Save Money on Your Heating Bill

Dress appropriately and not for your own comfort. So many people wear short sleeve t-shirts around their homes in the dead of winter. Wear flannel shirts and sweaters or, even better, wear 2-3 layers of clothes and include them all. It isn’t unusual for me to wear a tank top, long sleeve t-shirt, flannel shirt and a sweater on top of that. That’s 4 layers.

Practice the same habit at night. Stop wearing just a t shirt or your summer jammies. Get out the flannel nightgown (your husband will love you anyway). I even wear a long sleeve t-shirt under that. When things were really bad and I had no heat at night at all (amazing I lived to tell about it), I would wear a stocking hat because so much heat goes out of the top of your head.

Of course, if you have babies or elderly family members you will have to set the heat higher but you might not need it as high as think. When my kids were young, we had sleepers made out of blanket material. You have the same thing now but are more often made of fleece or something similar. Instead of using sleepers for pajamas, we would put on a onesy or t shirt, heavy pajamas, socks and booties and then top it all with a sleeper, which was more like a blanket than pajamas.

In some cases, we would top the sleeper with what we called a sleeping sack, which had little mitten like things for their hands. Then we topped it all with a cap. Boy, that made it fun changing a nighttime diaper, especially one that had leaked. Like I said, these ideas are not for the faint of heart.

Wear socks and slippers. Put on 1-2 pairs of socks and a warm pair of slippers.

This may seem obvious but use throws and shawls. Sitting in the evening, I can get chilly. Just laying a throw over my lap and feet can instantly warm me up. I have trouble with snuggies. They seem to get in my way, so I find that a throw and a shawl over my shoulders works better. I know your big he-man husband or son could not handle a shawl, but keep a warm zip up sweat shirt handy for them.

I love wearing mittens without the fingers. When I first started doing this, I was surprised how something so small could warm me up so much. At times I have been so cold I was going to turn up my heat but instead I put on my mittens. These are especially great when using the computer, hand sewing, reading and other tasks where you use your hands frequently.

Drink a warm drink. You might have heard this tip over the years, but it really does work. Sometimes, in the evening, if I start to feel really chilled, I will make myself some coffee or tea. Even holding the hot mug before I start drinking warms me right up.

Close off rooms. I mean, seriously, close off all the rooms you can. At one point, we had no gas, so we had to move into two smaller rooms of the house– the kitchen and another 9×9 room next to it. The kids slept on pallets on the kitchen floor which we had to pick up each morning and move. I slept on the couch in the small room. We had a door that shut us off from the rest of the house. It was a mad dash each morning to the cold part of the house to grab the clothes we needed for the day or anything else from back there but, once again, we lived.

(If you don’t need to use a bathroom and you close it off, be careful about closing off bathrooms where there is plumbing on an outside wall because if your house isn’t well insulated and it’s super cold outside you don’t want to risk having it freeze. That would cost more than your savings! )

Most of you won’t have to be quite as drastic as we were, but I tell you these things to let you know that even if it is inconvenient to shut off a room or two, you won’t die from it. If your rooms are more open and you have no doors, then hang blankets across doorways.

Decorate with darker or warm colors and lots of heavier, fuzzy warm fabrics. This doesn't make things warmer but mentally it really makes a difference.


What not to do:

Be careful using small electric heaters to warm small areas, thinking you are saving by using those. Depending on where you live, the price of your gas or electricity in the area and the age of the heater, it might cost you more to run the electric heater in that one room than to heat the whole house with gas. Like I said, it depends on where you live. For example, in Idaho, electricity was much cheaper than in Kansas so I could heat my whole house inexpensively with a little heater. When I moved back to Kansas and tried that, I almost had a heart attack after I received my first electric bill.


Note: Besides the cost and energy savings, there are a few added bonuses when lowering your heat:

Less static electricity

You usually don’t have to use a humidifier

Your nose and throat aren’t usually as dry all the time, which is supposed to help prevent or reduce sinus infections and other respiratory problems

Your lips and skin won’t get as dry

Your eyes won’t get as dry. Recently, when I was visiting family, my eyes became red and hurt so badly that I thought I was going to have to go to the eye doctor when I got home, but it turned out they hurt because they were dried out.

