electric bill is kinda high

[red92s]

T.E.D. : Electricity Monitor, Energy Monitor, Power Monitor

[GREENBACK]

HCOLA, what can I say? What did you use? Was my 313 therms and 850 kwh that high compared to most people? I've seen on other boards and blogs it's really not high compared to most families.

I honestly do believe it's the COLA.

I pay 3.4 cents per kwh. I used 2,078 kwh in feb.. Bill was $ 193.07. I don't consider this bad because everything is powered by electricity and I have no gas bill or water/sewer bill to pay. I do have to buy heating oil every couple months depending on how much wood I burn.

Not sure how my rate compares but seems decent for the area I'm in but you may have a point on the HCOLA. My area would be considered a LCOLA by most people. BTW, what are "therms"?

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Greenback, you use in a month what I use in five and a half months! Five and a half winter months, anyway.

Got out my last bill: $29.45 for 374 kwh $1.18 of that is tax. Supposedly my rate is 6.6 cents/kwh, but the arithmetic doesn't come out quite right.

The bill was previous to that was for $29.56, so I guess we don't much fluctuate on our basic electricity use.

Goldy, I found this Business Week article from last summer. It puts Michigan in a generally average cost of electricity area. There is a nice map in the article that gives an idea of who pays what. Alaska is the most expensive.

Power Surge.

[GREENBACK]

Greenback, you use in a month what I use in five and a half months! Five and a half winter months, anyway.

Got out my last bill: $29.45 for 374 kwh $1.18 of that is tax. Supposedly my rate is 6.6 cents/kwh, but the arithmetic doesn't come out quite right.

The bill was previous to that was for $29.56, so I guess we don't much fluctuate on our basic electricity use.

Goldy, I found this Business Week article from last summer. It puts Michigan in a generally average cost of electricity area. There is a nice map in the article that gives an idea of who pays what. Alaska is the most expensive.

Power Surge.

I'm a bit curious as to how much of your utilities are electric. The only thing I have that uses anything but complete electricity is my oil furnace but even that needs elec.. If the elec. goes out I have nothing here. My house is also a home office so I spend a fair amount of time here in the winter which adds to usage. My typical fair weather usage is in the 1000 kwh range or lower.

[maat55]

Strangly, our power company is petitioning our city to lower rates due to lower fuel costs.

[disneysteve]

What did you use? Was my 313 therms and 850 kwh that high compared to most people? I've seen on other boards and blogs it's really not high compared to most families.

On my Feb bill, gas usage was estimated as they didn't read the meter. The estimate was 159.946 therms. Electric actual reading was 550 kWh.

We are on the equal payment plan of $223.00 but the actual usage was $350.06.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I'm a bit curious as to how much of your utilities are electric. The only thing I have that uses anything but complete electricity is my oil furnace but even that needs elec.. If the elec. goes out I have nothing here. My house is also a home office so I spend a fair amount of time here in the winter which adds to usage. My typical fair weather usage is in the 1000 kwh range or lower.

Well, we heat with natural gas, but the furnace requires electricity for the blower. Other uses are the lights (all fluorescent), the refrigerator which doesn't work hard in the room temp of about 60F, the 2 desktops with tube type CRTs, a tv (older, tube), a radio which is on all night, a microwave oven used to warm food and to make tea. I use an electric warming throw for about an hour every night. My husband uses an electric heating pad probably 15 hours a week. Sometimes we run a crock pot for 8-12 hours.Then there are little things like the router, the coffee maker, toaster which gets infrequent use, the washing machine which usually runs only for about 6-8 minute wash cycles (that's probably not "little"), a medium size air filter which we use daily, the cell phone charger, and the electric ignition on the gas stove and oven.

That's all I can think of. We don't have many little electric things like shavers, curling irons, hair dryers, food processors, blenders, mixers, separate video games, yard tools, shop tools. I do not even use my vacuum cleaner, but a broom and mop instead. I don't think we are Luddites or anything, but there are many times when I choose to do under my own power what I could use a small machine to do.

I am home all day and husband is home 4 days a week..

My summer electricity bill more than quadruples due to using A.C.

[GREENBACK]

My summer electricity bill more than quadruples due to using A.C.

Pretty strange. My elec. bill is lower in the summer with the A/C going but we don't use it a whole lot (lots of trees around). My lowest kwh last year was 851 in May. I have a submersible water pump, electric water heater, electric oven....etc.. I guess it all adds up.

[asmom]

HCOLA, what can I say? What did you use? Was my 313 therms and 850 kwh that high compared to most people? I've seen on other boards and blogs it's really not high compared to most families.

I honestly do believe it's the COLA.

That seems exorbitant. Last month we used 187 therms and our overall bill was $238 for 2500 square feet. That's about as high as it ever gets.

[GREENBACK]

I still don't know what the hell a "therm" is. Any help?

[SnoopyCool]

Therm

[GREENBACK]

I've never heated with anything besides oil heat, wood or electric so I had no Idea. Thankyou.

[whitestripe]

our electricity bill is about $230 for three months. i know we could reduce it a lot - we too accidently leave lights on, leave tv's on standby etc. atleast we turned off our extra fridge which should make a difference.