I do all of it, plus. When the weather gets hot, I use fans instead of the air conditioner as long as I can. I go barefooted - on my hardwood floors it feels good! 

Other ideas (but I don't do them all) are splashing water on your wrists to cool down temporarily, eat light foods like salads, drink a lot of water instead of tea and soft drinks. If I cool myself, then I don't care if the house is hot or not, but I don't have to worry about other household members.  

1.  When I cook, I do enough extra that can be reheated quickly for other nights.

2. Eat sandwiches, salads more frequently.

3. Close all blinds on southern exposed windows.

4. Living in southern Va., can start wearing t-shirts and shorts in May, so the laundry volume is lower than in winter. We wear t-shirts and shorts well into October.

5. We are on a Time Of Use meter with the power company. We only run the AC during off peak hours, when energy is cheaper per KW. Same for other appliances than don't need to be on constantly.

The biggest energy-related problem now is automobile gasoline for commuting...don't know what else to do about that, other than move, but the real estate market is dead in our area.

Have a nice Memorial Day!

It looks like ours will we quite warm already.

jane

First of all, I live in the humid south Louisiana... So, it's just umbearable at times. 

 - we try to turn the AC up as high as we can tolerate it but sometimes that isn't enough. During the really hot days, the AC has trouble keeping up. Also, since we have a toddler, we can't have it too hot

- when home, we usually wear thin tshirts and pajama type shorts. Also, I've recently started letting Maya (my 16 month old daughter) run around in just a diaper

- drink more fluids and eat a lot more salad

- we don't run the dryer (not only for electricity savings, but in a mobile home like ours it just heats the place up)

- Our kitchen gets really hot when we cook in the summer. So, I cook more in the crockpot during the summer. And, as another semi-solution to that problem, my husband got me a small charcoal grill for Mother's Day, which I plan to use for cooking outside instead of inside.

- cheap shades on our windows (the cheapest ones from Walmart). It's unbelievable how much light and heat they keep out! So, we usually keep those down and it helps a lot

All of the above AND monthly equal budget plan so there are no ugly surprises.  

juju_mommy:

but in a mobile home like ours it just heats the place up

Mobile homes can save money in many ways but combatting summer heat is not one of them.

I seem to be able to stand a lot more heat than the rest of the family, so I'm excited that both girls have day jobs this summer.  I plan to keep the a/c up as much as possible when I'm home alone.  At least until the dog pants at me (I put ice cubes in her water dish a couple times a day, plus she'll go into the basement if she gets too warm).  Dh works in an non-a/c'd building, so he insists on the house being cool when he gets home - I'll turn the temp down about an hour before he comes home.

I've made seasonal curtains for my two dining room east-facing windows by buying some thermal foam-backed drapes at a yard sale and cutting them to fit over the window, a little beyond the trim.  I sewed some plastic rings to the top corners and put tiny paneling nails up to hook them to.  I put them up first thing in the morning (they go right over those valances that are so cute but have no insulating qualities whatsoever) and take them down after noon - keeps out a LOT of heat. 

Open the fridge as little as possible and eat leftovers, cool salads and sandwiches and drink lots of iced tea.  Dh sometimes spends all weekend bbq-ing and we often have enough to eat on all week. 

One thing, we use a lot of ice and keep the icemaker busy.  Has anyone done the math on buying the 25 lb. bags of ice and having it in the deep freeze vs.an icemaker?  Liz

Because of my psoriasis, I HAVE to be cool.  It's been over 90 for the last 3 days and I've already got a bad flare-up of the inverse Psoriasis--and the medicine for it is $90 a tube so I have to choose which battle to have to pay for.

I have twin sheets on curtain rods over all my door ways (I don't have doors to my hall).  My buzz fan stays on high in my bedroom 24/7, pointing toward the halway if I'm not in the bedroom. And all ceiling fans are on at least medium whether we are in the room or not.

I drink lemonade and water, eat salads and sandwiches.  Only really cook around midnight.  If it's cool enough, I will sit on the back patio some.  I also leave the lights off.  And if it gets too unbearable--I'll get in a tepid shower then go sit in front of the fan.

We are going to have to get a new window unit in the bedroom since we gave mine to my niece last year for her and her babies.  But I've found one on sale and put a down payment on it and am just waiting for my stimulus check to come in.  My bedroom will become my cave  with the thermostat for the rest of the house set to 82*.

Our bills will still be high but it's Texas so I plan for this June thru Nov.

re-tired

I don't use the air during the day, dh turns it on at 10 or so to sleep- the summer is so short I love to soak up the heat!  One thing that does save us money, I checked other, is that our electric company takes 15% off the bill from June until September if you have a Saver's Switch put on your air conditioner- somehow they have control of the air conditioner then and during times of peak use they cycle all the air conditioners on 15 minutes, off 15 minutes.  If it gets drastic they will give you just 15 minutes on in a very hot hour, but this doesn't happen hardly at all.   We enjoy the 15% off for 4 months of the year, during the summer with less lighting needed and the blower not going on the furnace and the 15% discount, our bill is around $60 a month vs the winter one of $90-110. 

We do spend more on ice cream! Dinners are lighter, salad, sandwiches, sometimes ice cream after corn on the cob.   

We live in a three story townhouse. In the summer it gets really cold on the first floor, but can be unbearable on the third floor in our bedroom. A few years ago we bought a window unit for our bedroom. This way our bedroom can be cool, but we can turn the thermostat down in the rest of the house. For us to be comfortable in our bedrooms, we were having to turn the thermostat way down.

The townhouse right next to us is empty right now, and I am wondering if their unit not being cooled will affect how cool ours is.