Ideas for Staying Cool without Breaking the Bank

It is HOT!! and I am melting! Seriously, the northeast is under a heatwave and I am not happy.  The house we are living in right now has no central AC and we are sweating.  Southerners, don’t roll your eyes!  I lived in Louisiana for years so I *know* HOT.  So I asked you on the CSWM Facebook page for ideas for staying cool without breaking the bank and here are some of the ones you shared:

  • Cool ties will help to keep you cool on hot summer days. You soak them in water and then place them in a cooler or frig. They get cold and then you put them around your neck.
  • Keep a spray bottle full of ice water and turn it to fine mist. Spray! Feels great! Also, freeze a block of ice (use an empty ice cream container) and then sit that in a casserole dish and put it in front of a fan right in front of you.
  • Wrap a wet bandanna around my neck if I have to go out of the house in this heat! works great!
  • Get out of the house:  go to the mall to window shop for a few hours or stay at the library until they throw you out
  • Growing up in a house without AC, I loved putting my pillow or top sheet in the freezer. Mom always closed off the rooms that we weren’t using so the fans would be concentrated in the rest of the house. Even now in a house with AC, I keep unoccupied rooms closed off.
  • Hang out in the basement too, it is much cooler down there.
  • Keep the blinds/curtains shut and get some fans to circulate the air.
  • Get a block of ice or a big mound of ice in a tub and run a fan behind the ice. It is the old fashioned way of cooling off and it feels much cooler than just the fan.
Thanks so much everyone for your tips and ideas.  Hopefully these tips also help others in the same situation.  Leave me a comment if you have a tip to share.