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Of course, you'll save the most money if you can learn to do without your AC at all. It's definitely possible. I live in Texas and have only rarely used AC. A combination of ceiling fans, insulation, and the other tips below keeps me comfortable -- and saves me hundreds of dollars every summer. I could take a trip to Las Vegas every year from what I save by not using AC.
Fans can make you feel 3 to 8 degrees cooler, allowing you to dial your AC to a higher temperature and still feel just as cool. (NY Times) Put the wind-chill factor to work for you! And ceiling fans are cheaper than you might expect: they start out around $40 at your local home improvement store, and usually cost less than a penny an hour to run. (A typical 36 / 48 / 52 ceiling fan uses about 55 / 75 / 90 watts of electricity respectively at the top speed.) Central AC costs seventy times more to run than a fan.
Almost all fans have a switch to change the fan direction. It's an up/down or left/right switch on the side of the fan (between the light and the fan blades), and it's usually unlabeled. Make sure the fan is off (not spinning) before you flip the switch or you can damage the motor. Once you've turned the fan off, it's fine to physically stop the blades with your hand, just be gentle so you don't bend the blades, otherwise the fan will wobble when you turn it back on. With the blades stopped, flip the direction (summer/winter) switch, then turn the fan back on.
Second, if you normally use air conditioning, then the fan could actually draw cool air from the living space into the attic, if your light fixtures, ducts, and attic access aren't well-sealed. Third, in rare cases attic fans could actually backdraft combustible gases through the house. And finally, the electrical cost of running the fan will likely exceed the energy savings from cooling. You could get a solar fan, but in that case the payback period would likely be a long time.
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