Martin Lewis has shared his ‘rule of thumb’ for calculating how much your Christmas lights will cost to run during the festive season, which could help you choose when to switch them on each day. During this week’s Martin Lewis Money Show Live on ITV, the consumer champion explained that the cost comes down to whether the lights are LED or incandescent. Martin told viewers: “Here’s my rule of thumb based on the new energy price cap.
LED lights - one pence per 12 hours, per 100 bulbs, incandescents - 12 times as much, so, 12 pence per 12 hours, per 100 bulbs. If you run them for six hours, per 100 bulbs, it’s roughly 15p per month for LED and £1.80 for incandescent.
“LED are a lot cheaper, but they’re not that expensive to run, so if you want your sparkles you can have them with my blessing this year.” It’s worth noting that bigger sets of lights, with more bulbs, would use more energy and cost more. MoneySavingExpert.
com takes it one step further in this week’s newsletter. If you want to work out the exact cost per set of lights - including lighted displays and decorations - find the wattage and multiply by 24.5p (the current average Price Cap rate for electricity) then multiply by the number of hours you plan to have them on for and divide by 1,000 (as there are 1,000 watts in a kilowatt).
To see which type of lights you have, first check if the bulbs are glass or plastic - Incandescent lights are usually made of glass and get hot when they've been lef.
