I am constantly keeping a dedicated eye on our household budget.
My parents worked hard and their years of household budgeting reflected that effort.
Times are a bit peculiar now for everyone. My wife and I both job well over 50 hours each a week but, our household budget hasn’t grown along with rising costs or rising employment hours. This is why the two of us are actually careful about consistently paying attention to that budget. With a growing family, the two of us truly do our best to save anywhere the two of us can. One of the biggest areas of problem the last few years has been the rising cost of Heating and A/C. Our apartment is in an absolutely ridiculous section where the Summer heat can be dire to say the very least. This results in the Heating and A/C using a super high amount of kilowatt hours each day in order to cool the house. The utility bill in the Summer is always simply dominated by the Heating and A/C cooling costs that we accrue. So, the two of us decided to spend a bit more attention each day to how the two of us use the Heating and A/C. By doing so, our utility bill changed significantly. First the two of us made the choice to go about keeping as much Heating and A/C treated air inside the house as possible. We scoured the apartment to find any gap or crack that would potentially allow the cool air to seep out. Once the apartment was sealed up super tight, the two of us turned to mitigating the effects of direct sunlight heating inside. Solar cling went up on all of the windows receiving any amount of direct sunshine during peak heating minutes. Still, the greatest difference was made by increasing the thermostat setting in the summer. l learned to live with a higher Heating and A/C setting each day. It really wasn’t even that tough.