For the past two months I've been gnashing my teeth over the ridiculously high natural gas bills. Basically, my budget is set up to handle $200 in combined power/natural gas costs. On average this is generally enough to plan each month to cover those two bills, except for the months of August and January. During these two months we generally see either extreme cold or extreme heat --- the cold bumps up the natural gas and the heat bumps up the power.
The past two months, the gas bills have exceeded my budget by $97 and $87. I received the new bill today. Still over budget, but this time by only $17! A much more manageable number! I'm thinking that the power should be lower than it has been so there is still a possibility that I could actually come in at or under budget for utilities this month!
Hooray for early spring temperatures! Yippee for open windows! Whoo hoo for utility bills that don't make me slightly nauseous!!!!!
Have you tried budget billing? Then it's an average price every month and never changes. Like you would pay more in summer to cover the overage in winter but it's a constant price all year.
ReplyDeleteActually, I have looked into it, but the two utilities use a different formula for averaging, (one on a previous six months and one on a previous three months, refiguring), so the way it worked out, I was actually increasing my outlay in the short term and I just didn't have the room in the budget. Also, I found that when I had budget billing at my previous address, I didn't pay as much attention to energy conservation practices becuase I wasn't actually "seeing" a difference. Apparently, I have to have it nagging at me every month! :-)
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