on standby and switch it off. Or extinguish those pesky standby lights by remote control using the Standby Buster or Bye Bye Standby. Nice and easy.

You can also keep an eye on how much energy your machines are actually gobbling up throughout your home and how much it's all costing you by calling in Holmes and Wattson or an Owl. Or want to know how much electricity your PC/Mac or washing machine actually uses by itself? Plug them into a pun-tastically named Kill A Watt.

Been Plugging Out? Tell us how by 3 July and we'll pop you into our hand-cranked tombola with the chance to win £25 iTunes vouchers!

SHARE THIS