I'm in Ft. Lauderdale FL area and keep the ac set at 78, fans running in the main rooms, and curtains shut. My parents complain the house is "so dark - like a cave" but as soon as I open the curtains the house gets hot. I might have to do something else because our bill was $180 this month The humidity is worse than anything.

$180 aint bad - my bill was $264!!!!!!!!!!!! And thats just cause the electric company raised the rates. Usually the highest bill in the summer is around $180.

Guess my question is, does your house even feel cool at 78? I know ours doesnt, its hot and it makes me want to open windows. The humidity is awful here too!

Yikes. I guess I won't complain I don't "like" to go over $150 in the summer and the rest of the year about $100. I would say the house feels definitely cooler than outside. Right now we seem to have no breeze, I live inland a bit off the beaches so i know that makes it worse. So the air just seems to be "sitting" like a hot wet blanket. Opening the windows would do no good. I think the ceiling fans help keep it even cooler by circulating the air conditioning.

I live in Maryland. We keep the AC at around 73-74 in the summer and in the winter around 75-77.

We live in south TX and I am now keeping the temps at 79 during the day and 75 at night only because we can't stand to be hot at night. I wish we could open our windows but ds's allergies would get worse and it's still pretty hot and humid at night. Plus we live in a noisy neighborhood. I can't wait until we move up north one day.

My house does feel cool at 78. I only will turn the AC on if it's actually hot out, meaning hotter than 80, otherwise the AC won't come on and we get the lake breeze usually anyway.

I'm in Ohio. This week it is in the high 80s. I have my AC set at 80. I haven't had my AC on except twice before when it got over 90 here. My house normally stays around 75 though.

I'm in Maryland! I keep the ac at 80 during the day, so it really doesn't cut on much. And like others I keep all the blinds closed, and the fans on. At about 5:30 it gets moved back to 76. It gets too hot to sleep upstairs otherwise.

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"Before I was a Mom I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body." ~Anonymous

I live in Missouri. We keep ours at 78, too, with our 2 ceiling fans going and the blinds always drawn (I always get the cave comment, too!). It always feels comfortable to me, even now when the heat index is around 110! When we have really cool nights, I always open the windows, but only when it's 70 degrees or lower outside. Our bill runs around $150 during July and August only, but we have a pretty small home. I don't know if that's good or bad, I just pay it....

I usually keep the AC on at night at 82 and during the day when I'm at work it is 84. If it's really hot I keep it on 80-81. Just got back from vacation and my Central AC doesn't work. Need to call the repairman. In the winter I keep the temp at 62 when I'm at work, when I get home I turn it up to 65 and at night I keep it at 58. Unless it's really cold I'll turn it up the heat at night. My house is close to 50 years old and I have the orginal windows and is poorly insulated. Saving my money to get new windows and insulation. By the way I live in Michigan. When I was in junior high and high school. There was the oil embargo going on and we kept it cold in the winter and we didn't have AC in the summer. So I'm used to it.