BRIGHT IDEAS FOR CHRISTMAS SPARKLE

I’VE been investigating which Christmas lights are the cheapest to run, not just to buy.

Paula Boston, from FestiveLights. com says: ‘Modern

Christmas lights use LEDs rather than filament bulbs. Plus, they tend to use relatively little electricity.’ She says an outdoor display of LED lights, left on for an average of six hours per night, costs 8p per month.

David Wilson of David Wilson Homes suggests using solar lights which are powered by sunlight during the day and then shine at night. You can get a string of mini solar-powered lights for £2.69 on eBay. He also suggests considering batteryoperated lights as you will know you hav e already paid for the energy. Amazon has a lot of batterypowered Christmas lights on sale for £8.99 upwards.

You don’t have to break the bank to buy indoor Christmas lights. Dunelm has 200 LED lights for £10 ( dunelm.com) with an advertised running cost of 2p per hour (calculated on October’s 2022 electricity rate of 34p per kWh). Whitestores ( white stores.co.uk) are selling 750 LED lights for £25.99 which they say cost 0.02p a day to run.

Another way to control your spending on lights is to add a plug-in timer.

Argos sells plug-in timers for £12.99 for a pack of three.