Summer with No Air Conditioners

When we bought our house in June, we installed our daughter’s old air conditioning unit on the third floor. That was the only unit in the house. I wanted to buy 5 more – three for the downstairs and two for the upstairs bedrooms. That didn’t happen.

First, we found a wall buckled from leaking water in the upstairs shower. We decided to rip it out then and there. The whole bathroom was ripped out down to the rafters. $4000 later, we had a completely new bathroom. This was a completely unplanned expense at that time (although I wanted it out of there by December and planned to save the money to have it done by then). We had some of the money but realized that we could pay off the rest of it by the end of July. (Which we did!)

After this major, unplanned expense, we decided we could live without the air conditioners. This was not a need for us at the time. It was definitely a want. We have fans and overhead fans that work well. Our house is an old house. It was built when there was no air conditioning so it is surrounded by trees and relatively cool. Luckily, this has been the coolest summer in a very long time. Last week we broke down and bought 2 a.c. units for the bedrooms. This is a health need for me since I have asthma and the humidity is very hard on asthmatics. However, we paid cash for the units.

I have also had various offers from friends for their old a.c. units and I think I can outfit the rest of the house in time for next summer’s heat. If these offers of units come through and they work, we will have paid a grand total of $230 in cash for the air conditioners. Definitely it is better to wait than to rush out and buy things on a credit card that are not needs. This is just another example of how waiting saved us money.