The first step to keeping the heat inside the home is to locate all the areas where heat is escaping. According the U.S. Department of Energy, the top places to check for drafts in a home are:

Do one of the following tests to find where cold air is infiltrating your home:

• Have a person stand outside after dark and shine a strong flashlight around the edges of doors and windows. With the lights turned off inside the house, take note of where the light is visibly shining through to pinpoint areas where cold air is entering the home.
• Try to slide a sheet of thin cardboard under a door when it is closed. If the cardboard slides under, the gap is large enough for cold air to enter and heat to escape.
• Move around areas near windows and doors with a burning stick of incense, or a lit candle, and see if the smoke, or flame, is being blown by incoming air or escaping through cracks.

Here are easy and inexpensive things you can do to minimize costs and maximize warmth:

• Service your furnace annually to ensure your furnace is running at peak efficiency.
• Heat your home with the sun by opening the curtains on the south-facing side of your home during the day to let warm sunlight in. Close them at night to further reduce the chill.
• Use a programmable thermostat to automatically adjust your home's temperature settings, allowing you to save energy while you're away or sleeping.
• Turn off ventilation fans, like those around fireplaces and stoves, as soon as possible since they suck warm air out of the home quickly.
• Be sure warm-air registers and baseboard heaters are clean and not being blocked by furniture or draperies.
• Window insulator kits and other home winterization items should be installed before the temperature drops below 40 degrees Fahrenheit or the surface will become too cold for the adhesive to stick properly.

Don't waste energy heating rooms and areas you rarely use. Keep doors closed and minimize the amount of heat to unused rooms. Keeping these areas around 50°F will lower your heating bills while preventing frozen pipes.