How to use your appliances to save money

If you want to get your power bill down, looking at how you use your appliances is a good place to start.

Choosing an energy efficient model – those with the most stars on the Energy Rating sticker – when it’s time to buy a new appliance will save you the most money in the long run. But if you don’t need to replace any right now, changing how you use the appliances you’ve already got will still add up to savings on your power bill.

In the kitchen

• A good dishwasher will cost half as much to run as doing the dishes by hand, so don’t be afraid to use it. Avoid the half-load setting – it can cost just as much as a full load. Using the auto-sensing cycle means the dishwasher only uses as much energy as it really needs to clean the load.  

• Slow cookers are a really cheap way to cook dinner. Even though they run for 8 hours, they use only about 20 cents worth of power, and you’ll probably have leftovers if you don’t have a large family. Cooking dinner in the air fryer will cost about 12 cents. By comparison, a roast in the oven will cost about a dollar to cook.

• Decide if it’s important to you to have the microwave always plugged in. Leaving it on standby could cost you $11 a year.  

• If you buy a new fridge, don’t stick the old one in the shed to use as a back-up. Fridges in garages have to work overtime to deal with large temperature fluctuations. We estimate having one will add about $200 to your annual power bill. 

In the laundry 

• Choosing to warm wash will really add up. If you’ve got a front loader, the cost of power for a warm wash is three times more than if you ran a cold one. In a top loader, the difference between a warm and cold wash is even higher – about six times. 

• Drying your washing in the sunshine is of course free and cheaper than putting it in the dryer. But sometimes the weather doesn’t make that possible. You can cut down the amount of drying time needed by giving the load a higher spin in the washing machine first. Keeping your dryer’s filter clean will also ensure it doesn’t have to work hard to do its job.  

Consider an off-peak power plan 

If you can wait until night-time to turn on your whiteware, you could make big savings by switching to a time-of-use power plan. These plans encourage you to use power outside peak times – those times when everyone gets up and going for the day, and when they come home again in the evening – by offering cheaper or free power at other times of day.  

Most power companies now offer a time-of-use plan. Most reward night-time power use, but there are also some that offer it in the middle of the day and on the weekend.