The cost of summer living

Today we were being the diligent young Americans that we are and doing financial planning and reconciling. We do this periodically, say once a week or so, to make sure we know whether or not I can really buy that piece of art I'm wanting (read: sno-cone). Anyway, this was always a relatively simple task in Colorado. All of our bills were approximately the same in Colorado at all times, which made budgeting a super easy task. In fact, the time of year we found ourselves most concerned with utility prices was the winter, when the freezing air tried to creep into your bedroom at night. Thankfully, it was always possible to pile on more down and keep warm.

Now we find ourselves in the opposite situation. We're in Texas. In June. It's hot. Really hot. We've done everything we can think of to keep our energy costs down. We programmed our thermostats to be energy efficient when we aren't here but not so much so as to overtax the AC unit when we get home. We try to keep all doors and windows closed to keep the bought air in. We even go so far as to stripping off clothing before turning down the air. (Well, there's a limit to stripping when company is around.)

Anyway, we're thinking this is working fantastic. We've been living in our house since February with no energy bills over $50. This is GREAT! Well... All that was true until our latest energy bill. If things keep increasing at this rate one of us will have to take a second job flipping burgers! I can only hope we've seen a peak in the energy-cost-increases. There are four more months of summer to go!

(For those not of Texas, I do mean four more months of summer. It's mid-June, and summer in Texas officially ends mid-October. We won't see temperatures below 80 for the daytime high again until that point, and I really don't think any daytime high above 80 should as "autumn".)