Then we made sure that we were pulling the drapes during the peak heating hours to avoid direct sunlight heating.
The last past year has been full of changes for obvious reasons. But thankfully, my family has been safe and followed the health protocols in order to stay safe. And I couldn’t be more grateful for that outcome as the vaccinations aren’t far away. That said, it has been tough on us financially and we really had to cut back on our spending this past year. Since we are all inside the HVAC security of home, that has made the cuts a bit easier. There aren’t near the entertainment expenses and we didn’t take a vacation this year. So we have been able to nearly offset the loss of income my wife and I have incurred. A big target last summer was saving on the HVAC cooling costs. In this region, that is the biggest of our HVAC expenditures as we have a very mild winter with minimal heating costs. But the summer can crush a budget if you aren’t proactive. This past summer, we got even more proactive than normal. I started out by making sure that the HVAC treated air stayed inside the house. I finally replaced worn out weather stripping around all the doors and sliders. That was a big win because I know a lot of HVAC air was leaking out there. Then we made sure that we were pulling the drapes during the peak heating hours to avoid direct sunlight heating. But truly, it was the thermostat discipline that put us over the top. We just made sure the thermostat was never set to any more than 15 degrees cooler than the outside temps. And we ended up saving over 20 percent compared to the summer prior.