My Electric Shock
Picture by asphaltbuffet
I got quite a shock when I pulled up my electric bill on the computer this month. This month our electric bill was $306. Yep, you read that right — $306. Our electric bill normally runs around $125 a month. After I recovered from nearly fainting and hyperventilating, I quickly started trying to figure out how we were going to pay for this monster bill. Thankfully we had started a small emergency fund with some of the money from the sale of the restaurant equipment mentioned in yesterday’s post and we have cut the storage expense. We will pay the bill out of that.
How did this happen?
First, let me say that we live in West Texas and in the State of Texas our electric companies are deregulated and this means that we have a lot of electric companies from which to choose. Our previous company had a variable rate and when the fuel prices went up so high our rate went to 19 cents per kilowatt hour. We ditched them and went with our current company a year and a half ago because they had a fixed rate of 13 cents per kilowatt hour (This was cheap for Texas at the time). Now the going rate is around 9 cents per kilowatt hour, so what we are paying is higher than the going rate.
Next, during last month’s cold spell we ran the heater at 72 degrees. Yikes! No more of that when it’s very cold. We now have a space heater. Also lots of blankets have been pulled out of the closet and we are sitting under those. Socks are put on the feet and sweat pants and shirts have been purchased and are being worn. The heater has been turned down to 65 degrees.
Then there’s the hot water heater. It decided it needed to run more to heat up the water in the tank. We are turning it down as well. We are also looking into what it will cost to put in a tankless water heater. Then we are going to present it to the landlord and hopefully they will be feeling generous and put it in.
All unnecessary lights are turned off and we are sitting in the dark by the light of the laptop! Turn on a light in my house, you better make sure you turn it off. The light patrol might get you!
We are also going to call our electric company and try to renegotiate our rate. Four cents a kilowatt hour may not seem like it would make a lot of difference but it does. We used 2195 kilowatt hours. If we had the 9 cent rate, our bill would have been about $88 cheaper or around $218, which is still a lot but more acceptable than $306.
Oh yeah, the oven was on a lot because of Christmas. Next year we may be going out to eat!
Till next time,
JT Locke
The Frugal Housewife
Hi JT, yeah $306 would be a shock indeed. It sounds like you have a good plan to get next months bill under control. We keep our thermostat at 68 degrees and just wear sweaters and extra socks if it gets uncomfortable! Good luck!
Oh.my.gosh. You are WAY calmer than me! That’s a nightmare bill!!
I’d really love a tankless water heater, too. When we move, I’m definitely having one installed if there’s not one already.
Oh My Gosh! No wonder the shock.
Those heaters really rack up your consumption (as air conditioners do down here in Australia at this time of year).
Our Quarterly bill is usually between $320 and $380 and after doing some research for my current post I was thinking we really should be making more effort to reduce it.
Turning things off at the wall is something we NEVER do. I might do an experiment and see how much difference it really does make.
It’s a shame you have to dip into your emergency fund, but think how lucky you are that your bill is not quarterly – you’d really have fainted if you kept going on for another couple of months before you got the bill!
That must have been quite a big shock but not surprising since both heater would use up much electricity. Last year around July, we had a shock when we received our electrical bill also. The usage was doubled. We found out later that the weather during that time was hotter and we have our air conditional units on just an hour more each night and that caused the big different.
I feel your pain. We got our bill and is was $406, double the previous month. I think most of that was a result of the heaters running almost continuously for over a week and our pool pump having to run round the clock to keep the pool pipes from freezing.
Unfortunately, we seem to live in an area of Dallas that doesn’t have electric competition. I tried several companies when we moved in and was told there is only one that provides service to our community. I just have to suck it up. I’m not looking forward to the gas bill arriving.
I would have had a big shock too! Phew! Lets hope that you next months power bill is much less than this months. I hope your next months power bill is not as much!
That IS a shock!!!! Tank less water heaters are GREAT!
That is huge! I’m hoping ours wont be too outrageous, we live in Missouri and had some brutal temps last month!