Consumer Reports recently posted 10 ways to keep your heating bill costs down this winter:
1. ”Lock in your price for natural gas or heating oil.”
2. ”Check for federal tax incentives” and the “cash for clunkers for appliances rebate program.”
3. Try for a free energy audit — or “hire a reputable firm”.
4. Check “easy-to-correct problems”, such as “changing or cleaning furnace filters and dusting heat registers or baseboard radiators…”
5. Consider space heaters and electric blankets.
6. Check out the “federal government’s pending cash for caulkers program.”
7. ”Keep heated air inside your home and conserve energy.”
8. ”Insulate your attic and minimize the stack effect.”
9. ”Buy an effective programmable thermostat and install it yourself.”
10. Consider a “tankless water heater or a solar water heater.”

(You can find the above tips at TipHero.com.)

Everyone should try the Home Energy Saver Calculator to see how much other people are spending in your area and how much money you can save.

More easy things you can do to lower your heating costs:

• Add attic insulation (this can lower costs 5 to 30% – U.S. Dept of Energy)
• Drop temperature a few degrees (each degree saves about 3%) – consider dropping it when no one is home or at night
• Seal holes, look for holes where heating and water pipes emerge, around windows and doors and anyplace you feel a draft
• Insulate water pipes (slip-on pipe insulation is easy), you can also wrap a special energy-reducing blanket around your water heater, this reduces energy lost in transport and storage
• Consider installing energy efficient windows, storm windows or shrink wrapping plastic sheets on windows you rarely open

Here’s another bonus to making your home more energy efficient, according to a study by the Appraisal Institute every dollar saved off your energy bill from home improvements can add $20 to the resale value of your home.