I had to do some creative budgeting last year. We had to reduce our expenses and live frugally. My wife and I were able to do this while working and attending school in our air-conditioned home. Our financial straits were caused by the pandemic. Actually, straits isn’t the best word, because my wife and I still had jobs. Had we not been able to work from home, in that air conditioning, we would have definitely been in financial straits! Stil, our spending had to decrease; there was no money for entertainment, eating out, or trips; you couldn’t go out anyway, so that helped. We tightened our spending in other ways, too. By mid-summer, though, my wife and I had an issue that caused us to consider a dumb idea. We noticed our heating and air conditioning wasn’t keeping up. I thought I could fix this myself by watching some videos online; I was convinced I could fix the refrigerant. How I got to be so confident about this is a good question! Thankfully, my wife dismissed this idea hastily and effectively! She knew better than to trust our HVAC system with someone who watched a video about it! She called our HVAC contractor, so we paid for the repairs.