How to Winterize Your Home: Budget- Friendly Tips

Everybody deals with the struggles of a blitzing cold coming earlier than expected, but not many know how to combat the chilling winds cutting through your home every winter. Whether you rent an apartment, pay a mortgage, or crash a couch for the meantime, all these tips will help to keep your heating bill down and the warmth from getting out:

1.COVER AND SEAL ALL WINDOWS

It might seem like common sense but if you never have thought about the heat that escapes from creaky windows as well as the cold that comes in, then you’d think winterizing your windows was pointless. In my experience, this is the most crucial step towards keeping your house heated. I like to use plastic sheeting as I think it does the best job from keeping breezes from cutting underneath or through any opening. Worse comes to worse, trash bags or a thick plastic would work just as well. I seal with a stapler and I wouldn’t advise anything else as it is the most secure!

2. SEAL UNUSED DOORWAYS

All back doors and rooms that aren’t used but still have windows or connect to larger portions of the house need to be sealed underneath. This is the easiest and cheapest route to contain heat within a room or space. I use old towels or blankets or clothes, anything that you can bunch up and either lay underneath and shut the door over or treat like a blockade and stuff everything behind. You could purchase a bottom door seal or buy weather strips to put around the frame of the actual door but we are trying to be R-E-S-O-U-R-C-E-F-U-L and spend little to no money so choose yourself. 

3. KEEP HEAT WHERE IT NEEDS TO BE 

As in the famous words of my mother, “We are not paying to heat the outside!” Keep the heat in the house! Don't leave doors open longer than they need to be! I am not innocent when it comes to leaving a door cracked or open for a minute too long and before you know it my crib has turned into a popsicle. Just be konsicous like kel when it comes to open doors and cracked windows.

4. YOUR HOME DOESN’T NEED TO BE WARM WHEN YOU’RE NOT THERE 

Everybody likes to come home to a nice and warm house but I am trying to be fiscally responsible this year and I will never have another $500 gas bill. So, when you’re not home, there’s no need for the heat to be on. You know you’re going to be leaving? Turn it off ahead of time. I might be so stingy I turn it off when I am sleeping. Plus, heating a home when you use five rooms doesn’t make sense. Hoodies and sweatshirts can save you hundreds come this winter time. A little cold never hurt anybody.

5. MOVE TO FLORIDA

Yeah.