No Magic Money Tree....

Re: magazines - if you have an Amazon Prime membership, their reading programme has quite a few free magazines too as well as one pre publication book free per month. I know AP isn't necessarily thrifty but it is possible to get six months free as a student thereafter half price for a couple of years.

To keep the rayburn costs down, cook in the ovens and minimise cooking on the top - that makes it lose heat quickly and use more oil. However, when it's on, it's on so anything that can go in it should be cooked in it (and yes, they do take time to learn and aren't ideal for baking, but for slow cooking, baked potatoes, soup etc they are brilliant - do some googling to work out how too use it most efficiently).

If you use a stove top kettle keep it on the back of the Rayburn so you are starting with warm water. And if you're not using it much for cooking the too will be clean so fold your laundry when damp (not wet) and put it on the top and it will dry/air and probably not need ironing. Stick an airer in front of it overnight (so it isn't in your way) to dry bigger/heavier/more stuff.

Oil prices vary throughout the year, but you can benefit from bulk buying - if you haven't done already then look to see whether there is a local oil co-operative. Ours does regular orders for most of the village and saves me a few pence per litre at times.

Having had builders in for the last few weeks and minimal heating until this week, it's important to keep the house heated and dry. Check the temperatures in each room, and keep an eye on the damp.

If you have a stove rather than an open fire you don't have to so picky about what you burn (old floorboards and pallet wood feature prominently here, along with trees from the garden), and you can offer to take wood away for people - recently cut trees may need seasoning - if you have room to store it. Picking up sticks and pine cones when out for walks can supply you with firelighters/kindling and even the occasional log. A fan on top of a stove can help the heat reach the rest of the house.

It doesn't sound as if your home will ever be particularly cheap to heat, but you may be able to make better use of the Rayburn. It might be worth saving to add another radiator or two to it if it has the capacity, to help heat the rest of the house. Alternatively, if you really don't get on with it, consider getting rid of it and replacing with an oil boiler or air source heat pump (keeping a fire or stove for backup in the event of a power failure) as unless you use it for cooking/laundry drying it is a very expensive way of heating the house.

I assume you have an immersion heater for hot water when the Rayburn is off? Check this is switched off when it is on, and consider using an electric shower if you have one instead of heating a tank full of water. Obviously if you use lots of hot water for washing up from your baking this may not work, but if you use a dishwasher it probably isn't worth heating the tank.

I guess you are already allowing for a percentage of your running costs when filling in your tax form each year as you operate at home?
The power tools your OH uses may be only on for minutes at a time so he might be right about it not being significant but remember that some power tools are rated 3kw an hour so 20 minutes use would use a killowatt.
We don't have a TV now. Instead we have a laptop through which we watch amazon and netflix (no TV licence). It is about 40 watts an hour .We used to have a plasma screen that OH rescued from a skip,which drew about 400 watts . I was so glad when that finally broke LOL.
Desktops use about 10 times the wattage of a laptop. tablets use about 10watts and cell phones maybe 3 or 4.
For fridges, vacuuming behind them to keep dust off the coils can help. The tumble dryer outlet hose can get partially blocked too so getting the vacuum hose down it from the outside can make sure its clear and that can reduce running costs. Are you removing things as they are dry or waiting for the whole load to be done? Mum used to do this at the launderette to save having to put more money in. She would give it about 5 minutes and then check and repeat . Putting a clean dry towel in with wet clothes can also shorten the time as the towel absorbs some of the wet .
We have a spin dryer for wet or winter days now. It doesn't use heat so is less expensive than a tumble dryer and it can spin 1800rpm so gets out more than the washing machine can(it was under £100 on ebay from the whiteknight outlet). In winter,Without it, clothes take about 24 hours on the kitchen airer,with it they are dry in 6 to 8 hours.
We also have one of those air blowing drying things like a little umbrella on a stand in which you put the clothes and then zip a cover around them. You have to be diligent and check things as you would with a tumble dryer and not put too much in but they do use heat and so are more expensive than a spinner but cheaper than a tumble dryer.
Anyway sorry its got a bit long. Hope some of it proves useful.