Okay, I got an oil delivery the other day. Yep, it hurt! What hurt the most was seeing the $272.72 bill and realizing that I only got 81 gallons for that bill!! I won’t force you to do the math. Each gallon was a painful $3.37!! The pain went deeper as I thought back only a few years to when that $272 delivered 150 gallons to our home ($1.81/gal-yep, still have a receipt that shows oil really being that cheap).
The only reason this huge increase in heating our home and hot water hasn’t impacted our bottom line as much is because we’ve worked hard to make our home more energy efficient and we’ve changed changes some habits. Here are the main ways I’ve saved on our heating expenses:
http://www.frugal-families.com/Articles/cutting-heating-costs.htm
I admit, I’ve also learned how to shower, quickly! I realize that I don’t have to rinse pots and pans in hot water. I wash in hot water, but cold water rinses just as well. If I needed a cup of hot water for a recipe, I used to run the water until it was hot, then got my 1 cup of hot water. I’ve come to realize that besides wasting the water, I could get one cup of cold water and microwave it, thus saving water and the need to get all that hot water up from the furnace to my sink.
I make sure to take advantage of sunny days by opening up the curtains for some solar heating. At the same time, I’ve added an extra layer of protection against the cold by having full curtains on all the windows (sheers in the living room and dining room). The mini blinds help somewhat, but closing curtains over the blinds helps to sandwich the cold air and keep it out of the bedrooms. Even the sheers in the living room and dining room sandwich the cold but allow more light into those busy areas.
Oh and just remember, when you’re thinking that your domain is too cold at 68 degrees farenheit, that in the old days, fires were allowed to die out at night to conserve fuel. If you think 68 is cold at 6am, then think about what 38 would feel like! Don’t ya feel warmer already? LOL!