Between vacation road trips (but seriously, who can afford to take those at all?) and air conditioning, summer presents it’s own special challenges for energy saving, which translates into saving dough . . . which we all need to do right at the moment, I’m thinking. I know we’re running our air conditioner at a higher temp than usual (we have an average daytime high in the 90s this time of year), and have nixed those Sunday drives we used to kinda like. Anyone have tips/stories about their own energy saving for the summertime??

Set a/c around 80 degrees and leave it there.  Your place will stay cooler than if you constantly adjust the temperature.  Keep your blinds closed.  Use fans to speed cooling and maintain temp; use them alone when you don’t need a/c.  Our house rule is that a/c stays off unless outside temp goes above 85 degrees or unless it’s unbearably humid.  Do laundry and run the dishwasher at night.  Avoid using your oven as much as possible!

If you absolutely must use your car for errands/shopping, plan your route and do as much as you can in one go.

For the past three days, I was hosting my daughter’s backyard camp. Since my car had been parked legally all those days, I didn’t even bother to use it. I only had to move it this morning for alternate side of the street cleaning. Any errands were done in the afternoon, and they were all within walking distance. Plus, I couldn’t host the camp in our apartment, so we did it in my in-laws’ house. That meant that we didn’t need the a/c in the apartment for most of the day, so it stayed off until we got home.

We always keep our A/C on energy saver mode and try to keep the temperature around 78 during the day.  That helps keep the bills down.