Simple ways to save on home heating costs

Soem of the ways I am about to list will work for either renters OR homeowners. Some are just for homeowners.

• Insulate your windows. We use the plastic covering kits they sell at hardware stores or even at Walmart. They are pretty cheap and they are effective. If you want the option to still be able to open the windows, you could buy some camping blankets for a couple bucks each. I have not personally tried them yet but I will be trying one this winter. They are found in your local store in the sporting goods section. In my oldest daughter's room, we are just going to hang an old quilt over the window and nail it into place because she will just poke holes in the plastic making it useless. Downstairs, we can monitor that a little better and make sure she doesn't do it.
• Turn your thermostat down a degree or two and use blankets or wear long sleeves. Not always practical but when it comes to saving $$, I will wear a long sleeve shirt.
• Use an extra blanket at night. Not always practical for the kids but we put them in blanket sleepers and on the really cold nights, I leave a thin long sleeve shirt on under the blanket sleeper, sometimes thin pants too.
• After you are finished using your oven, leave it open. The heat will come out as the oven cools and add some more warmth to your house.
• Humidifiers. I have noticed that running a humidifer in the living room makes the house feel warmer.
• Reinsulate. Doesn't have to cost a lot and saves a bundle on your heating costs. For around $200 this summer, Hubby and my brother reinsulated both of our attics with blown in insulation. We went from 4 inches in one and 8 in the other to 48ish inches in each.
• Got a door with an air leak under it? Don't have the $$ to replace the door? Use a draft dodger. They are available at Walmart in the department with the curtains for $5-6 and they keep the draft under our main entry door to a minimum. For the entry door that we do not use very often (like NEVER), I am planning on nailing up an old quilt.
• Got rooms that you don't use or that you aren't in enough that you would need to heat them? Close off the vents by cutting some thick cardboard and taping it down over the vent after you close it or if you have the option of turning the vent off near the furnace, do it that way. We close off our laundry room this way. However the laundry room is right off the kitchen and there is no door there so it is still heated but not through the vent. We blocked off our upstairs for the first 2 years we lived here by nailing a really thick quilt over the doorway to the upstairs. You could tell the difference as soon as you moved the blanket. There was a good 20* difference between upstairs and down. We also had no ductwork upstairs at that point so the only heat going upstairs was gravity heat. We closed off the gravity vents by stuffing towels in them. Our heating bill that first winter was only $500 (of course LP was cheaper then as well). We moved our bedroom downstairs both of those winters and saved a bunch on heating costs. With the kids, that is no longer an option however.
• Change your furnace filter often. We made that mistake the year that our oldest was turning one. I forgot to change our filter and would remember at work but then forget by the time I got home. It was so plugged that for 2 days our furnace ran pretty much constantly but it would not get above 62* in the house. We awoke one morning to 55* and falling fast. Our furnace died. 1 hour, a $50 service charge, a scolding, and a new filter later, our furnace repairman had us up and running. He said we probably burnt a 50 or more gallons of LP that weekend when we would normally burn less than 1/4 of that heating the house for 2 days. Of course it didn't help that I kept turning the thermostat up because the temp kept dropping. YIKES! That was a huge wake up call and I keep lots of extra filters here now. Everytime I take something from my basement stockpile or add to it, I check the furnace filter. I also write on the calendar and the new filter itself when I change it.