What’s chillier than a cold winter day? How about that feeling you get when your utility bill shows up in your mailbox in January? You know, the one so chilly that your wallet shivers.
Note: This post may contain affiliate links.
Last year, my utility bill was a whopping $302, which is twice what it normally is. So I feel your pain, fellow cold ones, and that’s why I’ve compiled this list of ways to stay warm and toasty in order to cut down on energy usage.
Frugal Ways to Stay Warm
- Practice General Maintenance. Make sure walls and ceilings are insulated as well as possible. Caulk windows anywhere you feel a draft and replace any missing or damaged shingles on your roof. Much heat escapes right through the walls and ceiling of a house. Here are some energy efficiency ideas to check out.
- Warm Yourself. Dress in layers. Put on a sweatshirt, warm socks, long underwear, and even a hat. It is far cheaper to warm up your body than your entire house. Before turning up the thermostat try an extra layer of clothing.
- Use Hot Water Bottles. Fill several hot water bottles
at dinner time and seal them tightly. If you slip these between your blankets your bed will be nice and warm come bedtime.
- Flannel Sheets and Blankets. Use throw blankets on your couches and chairs. Consider flannel sheets for your bed. Flannel helps retain body heat more than other fabrics. They will keep you nice and warm all through the night.
- Close Off Unused Spaces. Close off extra rooms, closets, and cabinets so you are not heating areas that are not being used. Be careful not to let the areas get too cold, however, as this can lead to frozen pipes.
- Rearrange Furniture. Make sure not to block any radiators or vents with furniture. Move bookshelves to outer walls. Books make for excellent insulation.
- Get Some Exercise. Whether you choose to do an actual exercise program or just do some general house cleaning, simply getting your blood pumping will help to warm you up. If you are looking for some ideas on how to get exercise when it’s freeeeeezing outside, check out this post.
- Get Cooking. Baking and cooking in your home produces tasty food as well as heat. Once done cooking, leave the oven door propped open to let the excess heat escape and warm your house while the oven cools. Be extremely careful if you have young children or curious pets with a hot oven door open. The warm food and drink that you prepare will warm you from the inside out.
- Take a Shower. A hot shower will certainly warm up a cold body quickly. While less appealing, a cool shower will help improve circulation (and also save money in the shower) and may help warm your body more in the long run. If you opt for a bath, once you are finished don’t drain the tub right away. Allow the water to cool to room temperature before draining. This will help warm the room and also add some moisture to the air. Dry air is harder to heat than air with some humidity.
- Cover Windows and Doors. Inefficient windows and doors allow a lot of heat to escape from your house. It is easy and inexpensive to line windows with plastic and can really help conserve energy. It is also wise to block drafts with some sort of guard along the bottom of the door. In addition, consider hanging heavier floor length drapes for the winter months to eliminate drafts. Here is more information about signs that it is time to replace your windows.
- Let the Sunshine In. Take advantage of solar power. On sunny days, open curtains or drapes to allow the sun to shine in and warm your house.
- Rely on Firepower. Heating your home with wood is a wonderful way to cut down on energy costs. Even if you do not have a fireplace, you can harness the warmth of heat by simply lighting some candles or ceramic heaters. The candles help create a warmer atmosphere as well as putting off some heat themselves.
- Use Area Rugs. Lay area rugs on wood, tile, linoleum, or parquet flooring to create warmth.
- Run a Ceiling Fan. Ceiling fans are not just for cooling homes in the summer, they can also help warm them in the winter. Warm air rises, so set the fan to a clockwise direction in order to push the warm air back down into the room. This is especially helpful in rooms with vaulted ceilings, where typically much warm air can get trapped and wasted.
- Entertain. Having a party, or at least a gathering, of family and friends is a great way to warm up a chilly house. All the cooking, eating, drinking, laughing, and extra body heat will have everyone feeling warm.
What are some frugal ways that you stay warm in the winter? Have you tried any or all of these?
Guest post author: Tim Smith
P.S. If you found these tips useful, don’t forget to subscribe to our mailing list!
CMF’s favorite FREE money management tools!
Some of the best online tools out there for money management are at Personal Capital, and the awesome news is that they are all FREE! Cash flow tracker, 401(k) fee analyzer, investment checkup, net worth monitoring, and many more! I’m a net worth junkie, so the net worth monitor is my favorite. Check out my Personal Capital review here, or click here to check out all the awesome tools for yourself!
photo credit: Cesar Vargas via photopin cc, with changes
Great tips Dee! Baking is one of my favorite ways to warm up the house! Our rental home in England has such bad insulation and windows. There are lots of drafts. Fortunately, it doesn’t get too cold here. We are always under fleece blankets to keep warm. I also have a pair of slippers that have rice heat pads you warm up in the microwave. I LOVE them because it is so difficult to keep my feet warm in the winter!
Those slippers sound so cool! I’ll have to look for some of those. After I read this guest post by Tim, I went out and bought a hot water bottle to put in my (really cold!!) bed at night a couple hours before bed. It really helps a LOT and it doesn’t require electricity like an electric blanket would!
Believe it or not, Nashville is very cold during the months of January and February. I think January was below zero for the majority of the month! Now that I’m off the road, I definitely want to invest in my home by insulating and finding ways to be more energy efficient. Happy New Year, Dee!
