Winter Time Spending

By Colleen Heenan

I don’t know about anyone else, but I tend to spend much more money in the wintertime. Not only is it a time for sharing, giving, traveling and going to parties, but it’s a time to give more money to the energy companies. There are many tricks, though, that you can turn to save a little cash and keep your green ways as well.

Living in general is expensive -- whether you pay rent or have a mortgage; a large percent of your earnings is going to shelter yourself. And the rest of your income goes to the utility company and feeding yourself. At least, that’s how it feels sometimes. There are many tricks to use to cut down your energy bills. And here are a few:

When you're not home, turn down your thermostat. I have heard some people argue that it costs more money to lower your heat to unlivable temperatures while you’re out of the house then to keep it at a constant temperature. They claim it costs more to make your furnace bring the temperature back up 10 or so degrees rather then leaving it constant. But according to grist, you actually save money while your furnace rests. When you leave your house let's say you turn your heat down to 58 degrees. While you're out and the house temperature drops, you are saving money. When you come home you will have to turn it back up to 68 degrees, but the 8 hours you were gone you were saving money. So people, turn down your heat.

If you have a fireplace, heat your home like your ancestors did -- with fire. If you are hanging out on a weekend day in one room, the room with the fireplace, then buy some wood (hopefully sustainable processed wood) and snuggle up to a fire. This may cool the rest of your house down, but for several hours you can turn down your thermostat and enjoy the crackling sound of humanity’s oldest invention. When you’re not using your fireplace, close the flue, or else you’ll be heating the air outside.

Use weather stripping. You lose a lot of energy through the cracks of your front door and the windows of the house. Weather stripping will cut down on the drafts you feel and keep the warm air in the house.

Plastic wrap your windows. I know I know I hate using excess plastic of any form too, but when you are saving both money and energy from pouring out of your old, seeping windows, I think it is worth some waste over another waste. Besides, it is fun to plastic wrap your windows. All you need is to go to a grocery store, hardware store or any other home goods selling store for that matter and ask someone where to find plastic covers for your home windows. Then you need a hair dyer, or borrow a friend’s for a half day. Then you go home with your box of plastic, which usually comes with a role of double sided tape, and prepare to save. You need to wash the inside of your window borders with a little soap and water to clean the surface where you will be placing your tape down. After the window borders dry, then you line the tape around the window followed by the plastic. After you loosely put on all the plastic, then go back around and shrink the plastic with a hairdryer to make a nice neat fit of the plastic around each window and watch for savings.

Just because I can afford to pay heat bills now, versus when I was in college and lived in layers topped off by an oversized pink bathrobe and still froze, this does not mean that I or anyone should waste energy. If you don’t do it for money reasons, do it for energy-saving reasons. These tips may seem cumbersome, but they will save you green in more then one way.