Like many of us we started out in apartment as a single guy or girl and maybe had a roommate or two. I remember tapping the windows and it almost felt like a thin layer of hard Reynolds wrap or sushi paper.

I knew after tapping the window that the winters and summers were going to be hard on my wallet because all that Texas air conditioning would be sucked up by the hot Texas sun right through that pathetic super thin pane.

The winters would make my window almost like an outdoor heater as the heat seemed to be blowing out my window as if it wasn’t even there. The heater and air conditioning ran continuously and nothing ever stabilized.

I lived alone in a 800ft, all electric, second floor apartment. I kept it as hot as I could stand in the summer, and as cold as I could handle in the winter. I barely used lights or air. In the spring/fall, when I didn’t use air at all, my electric bill fluctuated around $150. In the summer, it was as as high as $200. This was way too much money for me to spend on such a necessary thing. I frequently wondered what I could do that didn’t include permanent modifications to the apartment to lower my energy costs?

It turns out I simply had a few misconceptions about how to tackle my energy usage. I constantly kept my light turned off and my heating and air conditioning was set just enough to keep me alive it sometimes seemed like.

What ended up reducing my electric bill the most was buying weather stripping and placing it on the windows and doors. Adding thick curtains to the windows also had a huge influence on the reduction of my electric bill.

After making these minor adjustments my air conditioner and heater did not have to work as hard at keeping me a comfortable temperature and I was good to go from there with an energy bill that never went above $100 a month.