Everybody Loves Your Money

There I was.  Patiently waiting in the turn lane at an intersection.  I was about 4 cars back at the light.  Traffic had built up behind me and there was a brand new green Toyota Camry right behind me.  All was well.

As the light turned green I started to anticipate being able to go forward.  I hadn’t moved an inch when I felt a "slam"!  At first I thought maybe my foot had slipped off the clutch and I’d stalled the truck.  As soon as I thought that, I realized that the impact was too hard for that.  I checked in my rear view mirror and there was the lady and her two kids.  Looking at me with that look of, "Oooops".

We both pulled off the road.  I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I got out but was happy to see that there was no damage to the truck.  Driving a 4wd Toyota Tacoma does have it’s advantages.  In this case it was that her new Camry sits lower than the back bumper of my truck.  In fact it was a perfect marriage of my trailer hitch and her front bumper.  Poor thing.  That brand new Camry has a nice scratch, smudge and dent on it’s front bumper now.

Apparently what had happened is that she was stopped behind me and had turned around inside her car to help her child with a fresh large red drink that she had just purchased for him.  When she did this, her foot slipped off the clutch and that forced her in to the back of my truck.  Not only was her bumper messed up a bit but there was red fruit drink all over inside her new tan interior.  I’m not sure what she was more upset about.

Anyway, it shocked the heck out of me when it happened but all turned out well.  Yet another great reason to drive an older truck.  Although there was no damage, even if there had been a small scratch or dent, I might have been more likely to have not worried about it.

With the price of everything going up, I’ve been very conscious of our energy use both in our cars, and in our home.

I’ve always been one of those people that turns lights off anywhere that they aren’t necessary.  We have been very good about only using lights in the rooms that we are in over the years.  Having a five year old running around the house makes that a bit of a challenge but we have been pretty successful in reinforcing that she should turn off the lights when she leaves a room.  I still have to keep an eye out, but overall we do a very good job of keeping the lights off.

This year we have decided to try to minimize the use of our central air conditioning.  This is the first house we’ve had air conditioning in and somehow we always managed to live through the heat before living here, so why not try to suck it up a bit in this house?  The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t get THAT hot in the Pacific Northwest.  We’ll have a few months of 70-90 degree weather but there will be plenty of cooler days mixed in.  So far this year we have only used the air conditioning two times.  On the two days that we did use it, the temperature got up to 90 degrees and the house was about 80 degrees.  The humidity level is higher here than many other parts of the country (excluding the south) so 90 is significant.  On those two days we worked to get the temperature down to about 73 degrees and ended up pretty comfortable when we went to sleep that night.

In the past our average bill in the dead of summer has been about $200.  Our goal this year is to cut that in half.  We’ll do this by creating cross drafts in the house in the morning and in the evening as it cools off and will also use fans.  We have a ceiling fan in our bedroom which really helps a LOT.  Our daughter does not have a fan but we have a floor fan that we point down the hall to cool her room down.  Just like with cutting our gas consumption in the cars, all it takes is a little bit of effort and awareness to make an impact.

Do you have any ideas for cutting electricity use in your home?