Good for you! It’s a continual work in progress for us. We’re always looking for ways to save on water and energy. Any time I hear about little tips I do them, and we’ve seemed to ratchet down the heating bills a little more every year. This year is going to be tougher though because we have a baby now and we need to keep her warm and comfortable in addition to the two of us. I’ve already got the thermostat set higher this winter than in previous winters because of that. It’s probably going to cost us more to heat the house this winter, but we’ll try to make up for it in other ways. Happy New Year to you too!
All great tips! We keep our thermostat pretty low (58 at night and 62 when we’re home during the day) so we’re all about the layers and blankets. Making sure windows and doors aren’t drafty is also important for us. We also have an electric blanket, which makes slipping into bed in a 58 degree house wonderful!
Love it!
Love the ideas, some are really ingenious and do the job. I have to say though that heating is not something I’m planning on saving money on too soon, since I’m usually VERY cold. So the thermostat stays ‘up’ or I’m having a fit 😀
I get cold easily too! For me the key is always to dress in layers. Also, what I’ve found for myself is that if I slowly sneak the thermostat down (turn it down a degree every other week or so), by the end of the winter I’ve got it pretty low and I’m not minding it as much. Sometimes I have to trick myself into frugality 🙂
These are great tips. I’d also add wear a beanie. I’m lucky that I live in Southern California, but it can get cold here, too, especially at night. A hat helps keep in body heat!
I love the beanie idea! I don’t usually blow dry my hair most of the year, but I often do in the winter because otherwise I get awfully cold with wet hair even if I’m inside. But I might have to try the beanie too 🙂
When my roommate moved out of my house a few years ago, I closed the vent to that room and kept the door shut in the winter. Why heat a room that is never used? I also used a programmable thermostat and a blanket. By turning the heat down a few degrees I saved money and didn’t make living in my house unbearably cold.
That’s a great idea. We use a programmable thermostat too, and it just makes it so easy to save money on heating. We can literally program it to change temps as many times a day as we want. So if there’s just a couple hours in the evening when we want it warmer we can easily set it to do that. Can’t beat it!
These are great ideas I just discovered that my electricy bill is twice what is should be and it mostly do to heat. So I might have to try some of these. When I was a kid we would leave the oven open after cooking I was thought my mother crazy for thinking of that one. I guess not
Heating bills can really be a killer! Our programmable thermostat has really been helpful in keeping heating costs down. I also put a hot water bottle in our bed after supper every night, and the bed is nice and toasty warm by bedtime! Those things can keep the heat for hours, so it’s often still warm in the morning when I get up.
I enjoyed your post very much. I’ve lived in both England and Canada, and I can attest to the effectiveness of many of these suggestions. Here in Canada, we are always looking for ways to keep warm in the winter. We bought plexiglass panels from the hardware store and taped them inside our very large bedroom windows. With long curtains and flannel sheets, we sleep very warm at night, even with the thermostat turned down.
Another tip is to buy a wool blanket at a thrift store. Wash it in cold water and tumble dry on low (forget about dry cleaning unless it’s an heirloom). Down filled duvets can be expensive, but wool is a great insulator too!
The beanie idea is a great one – especially for those with little hair to keep their head warm. Nightcaps – people used to wear them because bedrooms were largely unheated in days gone by.
I love the idea of the plexiglass panels! I bet you barely even notice they are there, and I’m sure it helps greatly with insulation!
You make a great point of closing off unused spaces during the winter. This can help save money on your energy bill because heat from rooms you are in doesn’t go into rooms you’re not using. I think your idea about entertaining is fantastic as well. Bringing more bodies into a room can certainly raise the temperature.
I added to the “leave the oven door open” trick. I found a large flat rock, gave it a good scrub, and now I have it in the bottom of my oven. When the oven heats up, it heats up the rock too and rock retains heat for a long time, so after I’m finished my baking, I leave the oven open, and it will continue to warm my home for as much as 3 hrs. as the rock slowly disperses the retained heat into the house.
Betsy, I LOVE this idea! What an awesome way to take advantage of the heat your oven produces. I am going to start keeping my eyes open for a large flat rock to put inside my oven!
I love heating by stove in winter.
We always open the stove door after cooking- does such a nice job of warming the kitchen!
I am always cold so it may sound strange but I love autumn / winter. I can wear my fleece pjs and wrap my self up in snuggle blankets.
Sounds super cozy! I love autumn for the same reason 🙂
I am really happy right now because I just got my heating repair done. We hadn’t had our heat on for a week. Layering up is my first choice, thermal underwear underneath a sweater can go a long way in keeping me warm. As far as my feet, double or triple-layer socks if I need to, and for added warmth, stick them in the dryer for a few minutes prior to wearing them.
LOVE the dryer tip! That’s a great idea!!
Great tips both in the article, and in the comments! I practice the warm bottle tip every winter, it keeps the utility costs down for sure!
I know that this might sound controversial, but I have found my compression socks to be an excellent investment. A pair costs 10 bucks, and they not only keep my feet warm, but also help with my varicose veins. I had a bad case of those on both of my legs. I think they have saved me a lot more than ten bucks in my utility bills.
Wow, and who knows how much those compression socks may have saved you in terms of medical costs! I know varicose veins aren’t always something that require intervention, but you never know! Great tip, thanks for sharing!