YIKES!! Electricity bill!!!! HELP!!!

[MamaBeth]

Apparently the electric company here bills weekly. The bill was originally $57! The rental company that owns the place worked it out to $18.44 for the three days in October for our bill. We're supposed to start getting the bills in our name as of the 1st according to my husband when he set it up in our name...

But YIKES! $57/week?! I have no idea what's normal for this area...I'm about paranoid about not using the lights if we're not in the room and only turning on the lights at night. We haven't even really needed the heat on at night, and it's only set to like 70 degrees, just enough to take the chill out of the house since the girls prefer to sleep in their diapers. I can work on getting the kids used to blanket sleepers at night, and we DO have a fireplace that we could use as well for heating...

But what else can I do to help keep that bill down?! I am thinking I'd be best off to take my laundry out to my MIL's to dry on her clothes line or ask the rental agency if we can put a clothesline up the backyard...but in the meantime we've been having a problem with the dryer exhaust line being clogged. All week it's been taking like four times around to dry ONE load of clothes! The maintenance guy finally came out yesterday, but it didn't seem to do much good...I'm going to have to call him back on Monday!

[MamaBeth]

And in case you're wondering..like I said I have no idea what is "normal" or "average" for around here (Jacksonville, NC or anywhere) as we've always been in military housing where we didn't have to pay utilities. SO I'm not used to needing to budget for that, and I'm just seeing my budget shrink by an estimated $240/month thinking ACK! We can't DO THAT!!

[Garnet]

I live in Illinois, and my bill breaks down to about $50 a week.

[Mother of Sons]

It depends on the time of year here. This is actually why we are sitting here in our house freezing. In the fall/winter months our bill breaks down to around 100 a week. We are going to get on the fixed monthly payment plan so that it is 220 a month all year round (a bummer for the summer when the bills are around 60 a month!)

[milkmommy]

We pay a flat rate of $115 a month its going to go up though we got notice of a 40% rate increase :hissyfit no way we can cut down enough to make up for that, we just hope we can stay afloat KWIM?
MOS we have the opposite problem the summer months our bills can be up in the $200 range but in the winter its like $20 but we really like the flat rate billing no suprises and for us thats more important.

Deanna

[Roma]

do you have an electric dishwasher? if so limit your use of it to once a week, twice a month, or even once a month

try to put items you can hang in the dryer for only 10 min and then hang them

we also limit are use of AC and heat a lot

[MarynMunchkins]

Are you on all electric? That doesn't sound *that* unreasonable to me. :shrug A little high - but not that much. :/

I think your best option would be to bump down your thermonstat as much as possible and buy a clothesline. :)

[crochetmama]

Other things you can do (we have the opposite problem here, we need cool, not heat).

1. Cover windows w/blankets or cardboard to act as insulation, or buy that plastic film stuff. In the summer (and still now as my dh is a nut and must have pitch black to sleep) is cover ALL of hte windows with blankets. I have some quilts that we hang on the inside of hte apt (so people looking in only see the blinds and so we don't look so...what's the word? Poor? :giggle )

2. Close the registers in the bathrooms (and kitchen) and close the doors. Keep all closets closed. Any rooms that are not used on a regular basis (like if you only sleep in your bedroom at night and don't go in there otherwise) close the registers and doors.

3. Switch as many light bulbs from the regular ones to the halogen ones that are a lower wattage (unless you suffer from SAD, then stick to whatever you do normally).

4. Bundle up the girls (and yourself as needed) in more layers. Layers are great! Lots of blankets, my dh and I love the feel of our blankets weighing a ton on us. For the girls it makes me a bit nervous. Wool is great. If you can knit/crochet it'll be cheaper if you make it (sometimes). :D

5. When baking, once you finish baking dinner, maybe make a pie or something else that needs to be baked, rather than turning the oven off/on continually. After baking leave the door open to let that heat into the kitchen and the rest of hte house.

6. If you have celing fans make sure htey are turned correctly to help get the heat down to you (rather than sucking up the air as for summer). This will work great if you have your fireplace as well to get that heat spread around.

7. A propane heater. I know they can be scary, but it can help.

Those are all I can think of at the moment. We would do a lot of these in AK when we lived there. :)

Hugs,
tammy

[Punkie]

That seems pretty reasonable to me too :shrug In Florida we had months that were $350+. I know natural gas prices just went up here, so our bills will be pretty big this winter. :sad2

I have read online that hanging your clothes for a year will save you $150, so you'll probably only save about $10 a month. Depending on how far away your MILs house is, you may waste that much in gas (~3-4 gallons a month)... Just something to think about...

[Mothering by Heart]

Wow, we pay around $75.00 for the whole month :eek

:hug2

It sounds like the dryer needs help. That is a huge electricity user, especially if you have to run it through 4 times. I would insist the owner fix it .

[Roma]

Wow, we pay around $75.00 for the whole month

ours is 75 in the summer and 40 in the winter

[Punkie]

Wow! How big is your house?

ETA: Sorry, I just realized that I asked a very personal question :bag Feel free to not answer if you don't want to :grin

[TulipMama]

Our electric bill went up 50% last month. I was wondering whether it was related to Katrina? We have electric AND gas, so it's not like it's all electric. Utilities really hurt our budget. We try to be careful/frugal with the lights and AC and all. But. . .

[Roma]

Wow! How big is your house?

ETA: Sorry, I just realized that I asked a very personal question :bag Feel free to not answer if you don't want to :grin


about 1300 sq under air. :)

[Mothering by Heart]

Ours goes down to about $40 in the summer. We have about 1800 sf.