I know different areas of the country are more humid than others and that other factors affect dry eyes and sinuses but, no matter where I have lived, I have had less difficulty with these issues than friends and family who lived in the same area.

Jill Reed
http://www.livingonadime.com

For more easy and practical ways to save money and get out of debt, check out Dig out Of Debt and learn more about how to keep more of your money.

Tips for Reducing Electric Bills


Keep your thermostat at 78-82 in the summer and 60-65 in the winter. For most people, this is the other way around. If you currently keep it much lower than this, try changing it over a couple months so you can get used to it.

Move down to the coolest part or up to the warmest part of the house. In the summer move all your beds and/or the TV down to the basement. In the winter your upstairs room maybe the warmest so move up there. Don’t move everything twice a year. We have a bi-level house and immediately after moving in, we realized that even though a bi-level has bedrooms on both floors, it works better for us to live during the day all on one floor. We moved all of the sleeping arrangements downstairs, even though it meant that we used the downstairs family room for our bedroom.

In the summer, open windows in the opposite corners of the house to “draw” the air through first thing in the morning. Then close them later before the heat of the day hits.

Use fans instead of central air or even air conditioners. We don’t turn on the air conditioner unless it is more than 80° F (27° C)

Put fans in your windows backwards to draw hot air out. If you want the cooler outside air to blow across you in one room, place the fan in a window directly across the house to suck air out. Then, the cooler air will be pulled into the window where you are.

Use attic fans to draw hot air out too. Don’t underestimate how much an attic fan can help. Consider that a 125° attic next to a 78° house can raise the temperature, even with good attic insulation. It can literally drop your homes temperature’s several degrees.

Do things that require you to be up and moving around during the coolest part of the day (dusting, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom).

Do the things that are less physical and more stationary in front of a fan during the hotter part of the day (washing dishes, folding clothes, paying bills).

Plan ahead for baking. In the summer when it’s hot, only bake on the cooler days, ideally when you don’t need the air conditioner and can keep the windows open. If you can plan ahead for the week, bake what you can in advance so that if a really hot day comes, you can avoid using the oven that day.

Keep an eye on your appliance operating costs.

Sometimes, you will save money on energy use by replacing an inefficient appliance. Most of the time, it will take a while for the cost of replacing the appliance to make the energy savings worth it, so don’t replace something expensive just to save on your utilities unless you do the math. If you find that you need to replace an appliance soon, replace it now if you can save on energy costs since you will have to incur that cost anyway.

Our air conditioner costs us about $150 per month to cool our 1600 square foot house in the summer which is twice that of a friend with a similar sized house in town, but because of the high cost to replace one and the relatively few number of months we use it each year, we will probably wait another couple years to replace it.

Test your power usage if you can. There is a company that makes a device that is like a plug adapter that you can use to test the power usage on any appliance that plugs into a wall. Test any appliances you can. I thought that our refrigerator was using a lot of power and then I discovered it was actually the lights.

Don’t use appliances that you can avoid using. I like line dried clothes because of the fresh smell, so I try not to use the dryer much. This helps keep the cost down and also saves money because the dryer reduces clothes’ life span. For some appliances, reducing your use won’t save much. Unless you own a malt shop, go ahead and use the blender as much as you usually do.

Consider using fluorescent light bulbs if you use a lot of lights. There are lots of newer style fluorescent bulbs that don’t put out that nasty color and quality of light that we associate with older fluorescents. We replaced most of the light bulbs in our house all at once and our electric bill went down $40 right away. Where we live, our electric bill has gone from $100-$110 per month without the air conditioner down to $60-$70. Fluorescent bulbs can be expensive compared to incandescent, though and if you don’t use your lights very often, it could be more expensive to change them than the short term savings. We keep a lot of our lights on much of the day, so it was worth it for us. Also, the fluorescents tend to last a lot longer than incandescent bulbs (about 10 years). If you decide to try fluorescents, try one or two at first. They have different color and quality characteristics and you’ll want to make sure you find bulbs you like before spending the money to replace a lot of them.

