Am I the only one getting a little nervous here? I wonder if it's because I'm on my own these days...........but yesterday the talk on the radio talk show, the "Round Table", was that the projection for gas prices is $5-6/gallon. OK, I don't drive far, I can probably deal with that, but the price of OIL and of ELECTRICITY will go up as well. And those are things that I do have to have. they predict that we are going to be feeling the pinch, and soon.
So my brain is struggling to figure out how this will work.
I do have some savings, but not a nest egg that makes me feel untouchable, for sure.
I can't just get in my car and drive to warmer climates, I have dogs, and a cat. Not to mention that driving long distances at my age is daunting. After a couple of hours, I remove my stiff body from the car, and imagine that I am a pretzel for the duration.
I can't move in with any of my kids, for the same reason.........either they don't have animals in their house, and don't want any, or they have too many animals already, and more would be pandemonium. Anyway, it would be unfair to my own.
Someone suggested that I do major work on my house to insulate. Well, that is difficult. My house is a post and beam....the studio built in 1790, the main part of the house in 1810. There are NO studs, and no spaces for insulation. The walls are wood on wood on wood.....siding, wood wall, lathe and plaster..........so the only way to insulate is to stud up the inside walls.....making all the windows "set in", insulate, put up dry wall, plaster and paint.
You hear the sound of $$$$$, right? Because I do. The price of construction materials is out of this world....so to stud up all the outside walls, on the inside of the house, would be quite the pricey venture.
There are also SIPs......which are structural insulation panels, that you put on the outside of your house.......and the windows are "set in", but on the outside of the house instead of the inside.....and again.....astronomical prices.
I could BUY a wood stove.....more $$......would need a special chimney built.....and then I would have to BUY wood, and I would have to haul it in, tend the fire, etc. I have done all that before, several times in my life, but I sure was a lot younger.
I could sell the house, but buyers would also be thinking that they would have to heat this big old place. And every time I see a house that I might be interested in, it is gone within the week.......there are a whole group of people looking to buy, perusing the market daily, and jumping on anything good in my price range.
The one thing that might work is to shut off most of the house, turn the heat way, way down there, and live in just the studio, which is the sunniest, warmest, easiest to heat part of the house. It would be somewhat restrictive, and I would definitely not like it much, but it might be my only option. Unfortunately.
We are, as a culture, very spoiled, I know. And that includes me.
I love my huge, old house, and I love that I can ramble around it all on long winter days.
I have been blessed to have done it all these years, I know.
But maybe not this coming year, eh???
No photos today. Just me, thinking out loud.
What are you all going to do??? Because we are all in this together.
Sigh….yes we are spoiled but it does seem that THIS set of events was avoidable…which makes it even more frustrating. The price fluctuating may be temporary but it will have an outsized impact on many of us. We had a 100-year-old house that we sold two years ago after searching for 7 years for a retirement house—all one level, newer and on a piece of land large enough to be not on top of neighbors. We saw an immediate reduction in energy costs. Some people will want the charm of a house like yours notwithstanding the energy demands…but we are both retiring next year and are so happy we made the move. We were also dealing with 4 floors and three staircases…and that was just too difficult for us from a mobility standpoint. So the decision, once we made it, was an easy one. Perhaps in the short run it makes sense to try out the studio living to see if you can bear it. Again so sorry this is happening….best to you from northern Illinois.
ReplyDeleteI checked to see what time you posted this - early in the a.m. I find that thoughts of doom seem to gather in the dark and everything looks better when the sun is up. I agree with you about the state of, well everything, and it’s sensible to think and plan. Studio living sounds like a good plan. You can have a warm and cozy place but certainly can access what’s in the rest of the house if you need anything. And you can keep your eye out for a smaller house but you’re not in a desperate situation.
ReplyDeleteAs I write, the price for gas in BC, Canada is approx $2.06 a litre. So that's 3.78 litres to a wet US gallon and thus we're paying $7.79 a gallon. Most of Europe is paying more and have done so for years. I don't think Americans realize that they have had artificially low prices for fuel for years..... Insulate the walls as best can be done with a house that age and look to see if the utility company has an equal payment plan to spread the winter cost over the summer months. We use that for our electricity and our natural gas bills.
ReplyDeleteLiving in a colder climate (a bit south of Buffalo) in a very old home, I appreciate the dilemma. We have our heat challenges here as well. The rising costs are unfathomable--and yes, we are spoiled or conditioned and its what we have all built our budgets around. I might try to wait it out, if it persists this winter, and try to live in the smallest and warmest area of the home as best possible. My own smaller sewing area is not heated and hard to use in the winter. Its a smaller space and I got a Heat Buddy that I turn on when I work in there. It takes to small propane tanks and is pretty good at warming a space up--would I leave it on unattended? No, that scares me--but for the few hours at a time I do get to work in my rooms, it does a nice job and I stock up on the little heating tanks (think small propane tanks that go on camping lanterns)--usually about two for $10. I buy them throughout the summer and have enough for next winter in that small space. It helps.
ReplyDeleteI am 72 and a widow since early 2024. Like you I miss my guy so much. I still have a mortgage, since we refinanced in 2020 and I get by on social security and a small pension. My bills are paid every month, and I currently carry no credit card debt.
ReplyDeleteBut if it gets to the point where I can't afford to live, I'll just use my charge cards. I am closer to death than life and what do I care if I die in credit card debt? I doubt Chase or Bank of America is going to come after me, right?
So I made a decision not to worry. Life is too short.
But one thing I am doing? I am reminding friends and family who voted for this administration that they backed the wrong freakin horse and they share the blame for what is going on. A bunch of morons, or as my husband used to say, "a bunch of maroons".
Things my family have used to temporarily create fuel savings. Heavy drapes in the doorways with tension rods. Styrofoam cut to insert over window glass during cloudy days or dark nights. Quilt hanging over a north facing door from a curtain rod.
ReplyDeleteFor 3 Winters I hung double thickness flannel sheets between the (large) kitchen and the other half of the upstairs. I found out my friends in North Carolina did the exact same thing! We just did not use the dining room/living room open area in the Winter except for the few days per year our kids would visit. The closed off part of the house was heated by oil and I am done with that. Last Fall we added solar panels to the ones already on the roof and installed a heat pump and 2 inside heating units in kitchen and living room, and added a foot of cellulose insulation (ourselves!) in the attic. We also purchased an electric car. When it bit the dust, we replaced our gas cooking stove with an electric one.
ReplyDeleteWhere I live, the house rarely gets uncomfortably hot in the Summer. We do, now, have AC but I doubt that we will ever use it.
Fortunately, we had the funds for this set aside from the time we purchased this house. Last year there were tax breaks for the energy saving items we added.
Last year, we generated enough electricity to heat the house for all but the last 2 months and the bill for those months was around $200. But this Summer we have extra panels to, hopefully, take up the slack. If we generate more than we need, it goes to charity.