But my electric bill was over $78 dollars this month. Now I know that a lot of people would love to have a bill that low, but I was used to only having a $45 bill. I work 8 hours a day and (try) to sleep 8 hours, which with travel and shopping and others things, really only leave about 6 hours a day when I'm home.

It's more on the weekends of course. I started to read up about frugal living and cutting utility bills. The first thing I did was take a look at how I was living.

I was running the a/c almost all the time. My living room windows face east, so all day until the sun moved around the corner, the sun was pouring into my windows. I was leaving the curtains open so that Toby could look out the window, he would get up on the A/C unit and watch the birds in the birdfeeder.

I then walked through the apartment and here's what I found. Except for the lamps I brought with me all the lighting was iradiase bulbs. I have a "attic" in the utility room for storage but never use it. When I took a look at it, it doesn't seal tight. I would leave the door open to the utility room so cold air was just being sucked outside.

The A/C unit is basically a large wall unit with a vent the opens into the bedroom. The vent in the living room is flush with top of the A/C unit. I remember when I first turn on the A/C and walked into the bedroom I thought it was hot in there, until I saw that Toby was lying on top of the vent! Toby really really loves the vent.

So there was a few things. My water bill was about $35 dollars a month. I didn't know if that was good or bad until I talked with my neighbor. For some of them with two people it was the same as my one! I started to watch my habits. I found that what I would do in the morning was use the drying to get wrinkles out of my work clothes for the days. I would throw in a shirt and pants after wetting them down with a sock, and throw the sock in too, let it run while I was taking a shower. And the shower. When my apartment was build it must have been by midgets because I have to stoop to wash my head.

But what I was doing was I would turn on the water and let it run to "warm up" and I would sit there and read until it did. Sometimes for 5-10 minutes at a time. All the while the drying was running for one shirt, one pair of pants and one sock! I would take my shower and then do all the other things, brush my teeth , shave, shave my head twice a week (letting the water run while I did it), THEN go and get my clothes out of the dryer. END OF PART ONE.