Proper A/C usage??

Question:We live in Las Vegas, so as most of you know its been upwards of 100 degrees lately. Our power company here just had a 12% increase in power rates. I want to know if when i leave for the day should i turn up the thermostat, if so to what degree?? I usually keep our home between 74 and 76 degrees when we're home, when we're gone i turn it up to about 80? I just want to know if thats ok? I want to save myself as much money as possible without having to live with extreme heat!! Thanks for any answers!

Answers:
If you are gone all day you should get a programmable stat and set the program to raise the set point to about 85 to 90 during the day and go back to 74 about an hour before you get home. If you have good building thermal barrier (insulation, glass shading, etc.) you AC should run very little during the day.

I know there are people that say you should turn your AC off entirely during the day but there are usually things in you home that you do not want to get hotter than 85 to 90 degrees (animals, plants, etc.) They usually do not live where it regularly gets over 100 degrees like you do.

You can do the same thing manually when you get home but you will be in a hot house for about a half hour to one hour.