Budget Slashed!

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maxwell_smart007

maxwell_smart007

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I just had my penturning budget, meagre as it was, slashed! The gas bill came today, and they've added on an extra 60 dollars per month to our equal billing plan...

We're in a small, 1000 square foot house (built in the 1890's, I think), that's costing a fortune...now over 270 bucks per month for gas heat! And yes, that's paying every month, including in the summer!

Blah! Thanks for letting me vent! Looks like I won't be buying any toys (or food) anytime soon - but on the plus side, I needed to lose some weight anyway! ;)

Andrew
 
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I hear ya. We are on the "budget plan" with our utility. We jumped $35 a month last year and expect it to be much worse this year. They do the calculations in October, so the bill coming in a week or so will be the one that lets us know. It's also the bill that the utility uses to get us "caught up" for the last years shortage. If we used more than our payments covered, we have to make that amount up this month. We have been keeping track of how far behind we are and making extra payments for the last three months. The last two months we payed an extra $175. That makes it a total of $350 a month. We have no idea how much the payment plan amount will jump this year. It was $175, it'll probably go well over $200. AAAAAARRRRRGGGGG!!!!
 
I know what you mean I'm paying $215 a month year round right now but they base mine on a percentage of income rather than an average. I have seen my actual bill in the winter go over $400 last winter. Hate to see what it will be this winter.
 
I just installed a baseboard heater, so hopefully that will keep the living room warmer, and not result in us turning up the gas heat as often. As it is, we kept the house at 50 last year...not sure how much cooler I can take!

On the plus side, it's forcing us to get a bit more involved in our new house search...

Andrew
 
We've never used one of those budget plans becuase it seems like everyone we know who has one always gets a rude surprise. We just pay as we go. It's hard to tell right now how bad it will be this winter as we have only had "nice weather" bills so far. The heat just started kicking on at night a couple weeks ago but the day time temps are starting to drop now as well. I guess we'll know when we get the next bill in a few weeks.

We did add some insulation back in February and a few weeks ago I did some caulking in some areas I thought was leaking in air from outside. Hopefully that will help some.
 
wolftat said:
Maybe you can think warm thoughts??????
Click to expand...

Or move a little more south of the arctic circle!

I spent some time in Northern Alberta as a "rig pig" in an earlier life and I learned two very important lessons in my SHORT tenure "up north"

First thing I learned was it gets COLD up there! :eek:
Second thing I learned was that a cigarette puts out a surprising amount of heat. :rolleyes:
 
250.00 a month for the summer and since we use propane I'm figuring about 475.00 a month this winter, Kind of hard on a fixed income, thank goodness my wife's job looks pretty solid for now.
 
We did our best to avoid the cost escalations...and it worked pretty well. We replaced our windows and doors, put siding on with styrofoam underneath, new hi-efficiency furnace with a heat recovery system, added about a foot of insulation in the attic, got higher efficiency washer and dryer, and switched to all compact flourescent lights. Then we got a rebate from the Canadian government of about $3000 - $4000 for doing the improvements...and our gas and electric bills are almost where they were 5 years ago, so we're very pleased. The payback is going to be shorter than we had originally thought!
 
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