There are a few tricks to keeping cool on a budget as many do not want to buy a AC unit and those in apartments who do not want to pay the land lord a large monthly fee.
Now main thing that a ceiling fan does is eliminate dead air or rather it keeps the air in the house moving. Dead air in your house can cause you to bead and sweat. Now you do not need expensive fans but they should be able to keep the air moving. Your main focus is the areas that you spend most of your time. Where you watch tv, sit and read, etc. Now the ceiling fans do two things. They keep the air moving in the rooms which will keep you cooler. The second is it will eliminate layers which will eliminate a very hot layer up higher in the room.
Now the biggest thing to help you sleep during a hot wave is a ceiling fan over your bed. I found this is even more comfortable than having air conditioning in the bedroom.
Now one of the aspects of this is that the moving air will keep you cooler than say air that is not moving.
Another aspect of this is during the winter months as the fans on a slow speed will keep the air moving and even out the temperature in the room where the air near the ceiling is hotter than the air at the floor. This is worse with baseboard heating. This can also save a bit of money but more so make you more comfortable.
There is on other trick consisting of window fans that go into you windows. You can have it either blowing in or blowing out. You should also have a window open to allow for free flow or have two window fans. One blowing in and the other blowing out.

