Yessir! My problem is half a year flipped around from Knarf's.
My Summertime electric costs are huge. winter is when I save money.
You can't light a fire to stay cool. There's just no way to stay cool without high electrical consumption in the hot, humid Souf!
The many variations of Red neck A/C (above) are cheap and doable.
Ten foot ceilings, thick plaster and masonry walls, light color exterior both roof and walls, large shade trees surrounding the structure, elevated pier footings for an open foundation allowing air circulation, narrow rooms with exterior walls on three sides for cross-ventilation, large floor to ceiling windows, deep porches on all sides.
That will keep it comfortable on all but the most stifling days with no breeze, if you could get the humidity out of the air. Even with the humidity, you get acclimated. The above comes close to describing my grandparents' place and it was an oasis by comparison coming in from outside in summer. Not cool by modern AC standards but more than just bearable. In winter it was a bear to heat. They ended up dropping the ceiling in one of the downstairs parlors and put a wood stove insert into the fireplace for winter.