It's cold, it's winter, and most of your day is spent inside; surrounded by bacteria and germs.

"Everyone is staying inside, people are coughing and not using good hand hygiene; maybe you're not washing your hands as much because it's cold," said Jennifer Eddins.

Jennifer Eddins is a microbiologist at Community Hospital and can practically see germs; not with the naked eye but she's got the technology to do it.

"Make sure you use good hand hygiene and you're not coughing on your friends," she says.

So we tested some places that a lot of people touch; a public toilet handle, the lock to the stall, a restaurant play area for kids, a shopping cart, public hot tub, cell phone and even a $20 bill and the results may surprise you.

"This one's a little surprising; it's the toilet handle; so wherever you collected this person does a good job cleaning," Eddins said.

What about that shopping cart, we all use them, so how dangerous are they?

"As you can see it's relatively clean which means people are using those wipes in the store, so that's good," said Eddins.

Two with passing grades; what about your cell phone?

"Just normal skin flora on the phone so that's good; somebody washes their hands when they use their phone," Eddins exclaimed.

Virtually germ free results.  Next up, the area around a public hot tub; a place that may not always be cleaned well.

"You've got some different organisms here; you've got bacillus and some gram-negative rods in there which is typical in water that you're going to find gram-negative rods. They can cause different kids of skin infections. Because it's naturally occurring in the water, it won't normally cause you a problem, but once it gets underneath your skin it can cause infection," said Eddins.

Eddins says wearing sandals right before taking a dip will help keep you protected.  Also, don't forget to take your cash out of your pockets.  Speaking of cash, how dirty do you think the bills we all carry actually are?

"These aren't too dirty. That bright yellow one is probably a staph aureus which can cause infection and the other stuff is just normal skin flora that's really not going to cause any problem.  I still wouldn't stick money in your mouth," said Eddins.

Wouldn't be my first thought anyway but you might want to keep an eye on your kids.  Not just if they're playing with money, but also after they visit a restaurant play area.

"We have this nice little bacillus here that looks a little disgusting.  A lot of that is going to be found on hands if people don't wash their hands before going into play areas.  Sometimes you have an open cut and it can get infected relatively easy from one of these things," Eddins explained.

To make sure your kids stay clean, Eddins suggests having kids practice their ABC's while washing their hands.  It'll make sure they're really scrubbing.  An important step to keeping you and your family healthy all winter long.  Experts we talked to also wanted to clear up a few misconceptions about germs.  It doesn't matter the temperature of the water you use to kill the germs, it just matters how long you wash your hands. It needs to be at least 15 seconds.  Also, humidifiers can actually be harmful in the winter if the water isn't changed regularly, trapping even more germs inside your home.