The cost of air conditioning
My dad was very strict.
At the time that was common.
He ruled the house with an iron fist, and that isn’t to say it was mean, it just meant he had a set of rules that he enforced 100% of the time. He was a military vet, from 16 years in the Marines, so he was a man of discipline, but not a man of violence. He never hit us, or even yelled at us, but he always enforced his rules. We had to get good grades, get lots of exercise, and watch our language around adults. We were forbidden from ever touching the thermostat. Once my brother and I got into a fight right next to the thermostat, and almost tore it off the wall, and after that things got worse. Dad put a locking plexiglass dome over the thermostat, and had the only key to unlock it. Now he would let the house get hot just as a punishment! My brothers and I decided to pool our allowance money, and whatever savings we had, to buy a small, window-mounted A/C unit for our bedroom. This way we could determine our own level of cooling, and wouldn’t have to fight with Dad about it. It worked out great for a few weeks, and then Dad brought us a utility bill and said we had to pay for our own cooling. Air conditioning uses a lot of power, which is why he never wanted us messing around with the thermostat. Now that we had our own AC we had to keep paying for it every month!