When DH & I were first married, we lived in upstate New York. We eagerly searched for a "love nest" to call our own; he'd spent the last four years in student housing, and was ripe and ready to live off campus. When we found a great little duplex just a few miles from school, we were more than a little shocked at the rock-bottom rent the landlord offered. It was significantly less than we'd been quoted for apartments in the larger complexes around town. Figuring it was a "perk" of DH's role on the university's football team, we simply shrugged our shoulders and signed on the dotted line.
Fast-forward a few months to that first October. The week before Halloween, a massive snowstorm hit the area. We were inundated with more than a foot of snow; our house was entombed by the storm. We turned up the thermostat and hunkered down for what we knew would be a long, New York winter.
When the natural gas bill came the next month, I thought it was a mistake. Did the company erroneously add an extra zero to the bill? $500??? I just knew it couldn't be right. Feeling indignant, I called the utility and asked them to please fix our bill (I'm now embarrassed by my naivety). The customer service representative actually laughed at me; "Is this your first winter around here?" she asked. I hung up, completely disenchanted. I guess this was why our rent was so cheap.
That was our only winter in that house, but the lessons DH & I learned from our utility bill fiasco have stuck with us. Even though we've been firmly entrenched in the South ever since, we still treat our winter heating bill with the utmost suspicion.
This winter has been one of the coldest on record; in fact, I think one of my old meteorological colleagues from the TV station said the first week of December was statistically the coldest on record, dating back more than 100 years. I can't tell you how many times I've said to my Southern friends, "This is NOT why I moved here!"
I adhere to a strict heating regimen in our home. I don't know what's the norm around you, but where we live, two-story homes typically have separate heating and air conditioning units for each floor. That means I can control the temperature on the second floor (where all our bedrooms are) independently from the first floor.
Every night, I turn off the downstairs heater--yes, I turn it completely OFF (I'm sure I'll learn my lesson when a pipe eventually freezes, but until that time...). Then I go upstairs and turn that thermostat on... to a "toasty" 62 degrees (hey, we're sleeping under flannel sheets, a thermal blanket and a down comforter... plus two pairs of socks and three layers of pajamas, but who's counting?).
When DH wakes up in the morning (the life of a law enforcement officer includes a 4:30am wake up call), he shuffles down to the frozen tundra, AKA our first floor. While we slept, the temperature downstairs has plummeted to an icy 50 degrees (actually, it might be colder than that, but our thermostat only goes down to 50 degrees, so we'll never know for sure). When I wake up a few hours later, I turn off the heat upstairs. I then head downstairs to check the thermostat; DH is notorious for "cheating" and adding a few degrees to my mandated daytime setting of 64 degrees.
All these efforts typically mean our natural gas bill is never more than $100 a month during the winter; I have friends in similarly sized homes who pay two or three times that--they also keep their home at a sultry 70 degrees day and night.
Sure, it means you can never go barefoot in my home...
Sure, it means I often type my blog posts wearing gloves...
Sure, it means lots of laundry to ensure all our sweatshirts and long johns are always clean...
But it also means great savings. Hey, if you're going to be frugal, you've got to suffer a little.
(And I should add, my own mother keeps her house at 64 degrees in the winter; and she lives in CLEVELAND, OHIO!!!)
But don't worry, come summer, we'll make up for all this frigid suffering. I refuse to turn the air conditioner on until July 4th; and then, it's set to a balmy 78!
Timing of this is hysterical... J & I were at my brother & SILs this past weekend. 68 is their normal daytime high & 62 at night.
My nose was so cold it ran & ran & ran...
I was never so glad to climb into my balmly 72 degree home...
I feel your pain ... our 1950 rental that we live in has an uninsulated basement and we have to keep the basement door open so the cat can eat and use his litter pan SO ... we pay really high bills. :( There's no way around it!
As for other ways we cut costs - we cancelled cable and our home phone, I coupon and buy store/generic brand everything for groceries, I shop the clearance section for clothes, and I sell anything I can (eBay, consignment shops, etc).
Oh I love this post...perhaps we're long lost sisters?! We live in Iowa and I HATE wasting money on high utility bills. Luckily, we live in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath [1 level] condo, but I turn the thermostat to 60 when we're gone and I almost refuse to use the air in the summer! I bet everyone wishes they were married to me! :)
You turn it to 78?
