The sticker price is half the story. A cheap heater can cost more in one winter than the expensive one you didn’t buy. Work out the real number for your state.
Heating is where this bites hardest. A 2400W column heater running four hours a night through a Melbourne winter costs roughly $3 a night. A 60W electric blanket, warming the part that actually matters, runs to under twenty cents for the same stretch. Over one winter that gap is worth several times the price of the blanket.
The wattages above are typical figures, and for anything that cycles on and off — fridges especially — we use the average draw across the cycle rather than the compressor’s peak, because that’s what your bill actually reflects. A fridge’s real number is on its energy label in kWh per year; divide by 365 and multiply by your rate for an exact answer.
The same logic applies to the appliances people agonise over. A dryer used daily instead of a clothesline is a few hundred dollars a year. Run your own numbers above, then check when the category is cheapest before you buy.