There are many times during the winter when we are home and feel a little chilly. You know, the times when most of us usually walk over to the thermostat on the wall and raise the temperature to help warm things up.
These days there are many great ways to make your house more efficient and help it use less energy but most times they involve a sizeable investment upfront to get those savings. Well there are a few little things that one can do to quickly warm themselves up without doing any renovations or upgrading, all while saving money simply by not using any more energy to warm up.
Drink more hot fluids
Drinking hot fluids such as a hot cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate can make a person quickly feel warmer as their body temperature is raised slightly. This simple warm effect can usually last for about 40 minutes to an hour and most times will make the person more alert witch then often leads to some sort of movement or activity witch all helps keep them warmer. The amount of energy used to heat the cup of water is easily lower then the amount of energy that would have been used to increase the heat of the room for that same period of time.
Do more cooking or baking
During winter more people tend to stay indoors and often have more time on their hands for activities that they often have put off for another day. So why not make a home cooked meal or bake some goodies. Cooking or baking something in the oven can help you save money by providing yourself with home cooked meals while warming up the kitchen and surrounding areas at the same time (And if you do not have little kids around then you can also leave the oven door ajar slightly after you are done to let all that extra heat come out into your living space).
Curl up with a blanket
Quite often most people feel a little chillier when they are sitting around on the couch doing nothing. So when this happens just grab a blanket and toss it across yourself, you will be surprised how much of a difference that it can make.
Wear thick socks
Yet another simple trick to make you feel warm in winter is to keep your feet warm. When you are walking around bare foot or wearing thin socks then your feet will feel cold witch in turn will make your body feel cold. You can often get thick wool socks or slippers that will do the trick for you. Thicker socks tend to be made of better material so will also in turn last you longer making it a longer term investment.
Close off any unused rooms
Many of us live in larger houses theses days often with many extra rooms (like a storage room or guest rooms) that we are not always using. You can easily lower the heating costs of your house by simply closing the doors of those spare rooms (when you are not using them) and then covering up the heater vents in those rooms. You can also roll up a small towel or old blanket and lay it around the bottom of the door to prevent heat from going in there.
My grandmother often did something like this during the winter as she had many empty rooms in the old house due to all of her kids having moved out into their own homes. To prevent heat from going under the doors she made what she called ‘draft snakes’. These were long cylinder shaped tubes that she sewed out of old material and then filled with sand. Then she placed them up against the bottom of the closed doors to the extra rooms that she only used in the summer time.