[...] The temperatures were in the forties, so our house was chilly and uncomfortable for a month. We piled on the layers and tried to keep [...]

[...] and ‘dogs’ yielded some extraordinary results:  a frugality discussion about using pets for warmth to save on heat, another who cuts old belts down to size for collars and leashes, and way too many frugality tips [...]

Heavy drapes is another way to help control the drafts in a poorly insulated house or apartment.

To all: Coming from Germany I always wonder how poorly insulated houses are in the US and what antiquated heating systems people have. In Germany there are laws for newly built houses on insulation. And also on heating equipment (CO2 emmissions are being controlled also for private people) Every ratiator has a thermostate so one can control the temperature room by room and not only for the whole house. And heating costs (oil, natural gas) are extremely high, so are electricity costs. Heating a room with space heaters is actually the most expensive way to heat.
And as energy costs are getting more expensive by the year, energy saving is a big thing here. Solar panels, low energy houses and such are pretty much standard now because nobody can afford these energy costs anymore.

Greetings

I work at home and I found our first winter to be miserable: I actually wore gloves a few days until my body adjusted. But you do adjust. Even during this bitter winter, I can wander around in a t-shirt, yoga pants and socks for most of the day. When I do feel cold, on goes a sweater. I’ve never needed a hat.

However, I recently started setting the thermostat to go to 22 Celsius (just under 72 degrees F) for an hour in the morning so I can have a tepid shower without shivering to death. (I have rosacea and can’t soak in hot tubs or take hot showers.)

The one drawback: our cheap tv near the window crapped out on us a few weeks ago when the cold snap started. We need to run the hair dryer over the back of it for a couple of minutes so we can turn it on. We’ll re-arrange the furniture so it goes back to the middle of the room, so hopefully this should help.

And cats are a great heat source.. except when they insist on sitting on the KEYBOARD instead of your lap…

I think it’s fun. It points to the different priorities we each have. For some, it’s no big deal to spend a few hundred bucks extra a year to create a comfortable indoor temperature. Others would rather be a little uncomfortable but save the money. I generally fall in the latter camp.

I’ll admit, though, that I’m a huge bath-taker. Every night during the winter I take a hot bath to “warm my inner core”. Without that habit, I’d need to crank the heat, too.

[...] Just saw an article at the Get Rich Slowly blog that talks about how to stay warm in a drafty old house. Moving to Scotland has been a learning experience in this area – our flat was built in 1824 and still has the original windows and drafty floorboards. The nice thing about city living is that our downstairs neighbor does a nice job of sending most of their heat up through our floor. The downside is that most of our heat goes right up to the person above us. The people at the top floor probably don’t even have to turn on their heat, but that’s their reward for having to walk up so many stairs every day. [...]

So anyway – see if your utility company has something similar.

Some things I’ve discovered:

1. Socks make a big difference on how warm you feel.

2. Keep your blinds/curtains open during the sunlight hours of the day and keep them shut when it is dark.

3. Turn your heat down when you sleep if you prefer to sleep under a lot of covers. The covers will trap your body heat and you’d prob sleep comfortable if it were 50 inside.

Personally I like it cool, so I’m very happy here in my home office right now with the temperature at 64 degrees. I wear a sweater and slippers, but I’m not at all uncomfortable. But I can understand how that would be too cold for some people. In the long run, if you want to save money on heating the best bet is to make energy efficiency improvements in your home so you can keep the heat at whatever level is comfortable for you while reducing your heating bills. There are lots of great tips on Energy Star Heat Smartly site.

I live in a rented accomodation with only electric storage heaters. These are on a timer to come on for a few hours (to save the planet) and at night (to save money, special electricity tariff).

I bundle up in 2 sweatshirts and a blanket if I sitting doing nothing. At the moment I put on extra clothes at night, but I’m considering getting a hot water bottle to warm the bed up before I get in.

Being cold will give them a good reason to move around the house doing chores….:-)

So we compromised. I turn it down when she isn’t looking and she turns it up when I’m not looking.

[...] On Get Rich Slowly, J.D. suggests keeping the thermostat at 64° and dressing warmly in the house in order to keep down heating bills. I work at home, and so I have particular incentive to follow this advice. Unlike most working people, I can’t drop my thermostat down to 55° eight hours a day. So I wear long johns or flannel-lined jeans, three layers (undershirt, shirt, sweater), thick socks and slippers. When my next electricity bill comes I can compare it to last year’s energy bills and see if all of this bundling up is doing any good. Even if it’s not, I might keep it up — it makes me love my wood stove all the more. [...]

But I moved out to CA and into an apartment and left the cat with my dad in MA. It’s much easier to stay warm when you live in an apartment… oh, and when the temperature outside rarely dips below 60.

It is as simple as throwing on a pair of pajama or sweat pants and a pair of socks and 65-66 feels just fine.

We currently use propane for our heat and our annual gas bill is usually between 500-600. Not bad to heat a 1600 sq ft house for a year. When we rented a townhouse of a bit smaller size but kept the heat a bit higher we were spending almost double.

My mother complains about her gas bill all the time and keeps it down around 60 degrees F in the winter. At that temperature, I’m miserable; my circulation isn’t good, so when it’s cold I start losing feeling in my fingers no matter how well the rest of me is bundled up. My mother, of course, is around That Age where she’d happily have it at 50 year round, so it wasn’t all budget-related.

My apartment is a comfy 70 degrees. For this, we pay an electric bill which is all of $35 a month. It’s heaven. I lived with my mother for quite awhile (during undergrad and before) and I like being able to do things without hauling my electric blanket around the house.

My long-term solution to this problem isn’t to live in apartments forever, though… it’s to move south before next winter. Then, I guess, we’ll be griping about air conditioning costs!

I really did mean to use irony. In my mind, sarcasm and irony are roughly equivalent, especially in this instance. A quick check using define: irony and define: sarcasm at Google supports this usage. However, I agree that a better word choice in this instance would have been sarcasm. It’s better to be clear than to be right.

I’ve replaced “irony” with “sarcasm”.

On a unrelated note my left-brained word facist blog is doing well.

jk