We use the fireplaces to heat our home. We turn the gas heater to 55* and layer on the clothes. The kids always have socks or slippers on their feet.

The kids have small space heaters in their rooms that turn off once they reach whatever temp we set, and we have tons of bedding for them to keep warm....flannel sheets and comforters, thermal and vellux blankets, etc. We also put them in warm pjs.

We use an electric blanket on our bed with dual controls so that we can each have our own temp. and flannel sheets.

Our water heater is set to 120*, I wash laundry on cold, and use as little hot water as possible in the kitchen. We also keep doors closed to areas that get little use so that the heat will remain more in the main rooms.

We have a gazillion throw blankets available in the family room for tv time, too.

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Parker, Wyndser, and Carson....................Wyndser (in blue) with her cousin

We have a natural gas furnace that works great however, on bitter cold days i run our kerosene heater so I don't have to turn the heat up. I keep our thermostat set at 64 degrees.

Actually they are just heaters, I call them milk house heaters, we purchased at Wal-mart. They cost us $30 each and have saved us a bundle.

As for being afraid of freezing pipes, our basement even in the coldest part of the winter doesn't get colder than 50 degrees and that isn't cold enough to freeze anything liquid. We do have a heater in the basement to use if we are going to be down there for any length of time as we do have a pool table down there the kids like to play on, but if no one is down there why heat it?

As for those of you who haven't even turned on your heat yet, consider yourselves lucky. We got a late start here with needing heat as our temps stayed in the 50's during the day up to New Years, but since then winter has came and looks to stay a little longer. Actually it came as a huge shock with the mild temps to walk out the door one morning to get kids to school and get greeted with an air temp of 15 below. Won't even discuss the wind chill. Nor how the saved money on our heating bill just flew out the window in buying a new battery for the car. Haha!

Hear another storm is coming out this weekend to play with us again, so everyone stay warm!

I know this is probably obvious, but changing the filters in your furnace once a month really helps to keep the hot air circulating freely, which can help with your bill because the temp doesn't have to be as high