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This shopping blog is never one to shirk the essential but dull household tasks, so let me tell you about descaling your kettle. It isn’t a glamour job. It doesn’t bring you fame and success (unless there’s a kettle descaler on the next series of Britain’s got talent)
But it sure can save you money.

Many of us have “hard” water, which means that there are tiny quantities of chalky material in the water that crystallise when the kettle is boiled. They form a scale or hard coating inside the kettle. If you’ve not seen it, have a look now.

This scale causes two problems. One is that it means you use more energy to boil the water. The other is that it causes the element to overheat and fail, meaning that you have to go shopping for a new electric kettle.

Buying new electric kettles is no fun when there are so many other exciting gadgets to spend your money on, yet scale prevention is so easy.

All you need is a packet of kettle descaler – in all supermarkets and DIY stores. Put the descaler in the kettle, half fill with water and watch carefully as you bring to the boil. It will fizz up very quickly, so make sure that it doesn’t boil over.

Leave for half an hour, rinse as per the instructions, and the job’s done. Your kettle’s clean.

This shopping blog recommends that you use it every few months. And often when I go shopping I get a couple of packets to keep handy in my garden store so I never run out.

Descaler may not be one of the best gift ideas, so buy some for yourself and use the money you would have spent on a new kettle to buy something exciting.

If you’ve got any other ideas of boring things that can save you money to buy nice things with, let me know and I’ll spread the word through this shopping blog.

Rob

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