12 The Sunday Times April 3, 2022
MONEY
Play a song in the shower
Choose something three or four minutes
long, not Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
Turn it on when you start the song and
get out when you’re done. Even one min-
ute less in the shower each can save a
typical four person family £80 a year,
according to the Energy Saving Trust
(EST), a campaign group for energy effi-
ciency. We recommend Dignity by Dea-
con Blue, it’s four minutes long and is all
about the virtues of saving money.
... and replace the shower head
If you are fed up with an old dripping,
lime-encrusted shower head, now is the
time to change it. Modern versions use
flow-limiting technology to save up to
40 per cent of water usage. This may cost
about £20-£40, but will save you in the
long run. The EST estimates that a four-
person household could save up to £75 a
year on energy, plus another £120 on
water bills if they have a water meter.
Cup before kettle
Fill up your cup from the tap and pour
that into the kettle. This way you only boil
what you need. Most households can
save £22 a year by doing this, according to
British Gas. Don’t undo your good work
by forgetting about it so you have to boil
the kettle again.
Fine the kids
Your children are probably the worst
energy offenders in the house — leaving
on lights, TVs, games consoles, wearing
T-shirts and turning up the heating. It’s
time they paid a penalty. Start with a 10p
fine per offence and see how it goes.
Cutting the time you spend watching
films on Netflix or Amazon Prime by
three hours a week will save you £1.09 or
£57 a year. Switching a light off when not
using it can save about £14 on your annual
energy bills, according to the EST.
Celebrate springtime
This is the time of year when your winter
heating settings are out of sync with the
weather outside. Be vigilant and set it
only to what you need. Installing a ther-
mostat in every room, a heating program-
mer and thermostatic radiator valves and
using these controls efficiently could save
you about £75 a year, the EST says.
Once you have done that, then turning
down your thermostat by one degree
can save another £80 a year, accord-
ing to the EST.Be laundry smart
There are several things you
can do to be more energy-effi-
cient with the washing, such as
using the economy settings to
save water and energy. Avoid dry-
ing clothes on radiators as much
as you can as it will make your
boiler work harder to heat the
room. Don’t put on half loads of
clothes.
Setting your washing machine to wash
at 30 degrees rather than higher temper-
atures will save about £10 a year on
energy bills. You can also save an average
of £40 a year on your electricity bill by
drying clothes on a line instead of using a
tumble dryer during the summer,according to British Gas.
Stacking the fridge properly also saves
money. If you keep it three-quarters full
and keep more perishable items near the
bottom they will last longer.Shift your sofa
Large pieces of furniture, such
as sofas, absorb heat, so if they
are placed in front of radia-
tors the warmth will not cir-
culate as efficiently
around your room. This
means you will have to heat
your home for longer, adding
to your bill.
There are not many stud-
ies demonstrating the savings
you could make by moving your
furniture away from your radiators,
but some have suggested between 5
per cent and 10 per cent a year of an
average annual bill.Get out the tinfoil
Fitting reflective foil behind radia-
tors on external walls will help
reduce the rate of heat loss in theserooms. It’s surprisingly easy to do and
can be discreet. British Gas estimates that
the average home can save £20 a year.
The savings can be much higher for
poorly insulated properties.Make someone else pay
All those devices — phones, tablets, lap-
tops, watches — all need charging, and it
takes a lot of juice. So why not get some-
one else to pay? Plug in all your gadgets at
work (if you can) and get them fully
charged. If you’re on the train on the way
home charge your laptop up then too.Replace old lightbulbs
One of the easiest changes you can make
is to replace your standard lightbulbs
with LED alternatives. LED bulbs come in
all shapes and sizes and are incredibly
energy-efficient, which does wonders for
your wallet.
On average, replacing all the bulbs in
your home with energy-efficient alterna-
tives could shave £40 a year off your elec-
tricity bills, according to British Gas.Love a sausage dogGrab some old tights, stuff them with old
socks and, hey presto, you have a sausage
dog draft excluder (or you could buy
one). Draughts are a big cause of heat loss
in homes, so stop them up. To maximise
savings tackle draughty windows, doors,
chimneys, floorboards, skirting boards
and loft hatches — this can be done using
draught excluder strips or expanding
foam fillers. While there would be some
upfront costs, you could save about £30 a
year in lower energy bills, according to
Citizens Advice.
Don’t overlook extra measures like let-
terbox brushes, chimney balloons and
even keyhole coverings to stop energy
going to waste. Stuff some old news-
papers up your chimney to stop drafts
there ( just remember to remove them
before you use it again).
And if you are renting, ask your land-
lord to ensure that your home has good
insulation.Restrict Xbox and gadget use
Have you heard of a good book? They
were around before Netflix and video
games. Gaming consoles can use a lot
of energy. Reducing the use of the
Xbox or PlayStation by five hours a week
would save you about £3, according to
Loop, an energy saving app. If you cut
your use by this amount each week
you would save £154 a year. Good luck
with that.Check your council tax bill
Every household is to be given a £150
rebate for their energy use and it will be
paid through your council tax bill. You
will need to be in bands A to D to claim, so
dig out your bill and check whether you
qualify. If you pay through direct debit
then the money will be paid automati-
cally. So if you live in a houseshare it may
be wise to check with whoever pays the
energy bill to see where that money goes.
The Warm Home Discount is worth
£140 a year and is available to those on a
low income who get certain means-tested
benefits and to pensioners who receive
pension credit.
The Winter Fuel Payment is worth
£100-£300 a winter, for those born
before 26 September 1955.
