I had to move a lot over the last 10 years.
First it was out of my college dormitory into a studio apartment.
While I loved having my own place for the first time, the studio apartment was really limited in the space and the amenities that it afforded. I hated having to take my laundry to the laundromat every time I wanted clean clothing. The worst part about going to the laundromat was having to wait on washers or dryers. My city only had two laundromats at the time so they were both really busy regardless of the time of day. I’m lucky now that I live in an area where there’s a 24-hour laundromat, but I don’t even need one anymore at this point. After leaving that apartment, I rented a house in the countryside. It was a really beautiful property, but I always wanted to be a homeowner myself. The one thing that was really great about that house was the presence of trees that surrounded it and shaded the roof. A lot of additional sunshade reduces the radiant heat hitting the house. That means you don’t have to run the air conditioner nearly as much in the summer. I see that I saved a lot on energy bills just by living in a house with the actual shade. Now I have a house that I own but there aren’t any trees around it to provide it with any shade from the sun. Our energy bills are a lot higher in this house too with no surprise. I never realized how natural shade could cause such an extreme effect on the air conditioner performance.