Noticing your electric bill creeping up in recent months? There are easy (and even free!) ways to help keep you cool in your apartment without donating arms and legs to the electric company. Take a look at these 5 tips we came up with to help you save on your electric bill this month:
Close the blinds or curtains, or both.
Natural light is important to people, especially when their living quarters sway on the small side, but shutting out the sun can help reduce the heat in your apartment by 35%. Take it a step further and purchase , they’re not too expensive and have decent styles.
Program your thermostat at a higher temperature while you’re away.
If no one’s in the apartment from 8:00am-5:00pm, why bother cooling the space? Have it programmed to drop again about half an hour before you typically arrive home and you’ll be chilling again before dinner.
Leave the temp a little higher, and buy a couple of fans.
But they don’t have to be those obnoxious, ugly box fans. Dyson makes that blow a good breeze, but if you’re not willing to shell out the dough, make products that are just a sleek and still cool you off.
Leave the temp a little higher, and wear less or lighter clothing
It’s a no-brainer to simply wear less and shorter layers in the summer months, but also consider the fabric of choice. Cotton is more breathable than polyester or nylon, so ditch the yoga pants while binging Netflix on the couch. Or go naked. We won’t judge.
Take advantage of cool nights
Keep an eye on the weather and if you see it’s supposed to drop under 70 at night, open up the windows and turn off the A/C. The fresh air will do you some good, too.
In light of Marie Kondo’s widely popular approach of purging your things to cleanse your life of clutter, it’s time we did the same with our social media experience. I’ve read several blog posts recently depicting people’s social media experience as completely overwhelming and stressful, and read about bloggers venting their frustrations over the high expectations of today’s society. In the one I read most recently, I found myself nodding my head in agreement and internally screaming “YES!”
I, too, have felt overwhelmed by social society for a while now, as if I could never keep up or be good enough for, like, anything. But then I had an epiphany. I’m partially to blame for this. Consider this: How many rich celebrities do you follow on Instagram? How many DIY crafters do you follow on Facebook? How many “be your own boss” or “make millions now” business pages do you follow in LinkedIn? The truth is we’ve actually been sabotaging ourselves by following hundreds of social accounts that constantly contradict themselves. It’s no wonder we’re so overwhelmed. But social media isn’t to blame—we are!
The good news is you can fix this, quick and easy. Ask yourself: what do you want to get out of your social media experience? For me, I want to see what my family and closest friends are up to. I want to get tips on fitness, healthy, décor, parenting, and food. And most importantly, I don’t want to feel ashamed. For anything.
Do yourself a favor and begin the purge. Do you really need to know what’s happening in the life of someone you met once 5 years ago? Do you really need to follow twelve blogs about home decorating? Twelve, though? Really?
Probably not. So let’s dive in.
Step 1 : Get rid of “friends” who make you feel worse about yourself or your life
Following friends on social media is supposed to give you warm feelings of happiness for all the milestones that person is celebrating in their life. If that “friend” makes you feel bad about your life—or worse, you suspect they’re faking their happiness just to impress others—consider unfriending or unfollowing them STAT. The same for people you rarely talk to, or haven’t talked to in years. Is surface-level friendship really worth the inner turmoil of jealousy if you can’t find it in yourself to be happy for them? Some friends only post rants or offensive memes. They need to go. Some friends only post selfies. If you like their selfies, great, like away. But if they provide little other inspiration for you, it’s time to part ways.
Step 2 : Unfollow ¾ of the news, magazine, celebrity, or brand accounts/pages that you currently follow. You and I both know it’s too much. When you first sign up for a new social account like Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, they make suggestions on people or pages to follow. This is great for first-timers, but if you’re anything like me, you picked 20 or so people and pages right off that bat that you only felt Luke warm about. As time goes by, you like and follow more and more accounts until one day you realize you follow 176 unnecessary pages, all of which are confusing and stressful.
Divide your desired account into categories, like “food”, “fitness”, “parenting”, “cars”, “news”, “fashion” etc, and pick only one or two valuable sources for each category. When you only have one source providing the content, you’re more likely to listen and—most importantly—not get overwhelmed with contradicting ideals. I narrowed my news sources down to one, because the constant reminder of death and destruction in our world was too much to bear.
Step 3 : Replace those unwanted accounts with people or celebrities who inspire you, but only if you truly think their content will be valuable. Pick 10 or 12 celebrities you truly cherish and follow only their pages; forget the C-listers.