The Domestic Renewable Heat
Incentive Scheme closed to new
applicants on Thursday but will
be replaced with a new boiler
upgrade scheme offering up to
£5,000 if you replace your cur-
rent gas or oil heating with a low-
carbon alternative.Your children
are probably
the worst
energy
offenders
learning
disability. She has been able
to financially help her elder
daughter, 45, who has two
children.
“Taking the right advice
has had a dramatic impact on
my life and given me
confidence for the future,”
she said.How can I track down
a pension?
The government is
developing a dashboard to
show all your pensions, the
companies they are held with
and how much is in them. It’s
due in 2023, but you do not
have to wait until then to find
your old pots.
Documents sent to you by
each pension provider should
detail the pension account
number, which you can use
to find out how much you
have in each pot and where
it’s invested through the
company’s website. If you
can’t dig out a document, you
may need to contact your old
employers’ human resources
or payroll department to get
the information. The
government has a free
pension-tracing service on its
website. If you know your
national insurance number,
you will be able to find all
your pensions there.How easy is it to transfer?
If you want to transfer an old
pot you can consult a
financial adviser, who will
track down your pensions
and advise you on what to do
with them for a fee.
Or you can do it yourself.
Once you’ve decided which
platform you want to transfer
to, set up your pension and
fill out all your details to
transfer your old pots in. The
platform should do a lot of
the work for you, but you will
have to confirm that you wish
to transfer the pensions. This
could take a few weeks.
You have the option of
transferring “in specie”,
which means transferring
your existing investments
from an old pension on to
your new platform. This can
be complicated if your
investments are not available
on the new platform. If they
are not, you may be offered
a similar share class, or you
may need to transfer any
unavailable investments in
cash and choose somewhere‘Yay! I had
forgotten
all about my
£40K pension’
Dennice Robinson, 68, says
that she does not have a
financial bone in her body.
Her first husband, an
accountant, took care of
everything money-related.
They divorced in 1995, and
she walked away with only
£28,000.
“I didn’t take any more
because I always knew I could
earn good money, and money
was very important to him,”
she said.
In 2019 she started using
the services of My Pension
Expert. She became aware of
the advice company from its
weekly slot on Ideal World,
a shopping channel where
she worked as a presenter.
Robinson, who has worked
for a number of employers
over the years, from radio
stations to magazines, has
amassed multiple pension
pots. She is not alone. One
in seven non-retired
respondents to a survey from
Interactive Investor, an
investment platform, said
that they had four or more
pots. It can be difficult to
keep tabs on them all.
One in 17 said that they did
not know how many pots
they had, and the Association
of British Insurers (ABI)
estimates that about
1.6 million pension pots,
worth £19.4 billion, are
unclaimed.
This is largely because only
one in 25 people consider
informing their pension
provider when they move
house, the ABI found.
The My Pension Expert
adviser tracked down all of
Robinson’s pensions, which
added up to about £100,000.
One that she was “completely
ashamed” that she hadforgotten about was worth
£40,000.
Robinson, who was born
in Texas but lives in
Cambridgeshire, has no
intention of retiring until she
absolutely has to. However,
she has withdrawn the
25 per cent tax-free lump sum
on her forgotten pot. That
£10,000 helped her to clear
her credit cards, become
mortgage-free and do some
work on the house.
She has since cut her
working week down to two
days. This has given her more
time to care for her 42-year-
old daughter, who has aDavid Brenchleynew to invest the money. Or
you can move your whole
pension pot over as cash and
reinvest it on the new
platform, giving you the
choice of what to invest in.Should I consolidate
all my pensions?
Consolidating your pensions
into one can be helpful if you
have a lot of pots and find it
difficult to keep track. Check
the fees that you’re paying
on each pension too. Some
charge more, so it may be
worth cutting out the
expensive ones.
If you want to control your
investments a self-invested
personal pension (Sipp) can
be a good option. If your
provider imposes a hefty
penalty charge or transfer
fee, for instance, moving
your pot may not be the most
cost-effective solution. Check
whether you could lose out
on benefits or guarantees if
you transfer.Which platform do I pick?
Once you’ve found all the
documentation for your pots,
a firm such as PensionBee can
transfer your pensions to its
platform for you. PensionBee
offers seven packaged plans
to invest through. It’s free to
transfer, and PensionBee
charges between 0.5 per cent
and 0.95 per cent to manage
your cash.
Nutmeg offers a range of
ready-made portfolios for
your pensions, costing
anywhere between 0.52 per
cent and 1.14 per cent. You’ll
have to complete the transfer
process yourself, though.
Interactive Investor, AJ
Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown
and Vanguard offer Sipps that
you can manage fully. The
fees vary and you’ll have to
do the transfer yourself. If
you choose Vanguard, you
will only be able to invest in
its funds, but its fees are
usually cheaper.
The other platforms let you
buy a wide range of shares,
funds, trusts and exchange
traded funds, or offer
ready-made portfolios for
more hands-off savers.
Rebecca O’Connor from
Interactive Investor said:
“Make sure that you fully
research where you want to
move your pension. It can
take a while to find the right
match and it’s not a process
you want to repeat.”Dennice Robinson,
a TV presenter, said
that taking financial
advice had made
the future less scaryThere’s no escaping it —
bills went up 54 per cent
on Friday. But there areeasy ways to use less
energy and save money,writes Ali Hussain
Get energy savvy: sing in the shower,
shift the sofa and kick the kids off the Xbox
SAKKMESTERKE/GETTY IMAGES