Tawra Killam
http://www.livingonadime.com

For more easy and practical ways to save money and get out of debt, check out Dig out Of Debt and learn more about how to keep more of your money.

A yummy way to use that juicer pulp

The one thing I dislike about juicing is the pulp. What do you DO with it? Especially if you're making a lot of juice, that leads to a lot of pulp... I have fed a lot of it to our vermicomposters, but while that's useful it still seems like a waste. Enter light-bulb moment, and some inspiration from Hillbilly Housewife... this turned out to be really good! I didn't have any white flour, just multigrain bread flour, and it still turned out (I used just one cup instead of 1 1/3). I also used pre-mixed gingerbread spices instead of cinnamon and cloves. I would (and will) definitely make this again. Sorry for the lack of photo - I have misplaced the charger for my camera battery. :/


Juicer Pulp Sweet Bread

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar (white or brown)
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
2 Tbsp vegetable oil, mashed banana, or applesauce
2 Tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract (or lemon or almond)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups pulp from juicing

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a loaf pan or small cake pan; set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, milk, egg, oil (or banana or applesauce), honey, vanilla (or other) extract), cinnamon, and cloves.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the milk mixture, then the pulp from juicing. Stir with a wooden spoon until combined, but do not overmix.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove the bread from the pan and cool on a wire rack or cut your cake into pieces. The cake is especially nice with cream cheese frosting! Enjoy!

Variation:
Add 1/2 cup cocoa powder to the dry ingredients for deliciously moist chocolate bread!

Panettone Christmas Bread for the Bread Machine

Original recipe from here...
http://www.food.com/recipe/panettone-christmas-bread-for-the-bread-machine-47087


3/4 cup water
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 1/4 cups flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons condensed milk
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons yeast
1 cup chopped mixed candied fruit
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Add all ingredients in order giving except the fruit.

Add fruit as the dough starts to come together into a ball, a little before the "add in" beep if your machine has it.

The recipe recommends using the "Sweet Bread" and "Light Crust" settings. I used the "Basic" and "Light Crust" settings and the bread was still a little doughy in the middle. Next time I will either use the dough setting and bake it in the oven (would make two small loaves), or use the next setting on the machine which bakes it about 20 minutes longer.

9 money rules to live by

Most surveys that measure financial literacy focus on teenagers, and the results are always grim.

In research by the nonprofit Jump$tart Coalition, which promotes personal finance education, the average high school student correctly answered just 48.3% of the questions covering money basics in 2008. That was down from 57.3% a decade earlier, but even that score was hardly distinguishing -- anything less than 60% counts as an F.

A 2005 poll by Harris Interactive for the National Council on Economic Education showed that adults aren't that much savvier.

While teens on average scored a 53 (another F) on a quiz testing knowledge of basic economic and personal-finance concepts, the grownups' average score was just 70 (a C).

In addition:

• More than one-quarter of adults failed the quiz.
• Women were far more likely to fail than men; 42% scored an F, compared with 15% of men.
• Men were much more likely than women to get an A or B on the test (51% compared with 17%).

If it makes you female readers feel any better, there are also lots of studies out there showing that we're better investors than men -- once we get around to investing.

But the fact remains that there's a heck of a lot of financial ignorance going around, and financial ignorance is costly. Women may have even more to lose than men, since we tend to earn less, are more likely to have interrupted careers and live longer, which means we have more time to suffer from our mistakes.

My email box and Facebook page bear testimony to the daily cost of financial illiteracy: men and women who are overwhelmed by debt or have no savings, or don't invest for retirement, or fall for investment scams, or think we can drive gas prices down by not buying fuel for a day.


Understanding economics and personal finance doesn't mean you won't make mistakes or face financial disasters. But you can lessen the odds and repair the damage faster if you know the rules of the game.

Here are the economic and financial concepts I wish everybody knew:

1. The difference between needs and wantsOur actual needs are pretty limited: food, shelter, clothing, companionship. Just about everything else is a "want," and our wants are essentially endless. Because our resources are limited (see "scarcity," below), we have to make choices about which wants to fulfill.
   