Step 4 : Is probably the hardest one yet. Be prepared for the “why aren’t we friends on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter?” discussion with acquaintances. There are a couple of ways to approach this. One is with the simple truth, “I’ve recently started limiting my network to family and close friends only,” with no other explanation. Then try your best to change the subject. If they persist, you could elaborate with “I’m doing my best to not get overwhelmed by hundreds of posts from friends I only see sparingly. While I genuinely hope everything in your life is going great, I simply don’t want to be overwhelmed by my newsfeed.” If they ask why you don’t consider them a close friend….well, you’re on your own there.
Another approach is to white-lie your way out of it, although you might get yourself caught once in a while, so I don’t recommend it (but let’s be honest, we’ve all done this anyway). Go with the classic “Oh, I didn’t see your request come through….that’s weird” *begins to fake-frantically scroll on phone for said request*
And then there are times when they don’t deserve an explanation at all. Screw ‘em. It’s your social feed, your life, your mood. Stop feeling pressured to invite every person you’ve ever met into your life. Just smile and blink at them. Then walk away.
Clearing your life of clutter isn’t limited to physical things or space, you also need a clear head to live life fully. So pick up your phone and start eliminating unnecessary people and pages NOW.
Keep you up to date
With a smart assistant, you not only can stop reading the news every morning, you can stop reading your own emails and texts! Once you have a smart assistant, especially if you’ve upgraded to have one in multiple rooms of your home, you can ask it to read the news, the weather, or anything else that you need to know for the rest of your day.
Set important reminders and alarms anywhere
If your smart assistant can hear you from where you are in the house, you can set a reminder or alarm whenever you need one. On the phone and making plans? Forget about awkwardly fumbling with speakerphone; just tell your smart assistant to make an appointment on your calendar. Forgot to set an alarm to wake up, but you can’t find your phone? Tell your smart assistant when to wake you up. Smart assistants make it easy to keep your life in checkboxes in the best way.
Control your entertainment life
For those who are willing to go an extra step and incorporate their smart assistant into their televisions and radios, your entire entertainment web is at your fingertips. Setting up smart assistants like Alexa and Google Home in different rooms of your house means you can stream radio and music playlists from anywhere, and even rent movies and stream shows directly onto your television. All it takes is a voice command; you don’t even have to use your remote!
Keep your house safe
One of the greatest things about smart assistants is that they let you keep an eye on things, no matter how far away they are. Lots of home security systems are extremely high-tech nowadays, with features such as facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence that make sure your place stays secure, even when you’re not in it. Most of the time, these security systems let you connect your smart assistant, so you can check in at any point, and they can send you an alert if there’s any suspicious activity. With the combination of smart power and your ability to look things over with a human eye, your security system can be nearly foolproof. It adds an extra layer to your home security, which is great if you frequently have to leave your home standing empty.
Connect you in any room
Of course, the main draw of having an apartment that’s completely connected to a smart assistant is your ability to stay connected, no matter where you are. Most smart assistants connect to your phone in one way or another, which may mean the ability to answer your phone even if it’s in the next room, have music playing through your whole home, or create important reminders while you’re making dinner that your phone can bring up at a later date.
Smart assistants are an amazing advancement in technology, and they’re a great way to improve your life a little bit. No matter what you’re trying to do, it’s likely that a smart assistant can walk you through it, from making your house a little safer to just enhancing your everyday living experience.
We’ve all read the typical rules posted along the pool fence (no running, no food or drink, no diving) but there are unspoken, common-curtesy rules that many people seem to vastly ignore. Whether you frequent our community pool or go to a public pool in town, take a look at these etiquette points to avoid being that person :
Noise level, language, and profanity
Nobody likes a loud mouth, and I can’t think of one parent who is okay with curse words bouncing around like a beach ball. Remember you’re in a public, shared community pool full of people who come from all walks of life and might find your language offensive. While you’re certainly entitled to private conversations with friends, family or neighbors, be mindful of your noise level, the language you use, and refrain from profanity if at all possible.
Rafts
In some public or community pools, rafts are banned, and for good reason. If this isn’t already a rule set in place, don’t lug in that giant donut floaty you found at Costco. Remember you are one of many who want to use and enjoy the watering hole, and there’s only so much space to do so. Not only will you take up precious pool real estate, you’ll find yourself extremely annoyed with getting splashed while you’re just trying to float in peace. Do everyone a favor and leave the raft at home.
