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How can you keep costs down and still keep warm this winter? We rounded up six easy money and energy-saving tips for keeping in the heat without burning up all your extra cash.
I'll be the first to admit it: I'm a cold baby. At the first sight of snow, you'll find me curled up on my couch with 3-5 fuzzy blankets and a cup of piping hot tea, the thermostat turned up to a cozy 76 degrees. This behavior typically carries on unchecked until the monthly energy bill arrives and ruins all my fun, because much as I love being warm, I also hate paying exorbitant amounts of money to stay that way.
Whether your rent or own your home, you probably have to pay for your heat, and when you live in a place where winter is a thing, it's not unusual to see your energy bill double during the first cold front. So how can you keep costs down and still keep warm this winter? We rounded up six easy money and energy-saving tips for keeping in the heat without burning up all your extra cash.
As noted above, I'm definitely guilty of pushing my thermostat's limits when the weather gets chilly. But if I want to save money this winter, I'm going to need to stop trying to heat my home to tropical levels. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the optimal temperature for efficient winter home heating is 68 degrees, and they recommend setting a timer that bumps this down to 50-55 degrees when you're at work or sleeping:
"By turning your thermostat back 10° to 15° for 8 hours, you can save 5% to 15% a year on your heating bill -- a savings of as much as 1% for each degree if the setback period is eight hours long."
If you, like me, think that seems a bit chilly, then you should probably...
I like a toasty warm home primarily because I live in a fantasy world where wearing nothing but tank tops and athletic shorts around the house in December is an acceptable life decision. But I've recently come to realize my impractical wardrobe choices are definitely not worth the extra money I have to pay to keep them up. I've lived in the Midwest for my whole life, so its not like I don't have a closet stuffed to the brim with sweaters, fleece leggings, wool socks and hand-knit sweaters. I totally do. Couple a few layers of winter clothing with a nice fuzzy blanket and there's really no need to turn up the heat any higher than a cool 68.
If you want to dress for a year-round summer I recommend moving to Puerto Rico, but if you're not up for uprooting your life in favor of 80-degree winters, accept your fate and start utilizing that vast collection of fuzzy Christmas socks.
I live in an old building, and old buildings are notoriously drafty. Between the huge bay windows in my living room and the door in my kitchen that leads out to the back porch, there are lot of places in my apartment that leak heat into the outside world, and the more this happens, the most I have to pay to heat my home.
If you feel cold air sneaking in through cracks in your windows or doors, consider caulking or weatherstripping to seal in the heat inside your home. This table from the U.S. Department of Energy showcases a few different ways to do this:
It might seem counterproductive to run your ceiling fans in the winter, but hear me out. As we all learned in grade school, heat rises, and in the winter that means the ceiling is the warmest part of every room. In fact depending on the height of your ceilings, there's typically about a 10 degree difference from floor to ceiling. This is all fine and good for Spiderman and anyone possessed by creepy attic demons, but if you for some reason lack the ability to hang out on the ceiling when you get cold, try running your ceiling fan clockwise on low.
Most ceiling fans have a switch that can make them run either counterclockwise, which provides a nice breeze in the summer, or clockwise, which pushes air down without creating much wind. A clockwise-turning ceiling fan will increase circulation in the room and keep your feet just as toasty as the top of your head.
Cooking at home in the winter doesn't just save you money on takeout, it also helps heat your house. When you bake, heat escapes the confines of the oven and seeps into the rest of your house. So stock up on your favorite comfort food recipes and spend the winter baking your heart away, basking in the extra warmth, and gorging on delicious winter treats. You deserve it.
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Even after weatherstripping, the way you utilize your windows can make or break the temperature inside your home. As a general rule, keep curtains closed to conserve heat unless there is direct sunlight shining into a room. When the sun is at that perfect angle, opening up your curtains and allowing it to spill into your home will significantly heat a room up in no time at all, but if you keep them open after the sun goes away, that heat will dissipate quickly. To keep that solar heat in, close the curtains as soon as the sun goes away, and make sure your curtains (unlike the ones in the photo above) are thick enough to provide some insulation.
This article first appeared in Brad's Deals.
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About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
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A selection of the most viewed stories this week on the Monitor's website.
Hear about special editorial projects, new product information, and upcoming events.
Select stories from the Monitor that empower and uplift.
An update on major political events, candidates, and parties twice a week.
Stay informed about the latest scientific discoveries & breakthroughs.
A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events.
Latest book reviews, author interviews, and reading trends.
A weekly update on music, movies, cultural trends, and education solutions.
The three most recent Christian Science articles with a spiritual perspective.
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