Dear Mary: I need your help to figure out how we can reduce our home heating bill. It's killing us to pay so much to keep our house warm in the winter.

We have a gas furnace, and where I live the cost of gas has gone up more than 10 percent, while at the same time the cost of electricity has gone down slightly. Our home is two story with a basement. Our kids are grown so it's just the two of us. My husband travels for his work, so I'm the only one here most of the time. Thanks in advance for your help! — Jeanine

Dear Jeanine: The most efficient and easiest way to reduce your home heating cost is to heat only the rooms that are occupied, while keeping your furnace set very low, to say 55 or 60 F. Then use space heaters to make occupied rooms comfortable while they are occupied. You can rely on this method during the day as well as at night.

You could easily see your heating bill drop 35 percent or more by simply keeping the main source of heat set very low, supplementing with electric space heaters. It's such a simple way to make a huge difference in your home heating costs.

Just as I received your letter, I was in the throes of figuring this out for my own situation here in Colorado.

The office, where the hubs and I work at least 60 hours a week, is on the lower level of our three level home. In order to get the office at a comfortable 68 to 70, the rest of the house becomes much warmer — especially the upper level where it gets downright hot. That's totally unacceptable in my book. So here's what we do:

We keep the thermostat at 60 F during the day from about 6am to 11pm. Then we rely on our new space heater in the office, which is programmed via an appliance timer to come on in time to make the office warm and comfortable at about 68 F during work hours.

In the evenings, we use space heaters in the rooms we occupy most. At night the thermostat goes down to 55 F, setting the space heater in our bedroom to 65 F.

Not all space heaters are alike. And I'll admit that there are some things about space heaters that I don't like, so finding the right heater that would work for us took some research. And we nailed it.

Seriously, we are so happy with the Bionaire Silent Whole Room Heater (we have three of them now). I don't like to hear a heater switch on and off. This one is completely silent. Remarkably so!

I don't like a noisy fan, either. The Bonaire has no fan! It's micathermic, which means the heating element is covered in thin sheets of mica. It produces both convection heat and radiant heat. It's on wheels and quite lightweight, which makes it easily portable. And it's designed so that it cannot tip over.

This Bionaire space heater creates immediate warmth — the nice gentle kind of heat, not a blast of hot air and it is a constant source of warmth — not a constant warming up to hot then shutting off with a blast of cold. It doesn't get so hot to the touch to be dangerous for pets or children. All of these features make a Bionaire Silent Whole Room Heater (which looks remarkably like a modern version of an old radiator heater like the one you see in the picture above) an ideal heater for any space from a guest room to a playroom to an office.

We've already recouped the $100 purchase price of our first Bonaire in reduced heating bills. You know that makes me very happy.

Hope that helps!

Would you like more information? Log on to EverydayCheapskate.com, where this column is archived complete with links and resources for all recommended products and services. Mary invites questions, comments and tips at [email protected], or c/o Everyday Cheapskate, 12340 Seal Beach Blvd., Suite B-416, Seal Beach, CA 90740. This column will answer questions of general interest, but letters cannot be answered individually. Mary Hunt is the founder of www.DebtProofLiving.com, a personal finance member website and the author of "Debt-Proof Living," released in 2014. To find out more about Mary and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Lars Plougmann