As the cost of living crisis continues, energy bills have risen, causing people to do whatever they can to cut costs and bring their electricity and gas usage back down as far as possible.
One savvy homeowner has taken things even further after he purchased an electricity usage meter which simply plugs into any wall to measure how much power and money any given device in his home is using.
The homeowner hoped that he could reduce his energy bill significantly by keeping an eye on how much his home appliances are costing him, even when they are on standby.
READ MORE: The worst 'energy draining' home appliances with one costing €16 every day
After looking at the results, the man was left shocked when he discovered two appliances, in particular, were adding a huge amount to his bills just on standby alone.
Posting on the UKPersonalFinance subreddit, the poster said: "Present cost is based on the Octopus caped rate of 29.58p per kwh. Projected cost assumes a 70% increase in October although it looks like it will be higher than this."
And his results were surprising as he discovered phone chargers actually cost very little, even plugged in, while "older appliances" cost a lot to run.
Leaving an Apple phone charger plugged into the wall costs nothing at all. The plug successfully turns off its power draw when not in use.
A microwave, though, costs an estimated €32 a year just to display the clock, while a Sky Q TV box on standby costs €57.66 on standby on October's cost projections, or €72.33 to run while recording, averaged out for a year.
Another high cost was the Virgin Media WiFi router, at €36.99 per year now or €62.90 on October price projections.
He said: "Contrary to belief, leaving a phone charger plugged in will not end up killing penguins in the Antarctic.
"It's worth checking your older appliances, for me the microwave was an eye opener. I'm paying £16 (€19) (soon to be £27 (€32)) a year just to have the thing display "00:00" at me all the time. It's now switched off at the wall when not in use.
"Sky TV... I didn't expect over 9 watts when it's sitting there doing absolutely nothing. Both boxes are in 'eco mode'.
"I'm considering having my broadband router and ethernet switch on a timer. A timer costs around £7 (€8) and would pay for itself in just over a month if it switched them off for 8 hours a day. I may also do this with the Sky boxes."
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