Tip #4 – Turn Your Heat Down
Welcome to day four of our roughly 10-day journey, where we are looking at 10 money-saving tips to help save $10,000! If you missed the introductory post of 10 Money-Savings Tips to Help You Stash $10,000 you’ll definitely want to check it out so we’re all on the same page.
But to sum it up – here’s our mission:
For the next couple weeks we’re going to look at one money-saving tip each Monday through Thursday.
On Thursdays we’re going to look at a tip, but also hear Personal Finance bloggers’ and hopefully some readers’ ideas and experiences on how they’ve saved money!
If you’d like to be included in the Thursday posts – please let me know your best money-saving tip here! We’d love to hear your stories of what you did and how much money you saved by implementing your tip!
If you’re a blogger and have posted about your money-saving tip, please include a link to your post!
Tip #4: Turn Your Heat Down
Friends who know us will laugh at this one. Our house is always the cold house! We try to turn the heat up when we have company over to accommodate, but they’ve wised up and started bringing sweatshirts and slippers now!
We do this mainly to save money on our heating costs. As my wife always says, “There is no reason why you shouldn’t have to put on a sweatshirt and a blanket in the winter time!”
We also do this because we love to sleep in colder temperatures. Neither one of us sleep well when it gets hot, so we turn that thermostat down to 63 degrees at night.
If no one is going to be home for the day, we leave the temp set at 63. If someone is home, then we crank that puppy up to a balmy 65 – sometimes 66 on a really cold day! We throw on sweatshirts and deal with it.
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You’re Nuts!
That’s usually the response we get when we tell people what we set our thermostat to, but I’m glad we are not the only ones out there.
As promised we wanted to take a look at some PF Bloggers ideas on how they’ve saved money as well. Take a look at these two submissions I received regarding turning the thermostat down:
Rainy Day Saver says:
We set our thermostat to 63 degrees to reduce our heating bill. It’s worth saving about $200/month. Yep. The 7-degree difference from 70 degrees to 63 saves us a lot of moolah!
Kyle, from Suburban Dollar says:
I work from home all by myself, and to cut down on heating costs I keep the thermostat set at 63 degrees inside and bundle up while I work.
Great job guys!! In Kyle’s post, he had a link to an article by USA today that talks about the Challenge to Be Chilly. They go on to say that some folks are doing this to save money and some are doing this in an effort to go green and conserve energy. One family saved over $800 last year by turning their heat down and employing some energy-saving tips!
How Much Can You Really Save By Conserving Energy?
For most of you out there, you’re probably thinking, “OK, that’s great, but how much can you really save? After all, it’s not worth saving $5 or $10 if I’m going to freeze my fanny off!”
According to Bill Pindle, deputy director for the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), “The rule of thumb is that you can save about 3% on your heating bill for every degree that you set back your thermostat”.
If you turn down the thermostat 10 degrees when you go to work, and again when you go to bed — a total of 16 hours a day – you can save about 14% on your heating bill, says Prindle.
That’s a pretty good savings!
Where I live, in the Chicago area, the average monthly heating bill in 2007 was $218. In New York it was almost twice that, just shy of $500! A 14% savings on those two numbers is roughly $30 – $70 per month in savings!!
Fight the Temptation to Crank It Up!
It will only take one day of you freezing your tail off to say, “Forget this, it’s not worth it!”. Don’t do it. Start with turning your thermostat down a few degrees to save some money and get used to the chill.
Buying a programmable thermostat will be a good investment for you as well, that way your temperature will automatically drop when you go to work and when you go to bed so you don’t have to always remember!
Give it a shot and see what happens!
Estimated Savings: $25-$200 per month!
How much have you saved by turning the temperature down?
Check Out All The Tips From Our Series
Tip #1: Cut Back on Going Out to Eat
Tip #2: Evaluate Your Entertainment
Tip #5: Negotiate Your Cell Phone Plan
Tip #6: Get Rid of Your Land Line
Tip #7: Slash Your Grocery Bill by Cutting Out Junk Food!
