Finances can really ruin a day......

I'm the number cruncher of the family so I handle finances.  I keep my husband in the loop by writing our daily bank balances on our whiteboard so he can see what we have available/saved.  And I keep a handwritten ledger tracking the bill breakdown so he can see where his paycheck goes and get an idea of our monthly budget (I prefer to do everything online but he's a hold-it-in-your-hands visual kind of guy and if that's what he needs, I'll write it down!).  Lately, I've also added not only the cost of our utilities but also our usage to the ledger so we can track what we are using.  We've made some changes to our water usage and the new lower bill is awfully nice to see :)  But the electricity is definitely not doing well--its been unusually hot and humid this summer and our air conditioners have been going round the clock instead of just being on for the very hottest days.  Every day has been of the hottest variety :p 

I don't really have a solution and that really bugs me.  I'd like to turn off the air and use the fans but the humidity is one of my asthma triggers and I'd really like to be able to breath :p  When it became evident that the heat & humidity was not going to let up, we attempted to replace our older air conditioner with a newer, more efficient model--but they are sold out.  Unless, of course, we want a giant model that would involve cutting a hole in the side of the house because its too big for our windows ;)  Oddly enough, when I lived in Texas, I rarely turned on my air.  I lived in an area of low humidity and even the week where it was over 115 degrees every day felt great to me.  Open the windows, turn on the ceiling fan and I was good.  These days of humidity 70-100% really make me miss the dry heat of the southwest!!

A few days ago, we had a couple of day stretch where the humidity dropped low enough that I could breath and the air went off and the windows opened up.  It was heavenly.  We spent lots of time outside and enjoyed the fresh air and hoped the humid-streak had ended.  Alas, it has not, and we soon had to flip the air back on.   It can't last forever, though.  Eventually we'll have some dryer days!