Trash
This is usually an actual posted rule, but it’s one that needs to be driven home. It’s never a problem to snack on some munchies while poolside, but no one wants to clean up your cans, plastic, wrappers, or worse, broken glass bottles (this one in particular is not only a nuisance, but a danger—just don’t). Put your trash back in the bag or cooler in which you brought it, so you can throw it away when you get home.
Spills
When’s the last time you stepped in a puddle of sticky liquid at the pool, and loved it? You didn’t. Understand spills happen, but make the effort, take the time, and find a way to clean it up. Not only does it cause annoyance to the other pool-goers, it attracts pests like ants, bees and wasps. Simply washing the spill away with some water will take care of the problem pretty quick.
Behavior
Pushing, drowning, stealing toys. These behaviors have been seen by young and old alike, believe it or not. It’s important to treat others with respect, no matter the situation, even if you’re just playing. A game of Chicken is fun and innocent enough in the privacy of someone’s personal pool, but any kind of extreme rowdiness in a community pool will disturb others.
Attire
So you went to Europe and EVERYONE was donning itsy-bitsy, teeny-wheeny swimwear. Cool. But not everyone is a fan of flaunting flesh in a public or community pool. Know your surroundings, audience, and situation. While a speedo might be perfectly fine at a Las Vegas hotel pool party, it’s possible someone could find it to be a bit too much for an afternoon dip in a shared community pool.
Claiming multiple chairs
Don’t do this. It’s great you arrived the second the pool opened and want to save chairs for your friends, but it’s a little rude when you claim more than half the loungers for yourself. Be a good neighbor and only claim one extra chair, two at the most. Also, don’t do anything on the chairs other than sit or lay. Standing, flipping or using them in any fashion that will bend, break, warp or damage the chair is just plain disrespectful. The same goes for any umbrellas, tables, or equipment in or around the pool. Respect the community pool and all of the property in it.
Union Flats is a modern and upscale apartment community centralized in a great part of Mechanicsburg, where everything you could possibly need or want is right outside your door. But the law of supply & demand dictates this location comes at a cost of vast living quarters. Luckily, we’ve listed tips on ways to maximize the space you do have and continue to enjoy your new home.
1. Storage is the key to happiness
As much as possible, keep items concealed and out of view for an uncluttered look. Closet storage is best. To maximize it, be careful of closet organizers. These can actually take up more space if not planned properly. Regular shoe boxes, meanwhile, take up a minimal amount in a closet and can be stacked tighter for better use of space. Consolidate all of your travel items into your suitcase and store in there -- this makes packing faster and easier when you are ready for a quick getaway (see Tip 10).
Use tote bags, which hold tons of stuff and can be monogrammed or labeled for easy identification. These are also easy to move for cleaning, and since they’re made of fabric, they give more flexibility in tighter space. This is a great way to store magazines or books.
When you don’t cook, use your stove as a storage area – it has adjustable shelves and can provide much-needed space (just remember to take your stuff out again before preheating!).
2. Adopt a chic, clean & stylish design
Be sure that your apartment has an aesthetic. Play with color and accessories; don’t be afraid to use them. Design elements aren’t just for mansions. If you’re lacking closets or cabinets, create a storage/display making your space both decorative and functional. So many couture items such as vintage handbags, shoes, ties, and scarves are actually pieces of usable art. A smaller space can be a more opulent space.
3. Buy multi-functional furniture
Use a bed that has storage drawers underneath. Some have found that the drawers on the bottom actually had more space than a dresser, and free up a ton of floor space.
Ottomans and stools can convert from storage cubes to tables to additional seating.
4. Forget about room dividers, go for artwork instead
Use art to section off areas of the room instead of room dividers. These dividers often make the room look much more cramped and disrupt the flow of good energy through the apartment. Using art to differentiate spaces makes your apartment feel bigger and more open.
5. Be obsessively organized
When closets and cabinets are overflowing, it’s time to clean and reorganize. In a small apartment, you often find that you don’t have that catchall space that you do with a larger apartment. Mail must be sorted each day and laundry must be done on a regular basis. Once a routine is established, you’ll find that -- just like your space -- your time becomes more efficient.
6. Buy only what you love and purge often
After living for a few years with less space, you tend to buy only what you really need or really love, eliminating trends or donating them when the trend is over. Buying quality instead of quantity makes your dollar stretch further in the long run. And being on your fashion game in one of the most stylish cities in the world is a bonus. Owning one pair of great shoes is better than owning twelve pairs of mediocre ones.
7. Use every square inch
It’s not the amount of space, but how the space functions that matters. Make use of every square inch.
