I am sitting here freezing...

I have stopped having my heating on so much too, it costs a fortune, we just cannot afford to keep putting money in the meter, there are times it seems to eat it. I remember when I was a single parent with my eldest child and money was so tight I was really struggling to make ends meet. I had to pay bills and I knew I did not have enough money for everything so to make sure I could pay the bills me and my son lived on beans on toast for about 2 weeks, it was horrible, no treats or anything. I felt so down and so sorry for my son, he could have no sweets or anything. My dad called round one day and he asked my son what we were having for tea and my son told him and told him the truth, my dad knew I was proud and wanted to prove I could cope and so without saying anything left money on the side when he went. I did not spot it for ages and when I did I was just so grateful I cried like a baby. It really helped me through until my next pay day, all I did in those days was skimp.

I can empathize with you our heating boiler gave up the ghost last friday and we have not had any heat or hot water since then. Hopefully the gas bill will not be as much this quarter as it is getting very expensive and I had been considering how to reduce it

We are still having some cool weather enough to want to want heat but we heat with kerosene and we no longer get any the price is outrageous anymore and so like you we bundle up with blankets,houseshoes,sweaters,even coats. We just had a cold spell a few days ago, my husband calls thenm redbud winter,then blackberry winter,dogwood winter then from then on we have nothing but heat..I kinda like the cooler weather since I can get out and walk in it without having a heat stroke.

Nope, not for money. We heat with a wood stove in the winter- second source is a propane heater in the house. There are times when we don’t start the stove- as it isn’t cold enough out- it is usually in the Spring- then we just crank up the heat and heat with the furnace. I’m very lucky that we have enough money to pay our bills, buy food, take vacations- and live nicely. Sure there are a lot of things I wish I had--- but they are not necessities.

we have had to put $2000 in fuel in the tank just since the middle of december. we really can't afford to put more in it so hope it warms up soon. with the kids we can't turm ours off but when we leave we do turn it down so it don't come on while we are gone. last year we lived in oklahoma and it would get up in the 100's so it would be ;like 130 in the house but we couldn't run the ac alot. we decided that we would run it at night cuz during the day we would be outside for the most part and it would be nice and cool in the morning and as long as everyone kept the doors and stuff closed it would get to bad in the house. if we ran it through the day and not at night it would keep ok through the day but night time would be unreal so we would end up running it 24/7.

I live in Los Angeles, Ca is never too cold and it's never too hot, bu at certain times when it does get cold, most apartments are utilities free so we never really pay for anything. Why don't you try the electric heaters those that are portable, they will probably save you more money and you don't have to freeze.

I have turned my heat off also recently and opened up some windows. It gets warm during the day sometimes. It has been raining for the last few days though and the temperature goes up and down. I have a little electric heater to plug in and turn on if it gets a little chilly in here. I try to save on my gas and electric also. I get cold too and put on a long sleeve sweatshirt ans sweatpants too so I don't have to run up my utilities. I always try to save us money on everything. Money is so tight these days and the price of everything has gone up. It is hard to make it these days with the things we have to have.

these days you cant just asume that the weather is going to bo a certan way in a certan mounth. Ok?

Hi Doll I do skimp but not to save money as much as to help make the world a better place. I hate that I am using resources that maybe damaging our Mother Earth. xoxoxoxoxxo

Hello dear winterrose. I am so sorry that you are freezing because of the cold weather and saving some expense. I am very happy that we are enjoying our warm spring now without having to turn on the air-conditioner or using the heat. Yeah, in cold weather, I usually turn it on to keep warm when I cannot suffer the cold. Stay warm, my dear friend.

No, i never do that, especially since I have two little kids in the house. I don't want them to get sick because of cold.

rose it is hard for me to keep my place warm,so i tend not to use a lot of heating.my house is so large that i actually need several heaters to keep our place warm and the power board can only take one heater ,so if i turn 2 on the electricty blows.also it is too expensive as well.cheers sue

I have equal billing for my heat, hydro and water, and that makes it so much easier for me to budget every month. I do try to conserve energy whenever I can, and have most of my lightbulbs those swirly energy savings ones, and my heaters aren't all turned on (electric heat in my townhouse). I found that even with the recent hydro increases, my monthly rate has stayed about the same, so obviously my consumption has decreased. To save a lot more, I would need some new appliances, but I simply do not have the money for that. I haven't had to cut back on most of anything for years; since before I left my ex husband. Back then, it was always me that would go without. Mostly in the clothing budget. I would have ratty icky old stuff, because clothing for me wasn't as important as food for the kids, obviously. In the past I would also downgrade on certain products. Things that I would usually prefer brand name, I would go with no name or store brand. I learned a LOT back then about which products were worth it and which weren't. Sometimes, quality is much more important. I'm sorry to hear that you need to turn off your heat so soon. It certainly has been a long lasting winter this year. However, this weekend looks VERY promising, and should warm up nicely. :)

Hi winterose Wish i could send you some of this texas heat to warm you up! I try to suffer as much as possible before I start turning on the ac otherwise my electric bills could go shy high..we don't have much of a winter and hardly any spring, but look out here comes Summer Come and visit!

When I am in Canada in the wintertime, I will turn my heat down just low enough for the pipes not to freeze, and then I will put on winter clothes in order to keep myself warm. I don't feel like paying big money for heat, when I could be sitting somewhere else drinking coffee. LOL When I am in Canada, I only use my apartment for a space to store my computer, and a place to sleep. The rest of the time I'm in some coffee shop somewhere.

never really scrimped on anything when hubby was working. and when he wasnt we lived withg his family but then to thier house had a fireplace and a wood cook stove and we froze

I have just the opposite problem. The temperature outside today was very hot. Thankfully we had to do shopping so we didn't have to bear the heat at home. Still the house was hot when we did get home. It's just now cooling down. I do not want to turn on the a/c yet because once we do the electric bill pretty much triples. We can't afford that right now. We splurged today and got a couple more fans so hopefully we can hold out at least another month.

It's summer here but when it get's cold during the rainy season we just get blankets and jackets. We don't use heaters. Don't let yourself freeze go grab yourself a hot choco or coffee or something to warm you up..Wear socks, pants jacket, coat or something.

In my home here in the Uk we have storage heaters that are very expensive to run and not that economical so we have what we call our snuggle blankets and in the evenings downstairs we cover them over us and then take upstairs to put over the bed for extra warmth. The one thing even though I live on a tight budget is food. Food is energy so I always make sure we eat well. Air conditioning is not necessary as it never gets that warm. Ellie :D

A few days ago, yes, we decided to turn off our heaters after we realized that our room temperature was already 78f and it feels pretty warm. But as soon as we turned it off, the weather started to fluctuate. As I write this, there are sleets in the road and it's so cool down here Maryland. So, we decided to turn our heaters on again. Like you, we decided to turn off the heater for budgetary purposes. It would really save us lots of bucks to turn off our heater while Spring season feels more like winter as, well, spring. I am not sure if the weather's gonna be this unpredictable this coming days. I hope it's gonna be a little warmer so that we can completely shut off, at least for now, our heater and save some serious amount of money.