My house faces south and is loaded with about the best windows money can buy. With lots of open sunlight it doesn't take long to warm up - once it got to 71 by noon, the air went on. Further, my temp was not in the 20s this morning.
At any rate, my home is well insulated and I've upgraded just about every aspect related to heating and cooling possible. As far as wasting money...I ran my heat about 35 days total over the past year. When whatever method you're using to stay warm this winter my system will be dormant while my home is heated naturally. I'll probably spend less money on HVAC than you will.