The following is a post by MPFJ staff writer, CJ, who blogs at thesingledollar.com about personal finance, budgeting, frugality, and debt repayment.
So, the weather outside is frightful! But since our electric heat is expensive, we’re trying to keep the house between 60 and 65, depending on what time of day it is. This is…chilly, at least if you’re me. If I had the money and didn’t care about the environment, I would totally keep the place at 72 all winter. What can I say: I’m old before my time. Besides the ol’ “put on another sweater” trick, here’s what I do about it:
1) I use a rubber hot water bottle.
I’ve had it for several years and it shows no signs of slowing down, cracking, etc. I fill it up with the hottest tap water we get and rest my feet on it under the covers. Delicious. In fact, I’m doing that right now as I write. It’s often still even warm when I wake up in the morning.
2) I get the oven going.
Typically, what I do is bake bread. Granted, this also uses electricity (for the oven), but at the end of the process, I’ve heated up the kitchen and I have fresh bread, so I think I come out ahead overall. As a bonus, I have to move around and knead dough and whatnot, and it gets the blood flowing and seems to warm me up a little! You could make a casserole or something else that requires long baking if you don’t want to do bread.
3) As long as we’re on a domestic track: try taking frequent breaks to clean as well as to cook.
Anything to get you up and moving around! Before you sit back down to work or watch TV or whatever, make a cup of hot tea and breathe the steam in.
4) We make sure to close vents in any room we won’t use for a while (like the office over the weekend) and to keep closet doors closed.
In November, we also did some basic weatherproofing — putting the storm windows down, most notably — but our primary effort here is to try to keep unused areas of the house from sucking up extra heat. That leaves more for the bedrooms and living room and kitchen!
5) OK, fine, I put on another sweater. Actually, a really really dorky fleece-lined hoodie. It’s pepto-bismol pink and I can’t wear it out of the house because it’s just embarrassing. However, there are certainly classier options available (try LL Bean, REI, Patagonia, or other outdoor-oriented retailers for gear like this).
How about you all? What’s your best tip for handling a cold house?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Modern_Masonry_Fireplace.jpeg
