I love all the rich colors of fall!
The following is a guest post by Cindy Brick from Brickworks. (If you’re into quilts, her site is a must-see!) If you enjoy this post, be sure to visit the Brickworks Blog!
*Don’t turn your indoor heat on until you absolutely have to. Every extra day you keep the thermostat off, you save.
*Resolve to turn your home temp down – and keep it that way. We used to keep our indoor temp at 68 degrees – but now we live quite happily with the temp at 64-65 degrees. Wear a sweater and save some $$. (The one drawback: your friends’ homes will sometimes seem too warm!)
*Close heating grates or registers off in unused or little-used rooms.
*Check for drafts, and fix them now. (Light a candle and put it near your window or door bottom – if it flickers, you’ve got a draft.) There are weatherproofing kits out there for windows while you save for better insulated ones. Insulating foam can be sprayed into cracks and crannies for both doors and windows. Or try using folded rugs and towels as ‘draft dodgers.’ (You can make or purchase these, too.)
*Use a small space heater. This keeps life comfortable in the rooms you live in the most. (Take the proper precautions for children and/or pets.)
*Buy a bushel of fruit. Peaches and apples are harvesting through September and October for us here in Colorado – and elsewhere. Produce is a fraction of the price in stores when you pick your own or buy directly from the orchard.
*Store some of that fruit for later. Apples and pears will stay fresh in your refrigerator crisper for months.
For larger amounts, we keep an ice chest (or cooler) on our back deck filled with apples (or potatoes or onions) all winter long. If the temp drops below 0 degrees, we’ll bring it in overnight. It’s a luxury to go out in February and take out a rosy apple!
*Or preserve your fruit, instead! Apples can be sliced and put in a lemon/water solution, then packaged and frozen in pie-sized amounts. (Or just make pies, then freeze them unbaked. Bake directly out of the freezer at 375 degrees for 45-55 min. – yum!) I wash off peaches, then freeze them as-is in plastic bags, 2 per sandwich bag. Thaw for 30 min. (or microwave for 30 seconds), and the peel slides right off under warm water. Halve them, take out the pit, and they’re ready for use in smoothies or peach crisp. (Warning: Use them while they’re still partially frozen – if completely thawed, they melt into sauce. Still good on ice cream….)
*Learn how to knit. Or crochet. Or quilt. Not only are these hobbies warming while you do them, but they’ll produce needed items to protect from the cold. Not to mention Christmas presents! And speaking of Christmas…
*Start buying your Christmas presents now. Look for sales and clearance prices. Summer-related items are usually on deep clearance by this point. This also goes for Christmas groceries like nuts in the shell, dried fruit, etc.
Do you have any tips for saving money in the autumn months?
Photo by Anosmia.
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Great tips. Thanks for sharing. Just discovered your site and I love it!
If you have a fireplace, get a cord of wood, and build a fire every night. A great way to save on heat in the evening
Frank
Black Friday is a great time to cash in on some deals around the internet for Christmas presents.
Great tips! One note regarding “close heating grates or registers off in unused or little-used rooms.” I’ve heard that this can create an imbalance in central/HVAC cooling/heating systems so it might be a good idea to check with the manufacturer first. If they it won’t cause a problem I say go for it–no sense heating an unused space!
Mr Chiots and I do all of these. Each year we try to wait as long as possible before turning on the heat (haven’t yet this year). It’s 58 in the house this morning, but the the canning of applesauce that will happen late it will warm up.
I just bought a bushel of apples from the local orchard for only $2, that’s a lot of cheap applesauce & apple slices.
Better yet, make gifts for Christmas. I’m making apple butter for everyone from those $2/bushel apples. Cheap cheap cheap. And people love it.
Great post–I knew apples kept longer in the fridge but for some reason I didn’t think to apply that to pears. We have a lot of pears, too.
One other tip would be to switch to CFL light bulbs especially since it is getting darker sooner so we have the lights on more during the colder months.
I wrote a post on 10 ways to save on your energy bill on Tuesday over at BeCentsAble.net
I hadn’t thought of the cooler for storage… probably would work better than my cardboard boxes of sawdust :) Thanks! Good storage for my coolers in the off season also – I’ll put them in the woodshed… Hopefully, you’re positive about that 0 degrees deal? Hope that’s F and not C… as it never reaches 0 -F here (so far) but it does freeze.
Remember the dehydrator works great on apples and pears also – as well as most everything else!
I try to pick up free firewood all year long here as it’s my primary heat, and due to the dampness and the very cool summer, there was not one month this summer that I did not have to use that woodstove at least once or twice :( cool summer! Some areas here actually froze july 11. That cold!
I change to flannel sheets about this time of year – and change out the summer comforter for the heavy quilted flannel/corduroy one.
Throw comforters or light blankets out on the couches also :)
Enjoy the last evenings of sunshine and light. It will be a lot of dark evenings soon!
great tips! we turned our heat on this week (was in the high 40’s outside and our windows are drafty)…we’ll be buying some weatherproofing stuff for the windows this week. interesting tips for the fruit…didn’t know fruit would keep so long w/o going bad!
I agree on the drafts. But what do you think of programmable thermostats? I heard they can save ~10%. Also, I found this site http://www.helpwithheatingbills.com which gave some ways and programs that help save on heating bills. I have learned that help is provided both from the gov’t and utility companies. What do you think of these programs? Thanks
These are awesome tips. I agree on having small space heaters instead of the whole house being heated and you’re only staying in practically one or two areas of your house. This will really save you a lot of money.