Saving Electricity: A New Toaster Causes Maths Confusion

Well, here it is, my brand spanking new toaster.  "Not very thrifty", I hear you cry!  Well indeed, and this is where the confusion begins.

For the past year, we haven't had a toaster.  Our previous one went 'pouff' and that was that.  I decided we could be doing with some space on the worktop, so didn't replace it.  I had also been reliably informed by revered British Chef, Delia Smith, that the only way to make a decent piece of toast, was to grill it.  So grill it we did.

However, since getting my trusty OWL electricity monitor, I realised that each time I put the grill on, the electricity reading jumped through the roof.  This was especially worrying as we eat rye bread for our toast, which takes a lot longer to crisp up than your standard white sliced does (it is however, very, very yummy stuff!)

So this set me off into a world of calculations.  Using my OWL I figured that each toasting session cost .5p.  When you reckon that we have toast most days, and that JW has his breakfast at a different time to us, most days, (meaning double the grill time; unfortunately 6.30am alarms and me don't mix!) Then you can estimate that it is costing us roughly £36.50 ($58.24) each year to make our toast.  Wowzers!

I have sat on this information and pondered about it on and off for the last few months.  My dilemma was this: using the grill is expensive, but a new toaster costs money! And if I was to buy a new toaster, I had no idea how much electricity it would save me.

I finally decided I would get a cheap toaster and headed out to Sainsbury's, where confusion abounded.  None of the toasters told you how much electricity they used (except for one model), so it was really tricky to compare them for energy efficiency.  I plumped for the Kenwood model, as it had a one-slice option, which claimed to save 50% of the electricity of other models.  But at £49.97 ($79.74), it was also amongst the most expensive (there goes my idea for a cheap model, oh dear!).

When I got it home, I made two slices of toast straight away.  The Kenwood Toaster toasted me up lovely pieces of rye bread at a cost of only .1p.  A whole .4p saving on the grill.  So, by my rough calculations, (taking into account the number of times it is used each day) the toaster should have paid for itself through saved electricity within 19 months.  From which point I will be saving £29.20 ($46.39) a year on electricity, as the toaster will cost a meagre £7.30 ($11.65) to run! Miles cheaper than the grill's toasting cost of £36.50 ($58.24).

The only downside is that the toaster is new and so it will have eaten up the earth's resources in its production.  At least all the packaging it came in was recyclable, with none of that hideous polystyrene stuff to content with!  And I will recycle the toaster itself when it finally breaks, (but not before 19 months I hope!)

Sometimes it feels like you need a maths degree to work this stuff out!

What about you?  What's your top electricity saving advice?