Advice about heating costs, etc. Assistance

Hello! I'm looking for some general advice about heat. We live in a 2 story house. I keep the thermostat set to 71 in the winter, but I'd like to lower it a degree or two to save more money.

The problem is that the thermostat is upstairs and of course it's always nice and toasty up there, so it will "say" that it's warm enough and the heat won't turn on, but it feels like a refrigerator downstairs. That's why I keep it up to 71, it's still cold downstairs but at least it's a little more manageable. If I set it to 69, it's be like 64 downstairs. We have four kids and also two daycare kids who are 6 months and 2 years old, so I need it to be warm - I'm also extremely sensitive to cold temperatures.

We've been trying to figure out a way to get it warmer downstairs so we can bump down the thermostat a couple degrees and save some $$ on the gas/electric bills. We've already tried to get help through the utility companies to have free energy saving measures (weatherstripping, insulation, etc.) but they rejected our application because they said our house has adequate weatherstripping and insulation, even though we can feel the cold air coming through the cracks in the doors and windows. The house we rent is only 5 years old, but (in my opinion), very cheaply built (KB Homes - what do you expect, I guess).

Anyway, we've been discussing a space heater but we can't really afford to buy one (thanks to /u/erumstead we are getting one now), but my concern about a space heater is how much electricity it might use. I've never had one and I have no idea how much they cost to run. I'm worried our gas bill will go down from running the heater less, but we'll get hit with a huge electric bill from the space heater.

Our second thought is getting curtains for downstairs to try to block some of the cold air from coming in, but I'm not sure how much that will help and again, no money for curtains.

Any advice would be appreciated. We've done the usual suggestions of shutting vents upstairs and making sure all the ones downstairs are open.

Thanks in advance! :)

Submitted December 13, 2014 at 07:31AM by youknowmypaperheart http://ift.tt/1qGBoNk Assistance