Tip #8: Use Coupons, For Everything!
Tip #9: Negotiate Your Home and Auto Insurance
Tip #10: Start Packing Lunches!
I think this dependent on the size of your house, how good your insulations are, and may be how old the house is (if it has not been re-modeled)
We live in a two bedroom apartment home and since we are out of the house most days.. we normally set the thermostat to about 63 degrees during the day and then crank it up to 69 in the evening. Overall we realize about $50 per month in savings due to these six degrees daily offset.
.-= Joe´s last blog ..Time to write your will =-.
LOL- I’ve been working with my wife on this one! I’m all the “if your cold” put on a sweater, socks, sweats and get under the covers! We also open up the shades during the day to let the sunlight heat the house in the winter. Great tips keep them coming!
I live in North NJ, so I’m paying those “high” NYC heating prices! But it is amazing to see the difference in our heating bills. I don’t mind wearing a sweatshirt, sweatpants, slippers and a robe around the house at night to save some money, but that’s not everybody’s cup of tea!
.-= RainyDaySaver´s last blog ..Ever Feel Like You Can’t Get Ahead? =-.
Joe – you’re absolutely right, size of house, overall energy efficiency, age of house all play a part in your savings each month. Sometimes paying a little more to make the house more energy efficient is worth it in the long run. Good job in knocking that heating bill down! It’s amazing how it can add up!
Carlos – maybe a nice Snuggie will help your wife drop the temp!
Rainy Day – yeah, you’re right, it’s not everybody’s preference for sure. One night of freezing will cancel this tip pretty quickly! Thanks for sharing your savings tip!
We’ve been keeping the temp at 65 then using and electric blanket at night and heavier clothes by day. Have to admit that some morniings, early, I’ll turn it up to 68 for showers, but it quickly gets turned down. On days when it isn’t so cold, we’ll even turn it off during the warmest part of the day.
A good friend of mine keep the heat in their house at 62 during the day, and 60 at night. I couldn’t go that low, not with the winter we’re having, but their house is big and it makes a difference in the heating costs.
.-= Kevin@OutOfYourRut´s last blog ..Save Money on Car Repairs with Car-Part.com =-.
As a Florida resident, I don’t usually use my central heat. We might put on a small space heater while we’re sleeping, but winters are generally pretty mild here. This year however, it has been as low as the 30′s and… well… I’m just not used to that. So we’ve had the heat on keeping the house between 65 and 69 and I could not BELIEVE how much higher our electric bill has been!
.-= Yo Prinzel´s last blog ..LifeDialog: @AmyStark Ahhhh, now I get it. That makes much more sense. So he is the star that YouTube made. =-.
Yo Prinzel, yeah I’ve heard Florida has had a very chilly winter (comparatively of course), but yes you’re right – it’s amazing how much the bill goes up when you crank up that heat! We were just surprised by our bill this weekend even though we keep our house pretty chilly, but the cost of heat per therm went up!
We started turning our heat down to 64 when home and 60-61 when we sleep. We leave the bedroom doors shut during the day as the thermostat is in the living room to keep just living room warm and not the rooms we aren’t using. Last month we went from a $75 NIPSCO bill to a $50 NIPSCO bill. We have a small apartment so the savings was great! I’m sitting on my couch right now with slippers, robe, and blanket on!
Ashley – nice job on making the sacrifice and cutting the costs!! $25 a month is a nice little savings each month.
We have a big house with an open-floor plan on the first floor. In the winter during the day we keep the heat to 60 upstairs (since we’re downstairs) and 62-64 downstairs. At night, the downstairs gets turned down to 55 since everyone sleeps upstairs, and the upstairs is 60-62. Keeping doors closed keeps heat in, which is great. Our heating bill is manageable this way. :>)
Nice – good job Kristen! Grab a blanket and you’re good to go!