Have you turned on your heating?

October had been a bit of a cold month all round (well apart from our holiday to Kos) and November no better but the last few days have certainly had more of a chill in the air and more importantly in our house.

I hate it when I walk into a room and feel cold but I am resisting the urge to turn the heating on. So we have spent today making life a bit more pleasant for us all before I finally succumb to the inevitable and turn the radiators on.

The first job of the day was to change all of the duvets over to our winter duvets. A 15 tog duvet really does make a difference compared to a 4.5 tog summer duvet and I am looking forward to climbing between the sheets.

Next up on our fight against turning the heating on was our trip to Primark where we all got new fluffy pyjamas. I let the girls choose mine so I am sat here writing this whilst wearing some super soft 101 Dalmation pyjamas, at least they are comfy but I don’t think I will answer the door in them.

I then convinced hubby to let me have my Christmas slippers that I bought in Disneyland Paris a little bit early. Nothing is warmer than monster feet slippers.

So with the fluffy pyjamas on and the slippers warming my toes I started to think what else we could do to stay warm.

We decided that winter was a great time for cuddles and as body heat is a great way of staying warm then lots of bodies would make us super toasty. Hubby will just have to put up with cuddling the cat as I have no more room on my knee.

With the curtains drawn and the layers on we are warm and snuggly but saving money and energy isn’t just about the heating. Unfortunately in our house the electricity bill is ridiculously high and higher in comparison to similar houses. We have energy saving light bulbs in all the lights and never leave lights on when not in a room but I think we just have too many gadgets.

The plugs behind our tv are a case in point, we have three games consoles, a stereo, WiFi router, sky box and the TV on just two sockets and none of them are ever completely switched off. Putting things on standby seems to be a big problem. We also have a lot of kitchen appliances with two fridge freezers, kettle, toaster, microwave and washer dryer always plugged in as well as lots of appliances that come and go like the slow cooker. With gadget chargers and our computers we will always use a fair amount of electricity but I would like to reduce it if I can.

As one of the leading energy suppliers to UK customers, E.ON recognises it has a duty to make sure that everyone has all the information they need to work out the best way to help save money and use no more energy than they need. As a customer of E.ON I have decided to put their Energy Saving Toolkit to the test and follow the simple suggestions provided to see if we can save some money on our gas and electricity.

We will start switching off electrical devices at the plug when not in use. I will use a spotlight lamp instead of the overhead lights when working late at night. We will have shorter showers and reduce the height of the girls baths and we will also turn the water temperature down. Hopefully following all these tips will help us save a bit of money and make me feel more inclined to turn the heating on.