Not huge savings, but $600 saved so far from utility bills

[commoncentsmike]

Just made this video recently to go over how homeowners can save each month on their city waste pickup bill.

In the city of Austin a 92 Gallon trash can comes with a $42/month price tag, owners can elect to choose a smaller one, in my case a 24 gallon can, and only pay $17/month.

Again, nothing crazy but it all adds up and it might even encourage others' to produce less waste!

https://youtu.be/lmdNpmkBBDo

[Nutria]

Interesting. It's almost a 4x jump from 24 to 92 gallons. Too bad there's not an intermediate size.

[disneysteve]

It would be helpful for you to share your tips here rather than directing people to another site. I'd be interested in reading them as I'm sure others would be as well.

[bjl584]

My garbage bill is $0.
One of the perks at my job is that I get to use their dumpsters for personal trash.

[Nutria]

It would be helpful for you to share your tips here rather than directing people to another site. I'd be interested in reading them as I'm sure others would be as well.

But that wouldn't drive his YT views and thus ad revenue. (Doesn't that break the form rule on self-promoting links?)

[Nutria]

My garbage bill is $0.
One of the perks at my job is that I get to use their dumpsters for personal trash.

Sewerage/water and waste isn't combined in one bill?

[commoncentsmike]

Interesting. It's almost a 4x jump from 24 to 92 gallons. Too bad there's not an intermediate size.

Not sure about the city you live in, but there are intermediate options in Austin at least.

[bjl584]

Sewerage/water and waste isn't combined in one bill?

No.
I don't have sewage. I have septic. So no bill there.

Water is a separate bill based on usage and billed by the local water municipality.

Garbage is also a separate bill. Waste Management is the company that covers the area where I live. It's $20 a month if you sign up, and you are invoiced directly by them.

There is no recycling service available where I live.

I've never heard of receiving a combined bill for those services.

[Nutria]

I've never heard of receiving a combined bill for those services.

Interesting... I've never heard of separate bills.

WMI handles our garbage service too, but it's consolidated with sewerage, metered water, fees for mosquito control and the main county park.

[phantom]

Sewerage/water and waste isn't combined in one bill?

Sewage and water are separate bills for me. It's never entirely made sense to me since both bills are based on the same water usage numbers, but that's the way its always been.

I'm pretty sure we don't pay for garbage/recycling collection directly. I assume the cost comes out of our local taxes.

[greenskeeper]

Sewage and water are separate bills for me. It's never entirely made sense to me since both bills are based on the same water usage numbers, but that's the way its always been.

Also how mine are billed, no way to put a "meter" on waste flow.

Some municipalities will bill a flat fee for sewer and charge per cubic foot for water.

[greenskeeper]

My garbage bill is $0.

same here, our municipality has an ordinance for trash pickup but I've ignored it for 10+ years saving about $70/quarter along the way.

[Nutria]

Also how mine are billed, no way to put a "meter" on waste flow.

Some municipalities will bill a flat fee for sewer and charge per cubic foot for water.

Our county bills sewerage based on water flow (presumably on the notion that what goes in must come out).

[disneysteve]

Our water bill comes from the water company and is based on usage.

Our sewer bill comes from the county municipal authority and is a flat rate.

Our trash and recycling is covered by our property taxes.

[scfr]

Where we used to live, there were 3 can sizes we could choose from, but only the largest can was provided by the trash company. If we wanted to choose a smaller (less expensive) one we had to buy our own can, which we did. Where we live now there is only 1 size option.

One thing to note is that the automated collection trucks rely on uniformity.

As far as utilities billing, we pay as follows:
1. Electricity (city)
2. Propane (HOA-mandated supplier)
3. Trash & Recycling only
4. Water (water district): It has 2 components, wastewater (aka sewer) and metered water. The wastewater portion has a fixed component plus another metered (usage) component. They measure how much you use in the winter, when most folks aren't watering their lawn or using their pool, and base it off of that. The thinking is that during those winter months all water is going down the drains.

Additionally, our HOA dues include a bit of utilities-related cost because it covers watering of common areas.