Stay Warm This Winter and Save Money at the Same Time

On second thought, maybe we better not. Electricity and heating fuel prices are on the rise, and cooler temperatures mean higher bills resulting from heating our homes. While it may be easy to dial the thermostat up to 75 degrees or even 80 and stay cozy its not so easy to swallow the large increase in the bill that comes due in the mail.

Isn't there a cheaper way to stay warm? Well, there is, turn the thermostat down. While that may sound counterintuitive, lowering the thermostat and warming your home to a lower temperature can save a great amount of energy and therefore cold hard cash, no pun intended mind you. Instead of maintaining a high temperature in your house, try keeping yourself warm instead.

The easiest way to do this is to dress appropriately. If its cold outside, most people wear a jacket, pants, gloves and socks. Why should you be dressing the opposite indoors, wearing t-shirts, shorts and walking around barefoot? Of course, it would be uncomfortable and odd to wear clothing meant for keeping warm outdoors while lounging around at home, but we can still wear clothes that keep us warm while staying comfortable.

The best place to start is to wear a sweater. Sweaters are thicker than t-shirts and have long sleeves. This helps keep you warm by insulating your core body and also by covering your arms and reducing heat loss. Think of it as adding insulation, although instead of to your home, its for yourself! After you find a nice cozy sweater, lets pull on some comfy pajama bottoms. While not as heavy as jeans or pants these will, like what the sweater does for your arms, cover your legs and prevent heat loss. And now, the icing on the cake, socks! Socks also help keep you warm by insulating your feet and, like everything else, preventing heat loss. These aren't making us warm, they're keeping us warm by trapping our own body heat.

Now, what else can we do to save even more? Well, if you have a programmable thermostat, set it to a lower temperature at night, say anywhere from 55 to 65 degrees and have it resume heating your home at a higher temperature in the morning about an hour before you wake up. That might sound too cold, but it certainly won't cause your pipes to freeze or make you sick. Besides, it feels good to snuggle underneath a pile of toasty blankets! But wait, what's making those blankets so warm? Why, its your very own heated mattress topper! Electric blankets are nice, but mattress toppers are even better. This is because they are heating you from below and the heat they create is trapped by the blankets above them. They are available in sizes for all beds and some even have a safety timer that shuts them off after 8 to 10 hours. Although they do use some energy, it is minimal compared to what it would take to keep your whole house heated all night. If you're serious about staying warm in bed, pull on set of thermal tops and pants. These are excellent at trapping heat close to your body and are relatively cheap too.

So, why heat a whole house to stay comfortable, when you just have to make yourself comfortable?