Most of my day is spent determining risk/reward in some phase or another.
It’s my job and I’m fairly good at. My career is based on being able to find out what the true, accurate value is for any given investment. It takes a fair amount of research and effort to really get to the root value of any enterprise. But, I’m not putting my feet up in my HVAC controlled office after I determine value. I then have to weigh the value of an investment against the inherent risks involved in any venture. It can be very complicated but maintaining a simplicity of basic risk and reward is key to true insight. At home, I tend to view finances more through the lens of getting the most for my money. A big household expenditure is the cost of HVAC cooling during the summer. There is no way to avoid the cost altogether but I do my best to limit it. We have a state of the art HVAC system with a very high SEER rating. This makes a tremendous difference because the efficiency savings over the older units is staggering. We incorporated a smart thermostat to maximize that efficiency. It’s remarkable how precisely the smart thermostat is able to manage the HVAC use. I was shocked at how quickly this technology was able to adjust the HVAC use to our household occupancy patterns. Finally, we synced our automatic blinds to the smart thermostat. Now, they are lowered as the smart thermostat recognizes the temperature rise in areas due to direct sunlight. All of this has really helped me to maximize the value of our energy dollar.