Believe it or not but I’m a fully grown person and homeowner who never really has had a detailed household budget.
My wifey and I sort of just knew the parameters of our income and our expenses. But the pandemic kind of changed all that. First, the people I was with and I both got sent condo from the zone controlled HVAC of the offices the people I was with and I worked in and had to labor from condo in our own a/c. Then came the spend money cuts. They were deep that first year. But our expenses were much lower because the people I was with and I weren’t really doing anything outside the a/c safety of our home. Plus, we’d sort of pulled in the reins on spending in general once the spend money cuts happened. Still, the people I was with and I took this option to get much more reality when it came to our finances. And that started with a budget. This was not only an effort to save and get a good handle on our finances, it was a lot of discovery as well. For one, the people I was with and I were spending far more in a/c than the people I was with and I needed to. This was due to not paying enough attention to control unit control and the fact that I had never once prepped the house. So this Springtime I made some changes to go along with the a/c tune-up from the HVAC professionals that happens each Springtime. I upgraded all the weather stripping in the condo and sealed up all the exterior gaps and cracks I could find. Then, I installed some good solar drapes to stop the direct sunlight heating on the side of the condo that gets it all afternoon. And I’ve finally l acquired how to program the digital control unit for the peak heating hours of the afternoon!