We’ve been practicing frugal living in our home actively for about eight years. Most of those years have involved a lot of lifestyle changes, from having three kids to moving to a larger home. While we have kept up with being conservative about our spending, we haven’t been able to make any dramatic changes above and beyond what we do on a daily basis.
This fall, we have made it a priority to work on heat and energy conservation even more than we already do. This is an area that we can always improve. We’ve completed most of the necessary and immediate home improvement projects, such as fixing plumbing leaks. Originally we thought we would move on to more aesthetics and design, but the economy has changed our priorities somewhat.
We were hoping to have replaced our old inefficient windows by now, but the expense is now out of our reach. Instead, we are going to get serious about heat conservation in other ways.
For one thing, we are spending this weekend putting in some new insulation in the attic space above our family room, one of the coolest rooms in the house. It also affects the upstairs hallway. This came about when my husband decided to hunt out the cold spots in our home and discovered the places where heat is most likely escaping.
The insulation is a great investment, there is no doubt about that. We are also considering giving up our larger attic space that is above most of the rest of the house. Currently, it is a walk-up space that holds our storage. We could insulate it and perhaps see significant savings in energy costs, but that would mean that we would lose the square footage for storage.
It is a trade off. Most of the storage consists of clothing for the kids, that is either handed down or purchased in advance at yard sales, outgrown sales, etc. Very little of our children’s clothing is purchased new. Without these bins of clothes, our budget may have to include an additional $500-$2,000 a year for children’s clothing. So, we have to compare that with the energy savings plus the impact to our home value for taking away usable space. Previously I would never have considered giving up this storage space, but times have changed. There may be some other solutions to consider for this problem.
Check back again, when I continue this topic about some other ways that we are getting serious about heat conservation.
Click here for more articles by Mary Ann Romans.
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