Eight ways to reduce your energy bills as big freeze hits including how to get free cash & electricity-saving gadgets

WE have begun the year in the grip of bone-chilling Arctic blasts.

It could not have come at a worse time for the nearly ten million UK pensioners whose Winter Fuel Payments have just been axed.

GettyHelp beat the cold and pressures of higher fuel charges[/caption]

It also coincides with a rise in energy bills for 26million customers on standard tariffs.

Prices went up by 1.2 per cent on January 1, costing households on average an extra £21 a year. It follows a ten per cent hike in October...