Many people have a guest room and they use it once a year when that friend comes to town. In fact, most people actually use only 20% of their house. But not you. You’re utilizing every last bit. Live simpler.
8. Do cost comparisons
When you start to get apartment envy and consider moving to a larger space, talk to your friends with bigger apartments and you’ll quickly realize their rent and utility bills are much higher than yours. Living in a smaller space, the costs are lower.
9. Travel as often as your schedule and budget permits
Go out of town at least five times per year, or as often as your schedule permits. This is a nice break and change of scenery. Friends will love to visit you, because you’re in one of the best cities on Earth. People in other parts of the country have 2-3 guest rooms, and no one ever goes to visit. It’s a good reminder that your piece of heaven is a sanctuary no matter the size.
We all know Baltimoreans love their food. And it’s likely you eat out at least 5 meals a week. Come on….admit it! With so many amazing restaurants in this city, it’s easy to say t’hell with your diet. But eating clean is important, and there are ways to keep the calorie count down while still enjoying all Baltimore has to offer. Take a look at these tips we put together for when dining out:
Plan ahead, and know the ingredients—check the restaurant’s website beforehand for their nutrition section, and shoot for a meal with as little processed ingredients as possible.
Look for buzzwords. “Organic,” “locally sourced,” “grass-fed,” “antibiotic- and hormone-free,” “sustainably raised” are, yes, a bit trendy, but they can also serve as indicators that the restaurant is concerned and conscientious about its sources.
When ordering a salad, pay attention to what they put in it and ask yourself, honestly, if it’s healthy. Many chain restaurants make an effort with “under 500 calories” or “fit” dishes, but still load it with flavor-enhancers. Be mindful of all components and remember its okay to substitute or take away certain ingredients. Avoid creamy dressings, and always ask for it on the side.
If you order a burger, check if they have wheat buns, and stick with veggie toppings instead of bacon, cheese or other fatty garnishes.
While a deli turkey sandwich is always better than a greasy burger, you should still be aware that most thinly-slice deli meats contain a lot of sodium and preservatives. If the restaurant offers freshly carved turkey or chicken, order that instead. Try to choose lean meat like chicken or turkey over red meat like ham or beef. And when considering the sandwich, also be aware of the toppings and dressings/condiments. Remember, creamy=fatty.
When eating Mexican, choose corn tortillas over flour tortillas. Flour tortillas (even the whole wheat varieties) are higher in calories, fat and sodium. Or nix the tortilla altogether and ask for a lettuce wrap. You’d be surprised how you don’t miss the taste of a tortilla. Choose a dish that is mostly veggies, and opt for avocado or guacamole instead of sour cream. Ask if they make their own salsa. Fresh salsa won’t have as many preservatives or sodium, but store-bought salsa is still better than sour cream.
At Chinese restaurants, very little of their food is clean. Ask for simple steamed vegetables and brown rice (not fried). A little bit of soy sauce is okay, but one tiny packet holds 520mg of sodium—one quarter of your DAILY intake—so tread lightly.
Remember that you’re human, and you can’t restrict yourself forever. For your mental health, splurge!….But only every once in a while. You can combat over-eating by drinking lots of water in between bites. It takes 15 minutes for your brain to recognize that you’re full, so chewing slower will reduce the chance of over-eating/ingesting unnecessary calories. Drinking all that water will also help you fill up faster. This can be applied to any meal, clean or not.
Side note: talking more means less food is going in your mouth; consider dining with a chatty Kathy!
And for those times you just have to splurge…
Dab your pizza with a napkin (or two) before eating. That grease you see on top is actually fat that melted away from the cheese when it was heated. Blotting your pie can save about 40 calories and 4 grams of fat per slice.
Steak is not the worst thing in the world, but your sides can be. Choose steamed vegetables or a side salad instead of fries or loaded baked potato. If you still want to carb it up, choose a simple baked potato and use a small amount of butter.
It’s best to stay away from soda. But if you must, ask for lots of ice, and order a water with it as well. The more ice in your cup, the less soda you’ll consume (while still satisfying the craving). And when you run out of soda, you’ll drink the water while waiting for the server to refill your soda.
Lattes are amazing, but they are also jam-packed with sugars and sweeteners. Decide what you absolutely must have in order for it to taste right, and stick with those few ingredients. Telling them what to put in it gives you control over your calorie and sugar intake.
We here at 101 Ellwood utilize these tips regularly, and encourage everyone to eat clean both at home and on the go. Exercise weekly, if not daily.
Remember to take your health seriously--be mindful of your food choices and practice fitness activities that you find fun!