   Also, the way we fulfill our needs involves a lot of choice. Shelter, for example, can be a bed at a mission for the homeless or a $125 million mansion. Our food choices offer a similar range, from beans and tap water consumed at home to steak and Dom Perignon at an exclusive restaurant.
   
   I've discovered many people believe they have to spend money in certain ways or in certain amounts, when in reality their spending is a choice -- or is at least based on choices they made earlier. If you're facing a monster mortgage payment, for example, it's because you chose to buy that home and selected that particular mortgage.
   
   Taking responsibility for our choices can be scary, but it should also be empowering. After all, if you have choices, you're not just a victim of circumstance.
   
   
2. Scarcity makes your choices for youIt's lovely to believe in a world of endless abundance, but the reality is that at any given point in time, our resources have limits. Whether it's oil in the ground, our time here on Earth or the cash in our pockets, there's only so much available to be spent.
   
   People who ignore this reality are the ones who run out of paycheck before they run out of month, or who extend their unsustainable spending by relying on credit cards, home equity loans and other reckless borrowing. Their refusal to make the sometimes-hard choices needed to responsibly manage money means that they will have even fewer choices in the future. The money they spend on stuff and on interest can't be invested in other goals, like retirement, so odds are pretty good they'll wind up old and broke.
   
   
3. The pointlessness of the hedonic treadmillThis isn't the latest workout device at your gym. The hedonic treadmill means that we quickly adjust to improved circumstances. A raise at work or a new possession may make us happy for a little while, but we soon take our situation for granted. Our expectations continue to rise: If only I could get another raise, or a better car, or a bigger house. Should those expectations be satisfied, again we'd adjust and quickly want more.
   
   This has a lot of implications for personal finance and the economy, but here's something to consider: Maybe we need to look beyond our wallets for true happiness.
   
   
4. Every money decision has a cost of its own
   "Opportunity cost," very simply, means what we give up to get something else. In every choice, there's an opportunity cost. If you decide to go to college, for example, you're giving up the income you could have earned by working full-time during those years plus whatever you could have purchased with the money used to attend school. You also may take on loans to pay for school, which will have to be paid back with future income that could have gone for other purposes.
   
   The good news, of course, is that even with opportunity costs, college is a slam-dunk for most people. The average college graduate makes about 70% more over his or her lifetime than someone who stops with a high school diploma.
   
   If, however, you train for a career that has little demand and wind up making the same amount as a high school grad or trailing huge amounts of student loan debt you can never repay, you may regret the money spent on school and the foregone income.
   
   Understanding that our choices have opportunity costs, and examining what those costs are, should help us make better economic decisions.
   
   
5. Why supply and demand rule
   For the most part, prices are set by the interaction between supply and demand. If demand for something suddenly shoots up and the available supply of that something doesn't change, then prices will increase. If demand drops or supply increases, prices typically fall.
   
   Here's an example. Say rock star Brittany Amber Tiffany is photographed wearing a cap with the brand name of a Midwestern seed company. Suddenly, all her fans and half the people reading Us magazine decide they, too, need the Midwestern seed company's hat. The farm supply companies that stock these hats figure out a good thing when they see it, and double, then triple, the price. The hat actually worn by Brittany sells for a mint on eBay, earning a notice in mainstream newspapers and furthering the craze.
   
   The Midwestern seed company wants a piece of this action and starts cranking out hats by the ton. Suddenly you can find one in every Target and Wal-Mart. The retailers can no longer command a premium for having a rare item, thanks to the increase in supply. In fact, the hats start seeming a heck of a lot less cool, lowering demand; Target and Wal-Mart slash the price still further to get rid of their unwanted supply.
   
   The interplay of supply and demand is also why one-day gas boycotts don't work. Even if a lot of people participated, overall demand wouldn't change; the boycotters would likely gas up before or after the selected day. Only a big increase in supply or a sustained decline in demand is likely to affect prices.
   
   Supply and demand have a lot to do with our incomes as well. If we have rare skills that are in high demand by employers, we can negotiate higher pay. If, on the other hand, a lot of people can do what we do or the employer need for what we do is limited, our incomes are likely to be stunted.
   
