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Plant Now, Save Next Spring — Five Garden Jobs That Will Cost You Less Later

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  Plant Now, Save Next Spring — Five Garden Jobs That Will Cost You Less Later The cheapest way to improve next year’s garden is to start before this year has finished. On a grey November afternoon, it’s easy to look at the garden and think that everything can wait until spring. Then March arrives. There’s a gap in the border, last year’s pelargonium has turned to mush and the vegetable bed is already growing something you certainly didn’t sow. I like to approach the garden as I would a practical in the lab. Start by looking at what you’ve got, decide what you want to achieve and try one small job you can check later. A plant you divide now, a seed envelope you label properly or a pot you get under cover before a frost can all make a difference. The saving only counts if it replaces something you’d otherwise buy. Sometimes the real gain is having one less job to do on the first fine weekend in March. 1. Split a healthy clump and fill a gap for free Walk round the borders and look f...
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Could You Find £100 of Wasted Electricity in Your Home?

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  Could You Find £100 of Wasted Electricity in Your Home? Your electricity meter knows where your money is going. Do you? A light glowing in an empty room is easy to spot. Electricity being used quietly, hour after hour, is much easier to miss. An old computer left running. A heated towel rail following a schedule nobody remembers setting. An immersion heater providing an unnecessary boost. Individually, they may seem unimportant. Over a year, they can become surprisingly expensive. Could you find £100 of avoidable electricity use in your home? Perhaps. Some households will find more; others already use electricity carefully and will find less. The useful challenge is to measure what happens, identify what serves no purpose and calculate what changing it could save. Start With Evidence, Before Shopping My home has 26 solar panels, substantial battery storage and a heat pump. I enjoy technology and the possibilities it offers. But owning equipment does not remove the need to underst...
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The 20-Minute Outdoor Challenge: Could It Change How You Feel This Winter?

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  The 20-Minute Outdoor Challenge: Could It Change How You Feel This Winter? One of the best things you can do for yourself this winter doesn't need a subscription, an app or a gym. It might simply begin with putting on a coat and opening the front door. At this time of year, it is surprisingly easy to spend almost the whole day indoors. We get up in darkness, work under artificial lighting and notice, rather too late, that the daylight has disappeared again. Going outside becomes something we do between the house and the car. Yet winter does not have to mean putting our relationship with the outdoors on hold until spring. Here is a small experiment: try a 20-minute outdoor activity each day for a week, preferably in daylight, and notice how you feel. There is nothing medically special about the number 20. It is a practical target, rather than a prescribed treatment or a promise of better health. You can shorten it, split it up or adapt it to your circumstances. Why Winter Can Shri...
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Can You Eat Better for Less Than £3 a Day? The Real Cost of Healthy Food

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  Can You Eat Better for Less Than £3 a Day? The Real Cost of Healthy Food “The healthiest food in the supermarket may also be some of the cheapest.” Walk past the protein bars, premium smoothies and packets promising a healthier lifestyle, and you will find ingredients that receive much less attention: oats, lentils, beans, potatoes, carrots and frozen vegetables. They do not need fashionable packaging to make nutritious meals. But can they provide a satisfying, balanced day of food for less than £3 per person? The worked example below comes to approximately £2.47 for the ingredients used. That is encouraging—but it is different from buying an entire shopping basket for £3. The interesting question is what makes that calculation work, and what it can teach us about eating well. Healthy Eating Has Acquired an Expensive Image A healthy breakfast can look as though it requires imported berries, specialist powders, expensive yoghurt and several varieties of seeds. Those ingredients m...
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The Great Autumn Laundry Experiment: What’s the Cheapest Way to Dry Your Clothes?

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  The Great Autumn Laundry Experiment: What’s the Cheapest Way to Dry Your Clothes? The cheapest way to dry your clothes might not be the one you think. It is an ordinary autumn problem. The washing machine has finished, the sky looks threatening, and there is another load waiting behind this one. Do you put everything in the tumble dryer? Arrange it on an airer? Switch on a dehumidifier? Or hang it outside and hope? Each option has its supporters. Unfortunately, comparisons often overlook something important: an appliance’s power rating does not tell you how much it costs to finish the job. A small appliance running all day can use more electricity than a larger one that finishes quickly. Equally, clothes drying “for free” indoors may be borrowing heat from your home and releasing moisture that you then need to remove. So let us turn the weekly washing into a useful household experiment. First, Define What You Mean by “Cheapest” There are three different questions: Which method us...
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The Clocks Have Gone Back: Is Your Home Ready for the Darker Evenings?

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  The Clocks Have Gone Back: Is Your Home Ready for the Darker Evenings? The clocks have changed. Have your household habits changed with them? On Sunday 25 October 2026, the UK clocks went back one hour, returning us to Greenwich Mean Time. Many phones and computers adjusted automatically. Other household clocks and controls may still need attention. We usually find that over the next few days we find more devices that needed the clocks changing and this often involves finding the manual too. But changing the time on the oven is only the beginning. Are your outdoor lights coming on when you need them? Does the heating still follow your actual routine? Can you see the front step when you arrive home? And are you spending the brightest part of the day indoors, only thinking about going for a walk when it is already dark? The autumn clock change is a useful reminder to review how our homes work—and how we live in them. A few thoughtful adjustments can make darker evenings safer, more...
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