For starters, one of the easiest things you can do (and not even that painful!) is to turn down your home thermostat by just two degrees. If you normally run it at 74, drop down to 72. If you live at 72, drop it down to 70. Your body can adjust and acclimate to a two degree change very quickly. Doubling up an extra layer for a week or so should get you through it without even noticing!

This one sounds much more drastic than it is! Most home hot water heaters are set to a standard heat setting of 140 degrees. However, very few, if any of us, will ever use water that hot. Turning it down 20 degrees to 120 will make an extensive dent in your heating bill and you should never notice the difference.

Little things like sealing up small cracks and holes might seem like it won’t make a big difference in the big scheme of your heating bill, but it does. In fact, 35% of a home’s hot air is lost through air leakage, so sealing off cracks, openings behind light switches, hidden recesses in the attic, etc., can make a tremendous difference by bringing that percentage down. For large openings like chimneys or pet doors that get rarely used, if ever, consider closing off altogether for the winter months. There’s no reason to let all that precious warm air out for no reason!

You may have not even noticed this, but almost all home ceiling fans have a switch that propels the air forward or reverses it backward. When it comes to winter time, double check to make sure that the setting is set to reverse. This will push the hot air that’s risen back down to where you are so you can feel it and enjoy it and not feel the need to keep turning your heat up.

Blocking off all your doors with door draft stoppers is another method of sealing in the hot air and keeping the cold air out. If you have rooms that you use rarely or not at all (guest rooms, storage rooms, etc.), they also make good candidates for “blocking.” Close them off, place door stoppers along the floor and ignore them for the winter. There’s no reason to heat rooms that you’re not using!

If you haven’t yet begun to switch out your old standard light bulbs for compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), starting this will save you greatly over time. Not only does each light bulb use less energy and cost less to run, since you have lights on for more hours during the day in the winter months, this cost savings will add up even more during this time of year. These CFLs do have a higher upfront cost however, which is why I recommend starting to switch them out gradually. Switch your most used first.

This activity is a little bit like decoration! By placing something reflective (tinfoil works great and costs pennies) behind your radiator, you’ll help to bounce heat back to the radiator, requiring it to consume less energy to heat by using it’s own already produced heat rather than wasting it.

If you don’t have a programmable thermostat in your home, this will be a very wise investment that I highly recommend. It’s impossible not to occasionally forget to turn the heat down for a night or off for the day when you leave for work. A programmable thermostat takes over for your memory and makes sure that your heating times are minimized as much as possible.

A very inexpensive insulating blanket (under $10) for your hot water will keep your energy costs lower all day and night long, every single day.

Finally, if you really want to keep those heating costs low, sometimes you just gotta work it! Feeling chilled? Do 20 jumping jacks and 20 sit ups. Run the stairs twice. You’ll warm yourself up instantly, give that metabolism a boost to keep you warmer longer, which means not only will you not find the need to up the thermostat, you might even get away with turning it down even more than by 2!