Martin Lewis explains how to easily calculate the cost of using your appliances | Personal Finance | Finance
Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis co-hosted Good Morning Britain with Susanna Reid today. He explained how to work out the running costs of household appliances, for example, to work out whether its cheaper to cook a jacket potato in a microwave or an oven.
Martin explained: “A typical microwave is 1000 watts – 1000 watts is a kilowatt (kw)- so we know a KW of electricity under the new price cap guarantee is 34p
“How long does a jacket potato take – we say about 10 minutes in a microwave.
“So you’re talking a sixth of 34p – we’ll call it 6p – one jacket potato in the microwave is 6p.
“An oven can be 1000 to 2000 watts but we’ll go generous and say it’s 1000 watts – but to cook a jacket potato in an oven it takes say an hour which is 34p.
“If you had six jacket potatoes – cause they’d all go in the oven and you don’t pay any more – that would still be 34p. It’s cheaper to cook one jacket potato in the microwave.”
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However, some Britons are angry it has come to this.
Twitter user @MrKrisMcD wrote: “Is this where we’re at now? Worrying about whether it costs three pence or four pence to boil the kettle?”
Another user @fresiafiend said: “I keep my usage low and have cut back even more due to cost. It makes no difference.
“I’ve used £1 before I even get up due to the standing charge.”
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Good Morning Britain viewer Cherry asked if it is cheaper to use appliances like dishwashers and washing machines at night.
Martin replied: “Most people are on standard rates that apply all the time so you pay the same amount whenever you use energy.
“The two things that would change that – if you’re on a Time of Use Tariff such as Eco 7 or Eco 10 it will be cheaper at night but generally you would know if you were on one.
“If you have solar panels you would want to use your energy during the day when there’s daylight so that some of that is being used up by your solar panel.”
This Morning airs weekdays on ITV from 6am.
Martin Lewis is the Founder and Chair of MoneySavingExpert.com. To join the 13 million people who get his free Money Tips weekly email, go to www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip
