When we first moved down here, I was so thrilled that we had pretty much negligible heating costs. And that sort of spilled over to how I approached the air conditioning during the Summer. For sure, the Summer heat and humidity are just a complete monster and overwhelming at first. So I figured since I wasn’t paying really anything in heating costs that I’d just lean into all the cooling we wanted in the Summer. That’s one way of looking at it but it soon became clear that this was a dumb way of cooling the house. After letting the air conditioning just run wild for the first three years, I decided to start prepping the house in order to save on cooling costs. From there, it has been sort of weird little hobby for me to keep saving just a bit more each year when it comes to the air conditioning costs. This year is no different. Of course, I always start with HVAC maintenance on the heat pump. And then stopping direct sunlight heating and sealing up the house really tight are the next essential steps. But after that, I’ve added something each year to save a bit more. The biggest saver so far was easily adding the smart thermostat. That HVAC technology was a big saver at nearly 17 percent over the year prior. Yet, I still like to add a bit to the air conditioning plan. So this year, I’m going to try and cook outside on the grill all Summer instead of heating up the house with the stove or the oven. It’s either that or try hanging up the clothes instead of using the dryer.