Hi Gorgeous,
My wife and I are doing research to buy a stove too. There is so much to learn. I don't know if you've seen the
www.woodheat.org site, but there is a ton of good information there. I keep reading it, and re-reading it catching stuff that I missed before.
We're just slightly older than you and your bf (I'm 29, my wife is 25), but we just bought our home about a year and a half ago. Last winter wasn't too bad, but this winter, I got a crash course in the cost of propane. My propane tank is down under 25% right now, and depending on what the weather does, I don't know if that will be enough. I sweet talked my propane dealer into delivering another 100 gallons of propane this week, even though I still owe them a few hundred dollers from the last delivery (they generally won't deliver if you owe them money). I won't have them paid off untill about June, but at least I'll have heat untill the weather warms up.
I really want to install a stove this summer/fall to use for heat next winter. I'm not sure I'll be able to scrape together the money, but I'm going to try. I started out looking at cheap stoves at the local Tractor Supply store, and then I found this forum and started reading.
Now... I'm trying to decide beween a free standing stove and an insert in our existing fireplace. I'm leaning towards the free standing stove in a more cenral location in the house.
The ones I like are:
(broken link removed to http://www.quadrafire.com/products/stoves/woodStoveDetail.asp?f=3100act-ST)
(broken link removed to http://www.quadrafire.com/products/inserts/woodInsertDetail.asp?f=3100Iact)
The ones I like will not be cheap, but in the long run, I think it's the right thing, so I'll be doing some extra odd jobs this summer to make some extra cash for this projects. I might have to go through another winter on propane. I'm going to get on the budgeted propane plan this year, so that should be a little easier for me to handle next year.
Good luck. I feel your pain. It's hard to make ends meet, and this winter was expensive compared to what I was used to from last year.
-SF