How much would you pay to stay cool on a hot day? What if you were given a choice: Use your AC and fans, or get a small monetary reward if you deal with the miserable heat without using very much electricity?
Our local electric company has a promo where they give you a small reduction on your electric bill if you reduce your electrical usage on certain peak-usage days (ie., miserably hot days!). Last year I stuck it out, sans fans. Every time there was a “reduce your use” day, I would unplug any and all things that use electricity. One day I didn’t even turn the lights on when I went into the restroom!
I liked being a part of the energy-saving community. I also enjoyed the reduced energy bill. All told, I managed to save about $35 over the summer.
Sunday was the first “reduce your use” day of the year so far. Mother Nature, I’m sorry. It was too stinkin’ hot to go without AC and fans this weekend. I did some errands so we could spend time in the air-conditioned car. But when we got home and it was still a zillion degrees outside, I had to turn some fans on in the apartment.
Energy saving fail.
Do I feel bad? Not really. I brought my sleeping babies in to the apartment, and there was sweat dripping from their sweet little foreheads. Saving energy is important, but I couldn’t watch my teeny babies sweat it out. And we did “reduce”, it just wasn’t to the extent that I’ve done it in the past.
Do I feel comfortable? Yes, ma’am! And so do the babies. Next time I’ll hopefully be able to get someone to help me and we can all go to the pool to cool down.
It’s still summer. Let’s all enjoy what’s left of this season in moderate comfort.
Do you find that your energy cost is higher during the summer? What do you do to keep it down?