I was reading a post this morning on One Caveman’s Financial Journey called 13 Free or Cheap Ways To Keep Your Home Cool This Summer. I can relate to this post as I found the temperature to be 91 degrees in our house when I got home from work yesterday. My wife and I had a goal to not turn on our air conditioning until June 1st this year to help reduce our energy costs. Once we met that goal, we thought we could make it until June 15th. That was until it got into the 90′s yesterday and the forecast of 98 degrees today and highs in the 90′s for at least the next 8 days. As a result of the recent high temperatures, we will be turning on the AC today.

There are a few of the 13 Free or Cheap Ways To Keep Your Home Cool This Summer that I wanted to comment on as they pertain to our goals for keeping energy costs down.

• #1 – Open Your Windows – I completely agree with this point. Anytime that the air is cooler outside than it is in our house, the air stays off and the windows stay open. We have actually been benefiting from some nice breezes lately that have helped a lot by keeping the windows open. The neighbors right next door to us have had their AC on non-stop since late April when highs were still in the mid 70′s. I can’t even imagine what their energy bills are.
• #2 – Turn On the Ceiling Fans – I also agree with One Caveman’s Financial Journey in regards to using ceiling fans as much as possible. We broke down and purchased 8 ceiling fans in the past two months to put in just about every room in our house. They have worked great so far!
• #4 – Shut the Blinds – Again I agree with this point. When we don’t have the windows open, the blinds are all the way down. If the windows are open, then we have the blinds down 1/2 way to block out as much sun as possible.
• #7 – Turn Up The Thermostat A Degree Or Two – When the AC goes on today, it will probably be set at around 83 – 85 degrees. One of my biggest pet peeves is when you go into someone’s house or store and it is freezing because the AC is set so low. In fact, I wore a light jacket this morning at work for a couple hours because it was so cold in the building. This is a complete waste of energy as far as I am concerned.
• #8. Close Unused Vents – Excellent point! We closed off the vents to all of our bathrooms when we moved in (summer & winter they will be closed) and several of our other rooms we don’t spend a lot of time in (i.e. dining room). It really makes no sense to cool smaller rooms while the room where the thermostat sits tries to get cool.

An additional item that I wanted to add to our list of keeping the house cool is to plant some trees around the house to help shade during the summer months. While this won’t really help us this summer, we plan on planting shade trees on the southwest side of the house which gets the afternoon sun that really heats up the house. Hopefully in a few years, we can have the benefit of some nice trees in our yard with the side benefit of helping to cool our house in the summer.

For a review of my monthly budget, please see my recent post – May 2008 – Family Budget Review.

How do you plan on staying cool this summer? Do you have other ways of staying cool that were not mentioned in the One Caveman’s Financial Journey article?

Related posts:

1. 25 Energy Bill Savings Tips for your Home
2. Saving Money on Your Energy Bill
3. Frugal Ways to Cool Off this Summer

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When thinking about the family budget, I often struggle with frugal living and feeling safe. For example, when my family moved into a new home a few years ago, we were met with a tough challenge. We needed to make a decision on leaving our front porch lights on at night and feeling safe or keeping them off and saving money.

Since our home was new construction when we moved in, there was very little outdoor light at night in the subdivision. At the time we moved in, the subdivision was in a rural area outside of town and didn’t have any street lights. While the home was in a fairly safe neighborhood, the thought of complete darkness around our home at night gave us an eery feeling.

Since our subdivision is about 3 miles out from the local town in a rural area, it felt like you are out in the woods when driving around at night. My wife and I feel safer keeping our front porch lights on at night as the rest of the street is dark. There are only two other homes in the entire neighborhood that keep any outside lights on at night.

While my wife and I like to keep the lights on at night, I also cringe every time I flip the switch before going to bed. I can just see our meter spinning out of control while I am asleep. We are also making an effort to be more “green” and keeping the lights off at night sure would put us on the right track. At the same time, if I didn’t flip that switch, then I would stay awake thinking about how safe is my home? Don’t get me wrong, we live in a nice neighborhood where there is no crime (that I know of), but it give us piece of mind. Ultimately, keeping the lights on a night wins out about 95% of the time. I guess we will just wait for the developer to install the street lights and then we won’t have to worry about it any longer!

How do you handle situations like this? Do you opt for feeling safe or for your bottom line?

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2. Spending more on blinds!
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