If you’re looking to save money on household bills, and general utilities or outgoings, you might have come across LED lighting as a way to do just that. But how much money can LED lighting actually save you, and is it worth the extra effort or switching everything over? 

LED lighting has actually been proven to be more energy efficient than regular bulbs so upgrading to LED bulbs and LED lighting is something that could bring your household bills down as a result. Because LED lighting is more energy efficient, the bulbs last for longer, and also just less energy  electricity to run. This means lower maintenance (less replacements) and lower bills too. 

But isn’t LED lighting really expensive? 

Yes, LED bulbs can cost a little bit more than normal bulbs, but although they’re slightly more expensive than incandescent bulbs, the energy saving properties LED bulbs provide (and the fact you have to replace then less frequently) will balance this out over time. 

Actually this means that LED lighting is much cheaper and budget friendly in the long run. So although the initial cost of changing your incandescent bulbs over to LED bulbs might seem like an investment, within a few months you’ll be saving money. 

What are the upfront costs? 

Let’s compare the costs of the bulbs, so you can understand this a little clearer. 

A standard 40W GLS filament bulb, will cost you about £1.50 in most stores (maybe a little less, maybe a little more). It’s equivalent in the LED market is a 5W LED GLS for which you’d pay around £5 (maybe up to £5.50). 

You’ll notice that the upfront cost of the LED bulb is more, but that’s where this gets interesting. If you look at the average hours of life of each bulbs, you’ll see just where you’re saving money. 

For the LED bulb, the average life is 20,000 hours. 

For the filament bulb the average life is 1,000 hours. 

So, even though the LED bulb is more expensive, it should last 20 times longer than the cheaper bulb. In fact, if the filament bulb were to last 20,000 hours, you’d end up paying £30 – as you’d need to replace is 30 times. So you can see, over time, the LED bulb is much smarter investment. 

What about household bills? 

As well as saving you money on bulbs, one of the biggest benefits of swapping to LED lighting is the energy efficiency they can offer. Taking the example of the bulbs above (in the previous example) you’ll see that the filament bulb is a 40W bulb, whereas the LED bulb is only using 5W. And yet, they do the same job. 

It’s this difference that can make real changes to your energy bills at home.  On an energy rate of £0.18 – £0.20 per kWh, the LED light bulb we have mentioned would cost approximately £20 during the time you use it. The incandescent bulb (the cheaper bulb to buy) would end up costing you £160 (maybe more) over the same period.