All the preaching I do about saving money? Handy stuff, that saved stash! We were going on a snowshoe trip last week but woke up to a house that was 50* I accused my husband of lowering the thermostat, but he went to the garage and found a dead furnace! Fifty degrees isn’t so bad , say in Georgia, but we live in Alaska. That just won’t do!
This was also a Sunday morning, and if you haven’t needed a service on the weekend I’ll let you in on the double price not-so-secret. We called around and everyone had a service fee of double what it was during the week. Meanwhile, we had a very cozy fire in the fireplace and some space heaters set up, that brought our temp back up to about 68*, where we normally keep it anyhow. We opted to wait until Monday. Long story short, we shaved about $200 off our bill.
Speaking of shaving, I was experimenting with our electric bill last month. I knocked $20 off by using the dryer only for towels. That downstairs bathroom can handle more than I though. My husband found one of those twist shower rods and hung it over the middle for an extra rack. Even the jeans dry and they aren’t so bad on. The stiffness was unnoticeable after a minute. I’m guessing I was using it about every 3-4 days. Unfortunately ever since the furnace incident, it hasn’t been heating very well. It’s very old for a furnace and we may have to dip into that savings soon 