Wow I turn mine to 80 and it is not allowed to go down any further!!
I have been known to keep the windows open until late July as well but something about the humidity and wood floors makes them sweat and I can't stand that!
Great post it made me laugh.
my lady you have inspired me.
I've just walked and lowered my heater to 68 ( not 64, but we must all start somewhere)
JM
haaa this is hilarious!! We have such cold long winters that we budget for high bills in those winter months!!! Hubby keeps temp set and I just dress accordingly!!! Lucky we have lots of windows that let the sun in which warms the house
Oh, and we bought a house with heated tile floors in the bathrooms and yes I have been known to go and lay down in the bathroom some days!
http://phitgirlblog.blogspot.com/
When we lived in Central, NY we were remodeling a farm house for my husband's boss. We were so excited because they let us live there rent free, but we had to pay for the utilities. Turns out when you are gutting the interior of a house down to the studs in the dead of winter, you will spend upwards of $1000 a month in fuel oil just to not die of hypothermia (aka. to keep it above 40 degrees). One month they had to come fill the tank twice! It was a hard lesson learned, but when we went to buy our first house, we were 4 million times smarter than we were when we started that adventure.
I am Cheap, with a capitol C - and I don't think it should be taken negatively. I live in MICHIGAN and we keep our house at 62 in the evenings when we are home, 58 when we are not home / sleeping (And I have 5 month old - she stays plenty warm!)
I'm a coupon cutter. (and I search the internet for non-traditional coupons)
Currently we are in a 30 day challenge of not eating out all January.
For me, its almost a game of how much money can we save. After all, only suckers pay full price.
I think we live in generally the same area, and it has been cold this Winter! Our apartment can be a little drafty because they're older than most. So, for the entire last half of December and most of January, I kept my thermostat at 79 degrees. Then...I got my power bill. Now it's back at 75 degrees, and rarely even goes off. I've been cold ever since, but I am not going to have another power bill like that one!
we only have one thermostat for both levels of our house, but it is programmable. So from 10pm to 7am the house is at 62, from 7-8 it kicks up to 64, then back to 62 until 4pm when it goes to 66 until bedtime at 10pm.
We rent our basement out, or it would be lower than that for the times we arent home, the poor girl would freeze to death.
You are tough. I complain that my husband won't let me turn on the heat until I gets really cold (below 70) Usually at 75, I'm ready and I begin to freeze at 73. Luckily living in FL we only have to turn it on a few nights a year. I can't imagine the bill we'd have if we lived where it was really cold. Oh, and summers, it is 82 at night and 80 during the day. (well, 85 while we are not home, but goes to 80 an hour before we get home from work.)
Ha! Your mom and my mom clearly think alike, as our house was always like 64 or 65 in the winter. As an adult I'm kinda used to it, so I admit I keep my apartment around that same temp, too. Luckily I have two cats who like to snuggle at night.
Luckily it's pretty nice where I live in the summer so I don't have to worry about air conditioning, but our winters suck!
i keep our house at 66 during the day but I turn it down to 45 at night. I don't want to turn it all the way off for fear of pipes bursting as well. I stiill wake up at night because I'm hot with too many blankets on. Luckily my thermostat is programmable, so I have it set to turn on 15 minutes before we get out of bed.
great stuff. we're in upstate NY and keep our downstairs set at 68 during the day and 50 or so at night as well. and the upstairs is off. just off. it goes down to 50 or so at night. i hate it, but it's saving a ton of money. before we decided to do that, we were spending about $30+ per day on fuel to heat the house! and i'm from cleveland, and when we were there, we did the same!
I have to say that this made me cringe. Really cringe. I am all about saving money... but I don't think I could go that extreme. Our previous house here in Houston was a 2-story 2600+ sq monster that was EXPENSIVE to cool in the summers. Our bills were always around $500 a month. It was awful. But, now that we live in a 1600 sq ranch our bill is much more affordable. We keep our house around 71 in the "winter" and about 73 in the summer. Having multiple days in the 100s makes it hard to turn it up anymore. But, I'm glad this saves you money! :)
We're in Alabama and I keep the thermostat set on 65 in the winter. I can't handle hot in the summer though, so it stays between 70 & 72 then. It's easy to bundle up in the winter to stay warm.