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The economic crisis has taken the shine off of Christmas. Retailers have accepted the need for austerity by starting Sales early, but unfortunately the nation’s energy suppliers are delaying the introduction of price reductions for gas and electricity. This is doubly unfair, as the Christmas Season is typically the time of year where we consume most of our energy at home, all in the space of just one week.

So make sure that you don’t put too much into your energy suppliers stockings, or else you could face a massive bill after the New Year. Following up on our suggestions below will take hundreds of pounds out of your energy bill in the run-up to Christmas and thereafter!

Lights. Throughout the year, we spend about 15% of our energy bills on lighting – that’s about £100 per year. With Christmas week also the darkest week of the year (there are only 8 hours of daylight per day) this bit of expenditure claims a larger stake of our energy budget during the season. Here is what you can do:

• Standard incandescent light bulbs turn 90% of their electricity feed into heat. Yet the latest generation of energy saving light bulbs last 15 times longer, and use less than 10% of the electricity that standard bulbs use. This means that you could reduce the lighting portion of your electricity bill 9 fold! So why not ask Santa to put a set of low energy bulbs under the tree – just the gift for turbulent times.

• Christmas lights have also moved on – start by replacing your incandescent Christmas light chains with LED chains. LED’s are far longer-lasting and more colourful than the old. LED lights cost about £15 per chain, but you’ll make up the difference by using 90% less electricity!

Fireplace. Lighting your decorative fireplace may be pretty, but is very wasteful as most of the heat goes up the chimney. Leaving the fireplace on for a full day can easily burn through 100 kiloWatthours (kWh) – an estimated cost of £5. Use the fireplace sparingly, not at all - or just decorate it with a few candles.

Watch less TV! If you have a flat screen TV with a viewing screen of 42 inches or more, and are planning to catch up on the first five series of 24 between Christmas and New Year, you might be in for a bit of a surprise. Inch by inch, LCD’s and Plasmas use 3 times more energy than the old cathode ray TVs. Watching an hour of TV on your 42 inch flatscreen will therefore cost about 20 pence an hour. Adding a highly demanding game console like the current PlayStation will add another 10p per hour. So perhaps this Christmas dusting off the old board games will do more than just bring the family together. Just remember to not leave the TV on standby…

Don’t go cold turkey! Let’s be honest, the magic of Christmas is in the kitchen! And the news are good: Running your oven is actually not as energy intensive as you might think – an efficient oven will consume about 2kWh in an hour, which translates into a 20p cost (so that turkey should remain within reach). Dishwashers consume about the same amount of energy, while washing machines consume about double that amount – 4 to6kWh. So you should be able to get away with about £1 a day in energy costs to run the kitchen over Christmas.

Switch! With these tips you should be able to cut out some of the typical Christmas energy wastage. On the other hand, one thing that you should do over Christmas, while you have the time, is to look for a cheaper energy supplier. Suppliers have recently returned to the market with attractive new rates for new customers, and the average annual saving we currently present to our users on our independent switching service has now risen to £202! It takes less than ten minutes to find a cheaper, just click here.