At The Gower Abundant Cottage we try to live by the seasons. Although Summer does have it's challenges of keeping our home cool without breaking the budget, there are many ways to save a little money here and there.
* We keep our curtains closed ( or almost closed ) when we know it's going to be a hot day. Quite often we don't need to put our evap cooling on until mid afternoon.
* When a heatwave is on it's way, I cook enough potato salad or pasta salad for 2 or 3 dinners. All I have to do is add a green salad and sliced meat. This saves on gas ( cooking ) and makes meal times easy.
* On warmer days we try to get the housework done in the morning, then spend the afternoon relaxing. If we did our housework in the afternoon, we'd be more inclined to turn the evap cooling up high because we'd be hot and bothered.
* Electric fans are our first choice on a hot day. They only cost a couple of cents an hour to run. The evap cooling is only turned on when the fans are not enough.
* Deli meats ( sliced meats ) are a wonderful yet expensive addition to Summer meals. To help offset the high price, we try to grow salad veggies in our garden.
* Keeping a Summer veggie garden requires lots of water. To offset the higher water costs, we have shorter showers, pour recycled water into the washing machine and water the garden after the Sun goes down.
* We make the most of our clothesline. Drying the washing outside is free. On super hot days we hang the washing on clothes horses then place them outside on the decking.
* We live almost entirely off our food stockpile and only pop into the supermarket for milk and a handful of perishables. This saves us petrol and reduces to temptation to impulse buy to make meal prep easier.
