Here’s a tip to save a few bucks from your heating bill. Say you live in a house and your family spends most of the time in the living room. But you are paying to heat all those other rooms that no one is using. Get one of those electric room heaters, turn your thermostat down even lower, and use the room heater in the living room.

The electric heater will keep your living room nice and warm while the rooms not in use will be cold. This will make your heating bill go down. When it’s time to go to sleep in the cold bedrooms, get under nice and heavy winter blankets.

If you love to read and love to save money, I will share the best place I have found to buy used books in good condition for cheap. It’s amazon.com

Yes, the library is cheaper-free to be exact, unless you have overdue books fees. But the library doesn’t always have the books you are interested in. In fact, they may not even have such a good selection at all. Libraries only are allowed to get so many new books a year, after all.

To buy used books for cheap on amazon, just go to amazon.com and search for the author, subject, or title you are interested in.

Then the results will come up and for a particular book, it will show you the new price, directly from amazon.com and it will show the lowest price from individual book sellers selling through the amazon.com website.

Then click on the link that will say something like 29 new and used books from .99 and it will take you to a page with all the used listings for that book.

You will see the price, the seller’s location, and the condition of the book. The book can be from fair condition to brand new. You can also see the seller’s id and feedback from previous buyers.

I have gotten several used books in good condition from amazon.com. The sellers sell from the amazon.com website and amazon takes a small percentage when a book sells. I bought several books for just a few bucks. Several times the shipping costs more than the books themselves. But even with the shipping charges, it is still cheaper than buying it brand new.

The cost of heating oil and propane will be 28% higher this winter than last year while electricity and natural gas will be up about 7%. Some electricity companies are also hiking up rates to compensate for the higher costs of fuel.

Basically, everyone will have to spend more money to stay warm this winter. The lucky people are those who live in warm climates where it doesn’t get cold. But they are the ones paying the bigger bills to stay cool in the summer.

People might start going back to wood burning stoves again to be able to afford to stay warm. People who are already living pay check and pay check just can’t afford a bigger portion of their paychecks going to the utility companies.

Maybe the Amish are on to something here. They stay warm with wood burning stoves and at night they use kerosene lamps for light. And they have no electricity bills! Think of all the money we’d save if we didn’t have to pay any heating or light bills! But, we are too dependent on these modern convienances and can’t just drop them. We will have to find the money to pay more for them however.

Now that the heat is on, I am terrified to see what my electric bill is. And it’s not even gotten to the really cold weather yet which will be December, January and February.

“Is it worth it?”

A lot of times, you just have to ask yourself that and decide if spending money on something is worth it. For example, does it bring happiness, will it create good memories, etc.

There is a difference in being cheap and frugal. A lot of people misunderstand and think cheap and frugal are the same when they are entirely different concepts. Living in a mansion, but not flushing the toilet to save on water is cheap or giving your best friend a really cheap and tacky gift for their birthday when they got you a nice gift is cheap. Frugal just means using money wisely and not wasting it. A frugal person doesn’t mean a cheap person.

In arcades my kids do not play those racing games. They cost 4 quarters, a dollar, just to play one time. I CAN afford for them to play one of those driving games, but IT’S NOT WORTH IT!

To me, spending a whole dollar just for a kid to turn a steering wheel for two minutes is absolutely ridiculous and a complete wasting money. I hate to waste money on ridiculous things whether it’s a nickel or a hundred dollars.

Now inviting friends to a restaurant and paying for their food IS WORTH IT. Yes, I could save a ton of money by eating ramen noodles at home, but it’s not very fun. Going out to a restaurant, eating good food, not having to cook or clean, being with friends I love, and spending time with them is worth the cost of the bill to me. We will have a good time, we will talk, we will enjoy each other’s company and it will bring good memories. It will make me happy and them happy to enjoy each other’s company over some good food.

So if the bill is $45 for example, it’s definitely worth it. Now if I stayed home and ate Ramen noodles, I would have saved $44.50, but it would have not been fun or made me happy. It would not be a warm memory and I wouldn’t enjoy the company of my loved ones. So, it’s absolutely worth it.

And I still won’t pay a dollar for two minutes turning a steering wheel in an arcade, because that’s just a ridiculous waste of a dollar to me.

To be a successfully frugal person, you have to decide, “Is it worth it?” when you make decisions about spending money. Ask yourself certain questions like how enjoyable will it be, etc and decide if it is worth the cost. If it’s worth it to you and you can afford it, go for it. You’re not cheap, you’re frugal.