Frugal Friday - Heat Wave Edition

Haiku for the 108 weather on Sunday which matched the prior record high of 108 in my near the coast S. Cal town.

Heat wave

Drives us indoors

To chill

_________________________

After my 3 days of birthday celebration (thanks Hubby, son, DIL and friends) we really hunkered down from mid-morning on this week through the worst of the heat wave. It has been relentless and I can only imagine our electricity bill to come. We are lucky to have ceiling fans, good windows, attic insulation and windows we can close but still and plantation shutters we can close but the AC is running a lot! We aren’t used to this here.

BTW, I’m doing well with my at least “one more use” for every plastic bag. Produce bags, cereal and frozen waffle liners, toilet paper wrapping, store bags son handed over, etc are all good.

The exception is the bags Amazon is now using for shipping. They are too stiff for poop bags and too small for trash. There are actually websites  about what to do with Amazon packaging that suggest using them to store documents or clothes in a waterproof way but that was the only idea. Not something I need and I’m not shipping things so can’t reuse them that way.

Any ideas?

What am I spending our money on? I’ve increased contributions to local food banks and shelters. That is a benefit of watching our spending elsewhere. Food, toiletries and household supplies have finally skyrocketed here and people are struggling. The electricity bills resulting from this heat wave will be another blow for many.

My frugal five this week:

1. Laundry and dishes before dawn! I do try to do this anyway to catch the low electricity rate window and stress the grid less, but I really didn't want extra heat in the house.

2. We made dinners like 

pasta with stir fried shrimp and fresh veggies, 

tuna chef salad and garlic bread, 

omelet with Canadian bacon and green beans on the side.

 Less fuel used, less heat in the house, using what we have on hand.

3. Trying to only use the library system and did enroll in kindle unlimited after thinking I wouldn’t.

4. Before the 10 day-ish heat wave hit, we received an email from S. Cal Edison regarding how to help reduce grid strain. I implemented some of the ideas I hadn't been doing like charging everything in the morning and turning off the desktop computer before lunch both to get the lowest rate and stop those uses before grid stress increased with the heat.

5. Future frugal planning: After grocery shopping this Wednesday morning and seeing the current price differences between regular discounts and digital coupon discounts, I finally downloaded the store app. I’ll be using it going forward.