Products like a door draft stopper can help keep your home warm.

Nothing is worse than constantly fighting the cold weather from coming into your house during winter. Not only is it uncomfortable, but you’ll spend more on electricity costs the more your heating system has to run. Less comfortable and more expensive — that’s a combination that nobody should have to deal with. 

So instead, use these inexpensive items to keep the heat inside and the cold air outside. A few bucks now will save you money in the long run, and keep you warmer at the same time!

Holikme Twin Door 34-inch Draft Stopper, $16.95

As you might have guessed, most of the heat that your house loses is from the doors and windows. Since these are generally the only openings in most people’s homes, it makes sense that they’re the biggest culprits come wintertime. 

Doors can be a bit of a tricky one since they are constantly being opened and closed every time you leave the house, so you can’t exactly seal them shut. Instead, grab a few door draft stoppers and slide them onto the bottom of your doors. Most doors are 3 feet wide, so these 34-inch door draft stoppers are perfect to keep your house warmer without interfering with the door.

MIKOSI Weather Stripping Door and Window Seal (13ft), $12.49

Still focusing on doors and windows, let’s look at something that you can use for either one — weather stripping. As the name suggests, weather stripping was designed to help alleviate issues caused by weather. This material is basically just a strip of foam that acts as insulation, soundproofing, packing, and more.

With weather stripping like this 13-foot length from MIKOSI, all you need to do is cut it to the length you need and peel the backing sticker off. This side of strip will be sticky enough to outline your doors and windows and insulate them year-round. 

Indoor Shrink Wrap Window Insulation Kit (9-Pack), $16.48

This is one that seems to be overlooked year after year, yet it can be the single most affordable way to insulate your windows. A window film insulation kit like this one from Frost King is designed to apply a layer of plastic film (think shrink wrap/plastic warp) right over the entirety of your windows.

When you apply heat to it, the plastic film shrinks down and creates a tight seal around the outsides of your windows. This insulates them and keeps your home significantly warmer. When spring comes around and you want to open the windows again, you can just simply peel the film off and toss it in the garbage.

One of the best ways to make sure your house is warm during the winter without spending excessive amounts on your electric bill is with a programmable thermostat. You might be thinking a thermostat is way out of your price range, but they’re actually way more affordable than you might think, even from name brands like this one from Honeywell.

With this thermostat, you can program your entire week at once with four periods per day including wake, leave, return, and sleep. This way, you can let the temperature inside drop a little bit while you’re away at work or sleeping, for example, and then raise it while you’re home and awake. 

This is the easiest way to ensure comfortability and lower your utility bill without constantly adjusting the thermostat by hand every single day.

One of the biggest potential issues that homeowners and renters alike face when the temperatures start dropping is bursting pipes. Have you ever left your faucets and fixtures dripping to ensure constant water flow so that the pipes didn’t freeze? If so, then this next product is for you — pipe insulation.

Designed specifically for pipes, pipe insulation like this kit from M-D Building Products easily attaches to your domestic water pipes and keeps the cold air out. Working as a mechanical engineer for years alongside writing, I can personally attest to how invaluable pipe insulation is! 

Filterbuy 12x12x1 Air Filter — 2-Pack, $19.98

This should really be part of your standard home maintenance routine, but if not, you should go to your HVAC system right now and check the air filter. If it hasn’t been changed our recently, it could be dirty and clogged, preventing air from effectively flowing through the system.

If the filter is dirty enough to affect airflow, it could be preventing warm air from getting into your house the way the system was designed. So check to see if it’s dirty, and even if you can’t tell, it might be time to buy a new filter just to be safe. These should be changed out every few months anyway. Just make sure you buy the right size filter for your unit!