My parents made a point to raise us all to be self-reliant people. Both my sister and I regularly made sure we had every that we needed, but my parents didn’t let us live high-priced lives. Both of us shared all of our toys and had many hand-me-down clothes from our older cousins, and both of us usually didn’t mind. The only time that it bothered us to be so thrifty was in the summer, as both of us didn’t have usual central cooling systems like others did. We only had window a/c units in our parents’ home, and these systems kept our rooms fairly cool at night – but that’s all they did. It really helped us sleep, but it didn’t help us in the day! We didn’t spend time indoors during the day either, as we were playing outside to get fresh air. When we were fed up with the heat, we’d run back inside for the mildly cooler air from our window units. It made me crazy when the unit would have issues and stop working for a few hours, though! I used to try to hide in my parents’ room and blast the air conditioner to find some relief. My dad would get so distraught with me when I did this, and he tried to push me to get outside and make the most of the summer, even though I wanted nothing to do with it.! I just wanted to reside in the cool air for a while to get a break from the summer heat. My parents never understood why I felt this way, but I just couldn’t take the Summer weather after spending so long in the South! When I moved out of my parents’ house after college, the first thing I did was invest in a house equipped with central cooling! Now my sister visits me and we laugh as we reminisce about growing up in a house cooled only by window A/C units.