My wife and I both work full-time jobs in Tampa Bay.
My wife is a nurse at the local hospital.
She treats patients in the emergency room. I work at a car dealership in Tampa. During the day, both of us are at work, even when the kids are home from school. We sent the kids to a Tampa daycare until they were old enough to stay home alone. The car dealership is only two miles away from the house, so we didn’t worry as much when we left the kids alone. When Jack was 15 and his brother and sister were 12, we started letting the kids stay at home. One thing we did not anticipate was the cost of the bills to heat and cool the house. When the kids are home in the summer months, the cost to cool the house is significantly higher than any other time throughout the year. The bills would certainly be higher due to the fact that it is June, July, and August, but the bills were 30% higher the first year that the kids stayed home alone during the summer. My wife and I tried to tell the kids that they had to leave the thermostat alone. They still changed the temperature as soon as we left the house. The kids didn’t understand the cost of using the AC, so we had to buy a smart thermostat at the beginning of last year. Now the kids can’t change the thermostat and we get an alert on our phone app if they try. They don’t like the new summer rules, but they can go outside in the backyard and swim if it gets too hot.