Reducing our Heating plus Air Conditioning budget is taxing
When the household budget gets tight, I have to make taxing choices.
It was nice being able to go out for a meal once in a while, however restaurants are so high-priced these nights that was the first thing to be eliminated.
I haven’t gone out to eat in 6 months, which is a bummer until I realized that option saved me multiple hundred dollars, however since I am not going out, it means I am driving our vehicle less often. This saves a lot of currency on gas plus upkeep. I’m considering selling the car, to save currency on insurance payments. The hardest option to make was reducing our dependence on A/C, so that I could save currency on energy bills. The weather has been so hot, I loathe the method of shutting off the central A/C even for a few hours, however it seems I have no choice. One change I made was to cover all the windows in our bedroom plus living room with heavy blankets to reduce the heating exchange through the windows. As the A/C runs, much of that cooling is lost because of the heat exchange in the glass. When I cover up the windows tightly it reduces that exchange, plus traps the cooling air inside. I also shut off the air vents into the lavatory plus bedroom, to reduce the floor space being cooled by the system. Of course, the means that when the A/C is running I have to stay inside those 2 rooms, because the rest of the beach house is no longer being air conditioned. Let’s hope it helps.