Keeping Cosy this Winter

This is a collaborative post

As Ned Stark likes to remind us, winter is coming and while it’s not here right now it will be here shortly. Keeping cozy in the winter months should be a consideration for everybody right now, with energy prices rising and wages stagnating. There’s something about a cold day that just makes you want to hibernate, but you need to make sure that you can stay toasty without spiking your energy bill into huge heights. 

Whether you start off with bespoke fireplace designs so that you can sit next to a roaring fire, or you look up buying the right slipper socks so your feet stay cozy and warm, here are the ways that you can keep cozy this winter.

• Talk to your energy provider. The first thing that you want to do before the winter is to find out what’s going to happen with your energy bill. You need to know what the very minimum is that you can pay on it to keep your energy supply open, and you need to know what to expect in terms of finances. The reason for this is to ensure that you can put the right money aside to be able to afford your heating bills this winter time, and allow you to stay cozy and warm just by being inside your house.
• Start batch cooking. Often, warming yourself from the inside out is a good thing to do for the winter. Starting batch cooking is going to help you to stay comfortable, full and warm. When you batch cook, you can ensure that all of these dishes are ready in your freezer. If you’re not a fan of batch cooking, get your slow cooker out. Whipping in your meat and vegetables at the start of the day is going to sit there and make your house feel warm and smell amazing when you come home from work. It’s also very warming in your tummy – and every grandparent and mother out there will know exactly how good that feels.
• Heat the lounge. If you’re spending most of your time in the lounge make sure that the doors are closed and you put the heater on there. Before bedtime, bring the heater upstairs to the bedrooms to ensure they are cozy and warm before you sleep under a heavy duvet. You need to ensure that wherever you are spending most of your time you are feeling as warm as possible, and you can do this with layers, heaters and more.
• Close the curtains and the doors. As soon as the sun is going down, close all of the blinds and the curtains in the home to keep the heat in and the cold out. If you are not using certain rooms close their doors so you maximize the heat the rest of the house and not heating rooms are empty with nobody in them. You need to take advantage of the walls inside your house, and that means ensuring the empty rooms aren’t getting hot without you with them.