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And Now The Electric Bill

13 Responses to “And Now The Electric Bill”

1. Carol Says:
   March 3rd, 2015 at 03:46 pm 1425397577
   1425397577
   Our electric bill has increased by one third (!) (Rate increase) even before the cold. I have to get serious with the kill a watt and see how we can conserve more.

2. Nebraska girl Says:
   March 3rd, 2015 at 04:01 pm 1425398473
   1425398473
   Our electric bill hit $144.00 last month and is at $122.00 this month. My husband and I lived together before we got married. He paid the mortgage and I paid all of the utilities. I didn't make enough to sometimes pay $200.00 in utilities and sometimes $400.00. I told my then fiancé that I was going to call the companies and get on the monthly plan where they figure your average for the last 12 months and that's what you pay. He hated the fact that we may owe the companies money at the end of the year (or whatever the make up month was going to be). So, we put $1,000.00 into a separate savings account and setup auto pay for all of our utilities and we transfer a set amount (the average) into the savings account that has the automatic withdrawals for our utilities and internet. We just reimburse the account at the end of the year back to $1,000.00 and do an average of the bills for the past 12 months. It has relieved so much stress for us, it's crazy!
   
   I realize that your frustration is in the amount of the bill, but the way we now have our bills set up has relieved a lot of the stress when we did get those bills that we felt were outrageous!

3. MonkeyMama Says:
   March 3rd, 2015 at 04:12 pm 1425399144
   1425399144
   It's been mild here, so our February gas bill was very low. Like $30. (We barely ran the heat, which is unusual for Feb.). That said, I think we ran our AC well into October and our electricity is way more expensive than our gas heat. So, you know, the utility prices hit us more in our unusually hot fall.

4. MonkeyMama Says:
   March 3rd, 2015 at 04:17 pm 1425399442
   1425399442
   P.S. Budget billing is great, as NG suggested. So maybe we pay $100/month all year though summer is our high electricity usage and winter is our higher gas usage, and half the year we don't use much of either. But we just have one flat payment every month. I like the budgeting simplicity.

5. creditcardfree Says:
   March 3rd, 2015 at 04:21 pm 1425399664
   1425399664
   Oh, I'm a big fan of budget billing. I have it for our gas usuage. For some reason, I didn't get on a plan with our electric company. I think it initially was that this was a new build, so they didn't have information about how to budget bill us. And then I just got used to the fluctuations which aren't usually this big! But for anyone else reading in this, I highly recommend budget billing.

6. scottish girl Says:
   March 3rd, 2015 at 04:39 pm 1425400763
   1425400763
   We've been using our gas central heating more. We have a prepayment meter, so we just put the money in when we have to using a card for the gas or a key for the electricity.

7. Joan.of.the.Arch Says:
   March 3rd, 2015 at 04:56 pm 1425401812
   1425401812
   Fortunately with drive-by radio signal tabulation of our gas (heating & cooking) bill we never have to get estimated bills. I remember the frustration when we did, though, especially our first winter here when our estimates were based on the usage of the elderly couple who had the house before us....I don't care for budget billing because each new "actual reading" bill is impetus to see if we can do better in our energy usage.

8. CB in the City Says:
   March 3rd, 2015 at 05:48 pm 1425404915
   1425404915
   My heat is provided by a central boiler (via radiators) and I only pay for it through our monthly assessment fee, which is fixed (but adjusted annually). But I did notice that my electric bill was a bit higher. I think I turn on more lights to fight the gloom.

9. FrugalTexan75 Says:
   March 3rd, 2015 at 08:26 pm 1425414374
   1425414374
   I just got my electric bill for February = $23.xx which is nearly $20 less than the bill for January. The only difference I can think of is that I stopped using the space heater?
   
   I would swallow my tongue at a $100 bill, let alone $255!

10. rob62521 Says:
    March 3rd, 2015 at 09:06 pm 1425416786
    1425416786
    So far we have not had any estimated bills. Two months ago our power bill was pricey and I reminded DH that when we are both gone, he needs to set the thermostat down a couple of degrees. He informed it wouldn't make a difference, but he did that this last month and even though we had some cold temps like the previous month, our bill was over $20 less.

11. Ima saver Says:
    March 3rd, 2015 at 09:51 pm 1425419498
    1425419498
    Our electric bill was almost $300. That is almost double what I budget. It use to be very low in the winter, but we got a new heat system with a heat pump. I blame the large bills on the heat pump and I will never have one again.

12. MonkeyMama Says:
    March 4th, 2015 at 02:03 am 1425434601
    1425434601
    P.S. I've never heard of estimated utility bills. Is that a foul weather thing? (That part went over my head the first time).

13. creditcardfree Says:
    March 4th, 2015 at 02:10 am 1425435057
    1425435057
    @MonkeyMama, this electric company is a small cooperative and I'm sure to save money at times bills are estimated and more than likely when the weather is an issue. This utility still has meter readers that walk the neighborhood! Our water and gas are done remotely in some form. In the 2.5 years we have lived here I believe this is the first time the bill was estimated (basically they used the previous months usage).

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