How are MSE old stylers coping with the cold of winter?

mrsscattercushion

Usually, OH and myself are at work all day. However, with him being made redundant and myself currently off sick, we're home a lot more.

Compared to some winters, it hasn't been that cold here, although certainly chilly! The thermostat is set to 18/19C and is on for a couple of hours in the morning, then from 5-10pm at night. We've managed to stick to this, apart from odd days when drying washing.

Just had woodburning stove installed, so have been having that on most evenings, starting around 5pm. It's hard to judge at the moment, as we're renovating our whole house, so no curtains up at windows, thermal door curtain down, and doors opened etc. The stove definitely helps to warm the back/coldest part of the house.

I suffer from fibro and cold can make it more painful. I make sure I wear layers, have hot drinks, use hot water bottles and microwaveable wheat bags during the day/to warm the bed and warm baths. OH just bought me heatable slippers which are fabulous.

Honey_Bear

We let rooms by the week and they're in the basement which is teeth-chatteringly cold in cold weather. The rents received more than covers the extra cost of keeping the heating on to make sure those rooms are warm when occupied, so if we have guests I don't have to think about it.

However, at the moment we only have one person staying two nights a week, so that changes the picture quite a bit. This winter for the first time we've agreed that we are now too old to be cold during the day and consequently for the first time ever, we've pretty much kept the heating on during the day. We both work at home, he's 67 and I'm 58. We're old enough to know neither of us gets much done if we're cold no matter how many layers we put on.

I wear a vest, socks and sheepskin slippers, thick tops and work physically around the house to stay warm, he keeps the cat on his lap and they keep each other warm. The heating isn't on high most of the time, just enough so that we feel comfortable. I have to wrap up in a blanket in the sitting room when I'm watching TV though which feels comfortably cocoon-like.

The trade off is that we don't have expensive tastes in holidays (as in we don't go on them), eating out, designer-name lives generally such as clothes, gadgets or anything else. I've stopped drinking which means whatever that cost is also thrown at the heating bill.

I think there are some people that would prefer to put a couple of extra layers on in the winter and go on an exotic holidays but I'd rather be comfortable for the whole winter and stay at home in the summer. That may be because we live in Devon, though, so we're a bit spoiled, really.