   
6. Throw no good money after bad
   "Sunk costs" are expenses that have already been incurred and can't be recovered to any appreciable extent. "Sunk cost fallacy" means an irrational belief that a further investment of time, money or effort will somehow resurrect the value that's already disappeared.
   
   A classic example is the investor whose stock has plunged because the prospects of the company have worsened. The investor wouldn't buy the same stock today, yet continues to hang on to the shares rather than sell them and take the loss. The investor may offer the excuse that he or she wants to at least "break even" before selling, but of course the stock market doesn't care about the investor getting the money back, and all the wishing in the world won't bring the stock price back up.
   
   By hanging on to the shares, the investor is giving up the opportunity to invest elsewhere at a profit -- an opportunity cost.
   
   
7. The role risk plays
   Every human endeavor carries some risk, and investments are no exception. What differs is the amount and type of risk and how you're compensated for taking it.
   
   The 30-day Treasury bill, for example, is one of the "safest" investments around if you're solely concerned with getting back your original investment. The T-bill is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. But the average return on a 30-day T-bill over the past 80 years is just 3.7%, according to Ibbotson Associates. That's just above the historical 3% inflation rate for the same period; if you factor in taxes, you probably lost money.
   
   Large-company stocks, by contrast, returned an average 10.4% annually during the same period. That handily beats inflation, but as everyone who has invested in the past decade knows, stocks aren't a sure thing. There were plenty of years along the way that the market for large-company stocks dived, and if you invested all your money in a single stock -- say, Enron -- you could have been wiped out. That's called market risk.
   
   Here's what you should take away: You'll almost certainly need to take some market risk if you want to grow your wealth and beat inflation over time. But you should also be wary of anyone who "guarantees" a high return on an investment. If you're earning much more than the going rate on a T-bill, you're taking some risk, and you should understand that risk before proceeding.
   
   
8. The time value of moneyThis boils down to a relatively simple proposition: that the dollar I get today is worth more than a dollar I'm promised sometime in the future.
   
   There are several reasons for this. One is the "bird in the hand" reality: The dollar I get today is real, but the dollar I'm promised in the future likely will be worth less (because of inflation), or I might not get it at all (you might renege on your promise to give it to me, or die, or cease operations if you're an employer or business). Also, the dollar I get today can be invested to create more dollars in the future.
   
   Turn this around, and you'll see why lenders charge interest for loaning money -- and why the interest rate depends on your creditworthiness. Lenders want to be compensated for the erosion in their dollars due to inflation, and for the risk of lending money to you.
   
   The higher the perceived rate of future inflation and the more lenders doubt your promise to pay the money back, the more interest they'll charge to compensate for the risk.
   
   
9. The miracle of compound interest
   This is a concept best illustrated by example. Let's say I give you a penny today, and promise to double the amount every day for a full month. How much money would I be giving you on the 31st day?
   
   The answer: $10.7 million.
   
   Each day, the "interest" I paid you the previous day earns more interest. At the beginning, the amounts are nominal, but by the end we're talking big bucks.
   
   Of course, no one's going to double your money every day. But this concept explains how people who save relatively small amounts over the years can build rather substantial nest eggs. After a few decades, their actual contributions represent only a small part of their burgeoning wealth -- it's mostly their returns that are earning returns.
   
   But this also illustrates how debts can quickly balloon out of control. If you're paying interest, rather than incurring it, and you're not diligent about paying off the finance charges in full every month, the unpaid amount will incur additional interest charges, increasing the total amount that you owe. This is why so many families who incur credit card debt eventually find themselves in trouble as the amounts they owe explode past their ability to pay.
   
   There are plenty more nifty and helpful money concepts, but these nine are among my favorites.

Liz Weston is the Web's most-read personal-finance writer. She is the author of several books, most recently "The 10 Commandments of Money: Survive and Thrive in the New Economy" (find it on Bing). Weston's award-winning columns appear every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. Click here to find Weston's most recent articles.

Connect with Weston on Facebook here.


http://money.msn.com/how-to-budget/9-money-rules-to-live-by-weston.aspx