I replaced all the weather stripping in the house and sealed up all the exterior gaps and cracks I could find
Believe it or not but I’m a fully grown person and homeowner who never really has had a detailed household budget. My wife and I sort of just knew the parameters of our income and our expenses. But the pandemic kind of changed all that. First, we both got sent home from the zone controlled HVAC of the offices we worked in and had to work from home in our own air conditioning. Then came the pay cuts. They were deep that first year. But our expenses were much lower because we weren’t really doing anything outside the air conditioning safety of our home. Plus, we’d sort of pulled in the reins on spending in general once the pay cuts happened. Still, we took this opportunity 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, we were spending far more in air conditioning than we needed to. This was due to not paying enough attention to thermostat control and the fact that I had never once prepped the house. So this spring I made some changes to go along with the air conditioning tune-up from the HVAC professionals that happens each spring. I replaced all the weather stripping in the house and sealed up all the exterior gaps and cracks I could find. Then, I installed some great solar drapes to stop the direct sunlight heating on the side of the house that gets it all day. And I’ve finally learned how to program the digital thermostat for the peak heating hours of the day!