Staying Warm on a Budget

With the winter weather still raging on, keeping your home warm can be difficult and expensive, but there’s no need to crank up the heat. Here are a few simple and economical tips to keep the heat in and the cold out!

Insulate your home

The key to saving money during the winter months is keeping the heat you’ve already paid for from escaping. Here’s how.

Buy (or make) draft excluders for your doors. Most heat escapes a room underneath its doors. Block off these gaps and you’ll already notice a major increase in warmth and a significant decrease in draftiness. Draft excluders are very affordable. However, in the spirit of saving money, you can easily see the same results by placing old socks, towels, or blankets under your doors and around windows.

Windows and doors are obvious places for heat to escape, but what about your floors? Like a monster under your bed, cold drafts can seep into a room from right under your feet. Have any old rugs laying around? Break them out over hardwood floors. Hardwood is notorious for letting out heat so covering as much as you can with rugs will help keep in the warmth in.

Finally, seal off and close doors to all unused or lightly visited rooms, especially ones with windows. The idea is to shrink your living space to the essential rooms only. This allows you to use less energy to heat a smaller space, as well as creating more separation between you and the cold outdoors. Guest bedrooms, offices, and rarely used sitting rooms can all be closed off.

Reuse heat

Staying warm while saving money takes creativity. There is heat to be had where we least expect it, you just have to think outside the box. Tapping into these sources is not only efficient but addictive once you get in the habit of doing them.

Reuse oven heat. It’s so obvious that it often gets overlooked. If you do much cooking, leaving your oven door ajar after use is an effective way to reuse heat. It’s also super cozy to stand next to while letting the heat escape.

If you have young kids that need warm baths or simply enjoy a nice hot bath yourself, let that water release all its heat and moisture before opening the drain. Humid air retains heat much better than dry air so take advantage of it! If you take hot showers you can leave your door open allowing that steam to spill into the adjacent room.

Finally, reverse your fans so they force air up towards the ceiling. This releases trapped warm air and allows it to heat to the rest of the space. Running a fan in the winter months seems counterintuitive but is necessary to keeping heat circulating effectively through your home.

Bundle up

Dress like its wintertime. Everyone’s got their own lazy home attire and if you’re someone who likes to dress lightly, it’s worth it to wrap up. Sweaters, hoodies, and sweatpants will keep you from having to blast your heat, saving you big bucks.

You can also collect blankets, covers, and comforters in the living areas which will keep you from instinctively heading towards the thermostat.

Turn down your thermostat

Practicing these tips will keep you from running up your heating bill while staying just as warm. Studies have shown that turning down your heat a mere 1 degree can cut your monthly bills by up to 10 percent! It’s worth a try!