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Home & Garden

7 ways to save money on your gas bill when it's cold

Save you some green before you see red

woman sitting on the couch in front of the window drinking tea wrapped in electric blanket Credit: Reviewed / Emily Northrop / Getty Imagaes / Valeriy_G

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"I'm not paying to heat the entire neighborhood, so close the door!" is an age-old dad joke, but now that I'm an adult myself, I can relate because heating a home is expensive.

Given today's high gas prices, opening the gas utility bill each month is enough to send anyone into shock and tears. However, it doesn't have to be that way. You can significantly reduce your energy needs and save money on your gas utility bill each month.

When it comes to how to save money on your gas bill at home, here are seven things to try.

1. Use a space heater

A silver space heater on a green background
Credit: Reviewed / Lasko

A space heater is one way to stay toasty inside.

Heating a whole home is expensive and if you don't regularly utilize every space in your house, it can also be unnecessary.

Using a space heater can help to save big bucks on your gas bill, because rather than pumping money through the vents and into rooms that no one is using, you can focus your heating costs on just the spaces you need to be warm, such as your home office during the day or your family room in the evening. 

Offering huge benefits to both your home and your wallet, it's easy to find a reasonably priced and well reviewed space heater on Amazon. The Lasko 754200 space heater offers the most value when it comes to the best space heaters we've ever tested. 

Whatever you buy, remember to look for one that meets all current safety standards. $31 at Amazon

2. Install a smart thermostat

Wondering how to save money on your gas bill with your thermostat? Programmable on a schedule, a smart thermostat allows you to set your home's temperature needs in a way that best suits your life. 

For example, if you'd like it to be 70°F when you wake up, but then drop to 64° during the hours you are at work, then warm up to 75°F when you get home, and then cool off before bed, a smart thermostat can manage all of that for you. 

A smart thermostat like the Nest Learning Thermostat (third-gen) really is a set it and forget it device. Many smart thermostats work with existing smart home systems such as Google Home and Amazon Echo.

Plus, you can even set a different schedule for the weekend, so really, what are you waiting for?

$190 at Amazon

3. Snuggle with an electric blanket

black electric blanket
Credit: Reviewed / Sunbeam

An electric blanket can keep you warm

Blankets are an excellent way to stay warm in cooler temps and swapping your favorite blanket out for an electric blanket can make a huge difference in your gas utility bill budget.

While a regular blanket helps you retain body heat, an electric blanket, like the Sunbeam Cozy Feet Velvet Heated Blanket with Digital Display Controller, actually helps increase your body temperature.

$155 at Amazon

4. Roll out the rugs

It's no secret that when our feet are cold, our whole body feels cold, and that's because our feet play a huge role in regulating our core body temperature.

Unfortunately, that also means that when our beautiful wood or stone floors begin to take on a winter chill, we are more likely to crank up the thermostat in an effort to warm floors and our blood. A cheaper solution is to invest in a few quality area rugs

The plush fabric provides a barrier to the cold chill of a hard floor, and, in turn, prevents your feet and body from cooling with them. Laid anywhere that you spend a lot of time such as your family room or office, and where you regularly make temperature transitions such as standing up from your cozy bed or stepping out of your shower, rugs actually help retain body heat, preventing a constant need to crank up the thermostat.

If you invest in a rug such as the Ruggable, you can easily change your flooring needs from a plush rug in the winter, to a thinner rug in the summer so that your flooring temperature can feel warmer or cooler depending on the season.

Shop Ruggable

5. Hang blackout curtains

black hanging curtains
Credit: Reviewed / BGment

Black out curtains can help hold the heat in your home.

Heat loss through windows is responsible for up to 30% of residential energy loss, which means that in the winter you are literally paying to heat the entire neighborhood. 

Although you may be having a flashback to your parents scolding you for not closing the door in the winter, heat loss can add up to a substantial increase in your gas bill, because your money is literally escaping through your windows.

However, there's an easy fix, and it starts by simply blocking the path of heat loss using thermal lined curtains

Designed specifically to prevent both heat loss in colder months and heat gain in warmer months, thermal lined curtains like BGment Blackout Curtains (4.5 out of 5 stars at more than 50,000 reviews on Amazon) help to maintain the indoor temperature, despite whatever is going on with the temperature outside. These energy savings add up to real money when it comes to your gas bill.

$19 at Amazon

6. Buy a towel warmer

There really is nothing more jarring than stepping out of a nice warm shower into a frigid bathroom, and that's one of the main reasons why people set their thermostat to such a high temperature in the mornings. Who wants to shiver in their birthday suit?

Heating a whole home just to warm the bathroom is expensive, and it can be pointless if after your shower you head right out to work and don't even need the rest of your house to be warm. 

Cutting down on that expense doesn't mean that you have to freeze after your shower. A towel warmer, like this highly-rated Amazon Luxury Bucket Towel Warmer, offers a fantastic transition option from your warm shower to your warm clothes.

Simply plug it in, throw your towel into it, and by the time you are ready to hop out of the shower your towel will be warmed and waiting for you.

$147 at Amazon

7. Stop drafts

grey draft stopper
Credit: Reviewed / MAGZO

A draft stopper can keep cold air from slipping in cracks in doors and windows.

Have you ever walked past your front door and felt a cold draft blow by your feet? If so, I have bad news for you, because that is literally the feeling of money blowing out of your bank account.

Cold air making its way into your home is a common homeowner problem, but it's one that should be taken seriously. Cold air coming in is actually causing your furnace to work harder to keep the temperature of your home up, and this situation is directly reflected in a higher gas bill each month.

Thankfully, the solution to stopping the drafts and saving money is as easy as laying a stopper around your doors. This can also be placed around drafty windows. You don't need any special skills to keep the cold air out, but the cost savings will leave so much money in your wallet that you will feel like a professional handyman.

$24 at Amazon

$16 at Amazon

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