Utilities increase?

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Have your utilities gone up over covid? So our electric has gone up quite a bit because we are home and the heating is obviously more during the day versus before it would be like 55 all day. Also the water bill from more dishes and laundry. But I called about my water bill because the amount used seemed weirdly large. So they said because of covid they have had less people working. So then our water bill was read 15 days early around October 15th = $273. But this next bill was $325 because it was read later as well and posting later January 7th. Same thing happened with our electric. The cycles were not on perfectly like they normally are.

Did anyone else notice this too?

[disneysteve]

We haven't seen any change, but our routine really didn't change either. My wife doesn't work outside of the house. My daughter was laid off for a few months but has been back to work since July. And my job never changed. So we're home as much as always and usage is pretty stable. The only thing that didn't happen the past year was family vacations. Those always result in a little dip in the utility bills when we're away from home for a week or two at a time.

Our gas, electric, and water for 2020 came to $384 more than in 2019, maybe some of that is due to COVID and no travel. Some is also due to rate increases. So not a huge difference.

[srblanco7]

We are definitely higher for both electricity and gas - as I've been WFH for (almost) the last year. Our house used to be effectively "turned off" for 6-7 hours a day when I was going to the office.

[bjl584]

We had an increase in electric the past 2 months but nothing to do with covid
My girlfriend was off work for about 8 weeks from knee surgery, so she was at home the entire time where normally she was working during the day

[ua_guy]

Hard to quantify since we've been working from home since we bought this new place.

I'm going to guess any increase is completely offset plus some compared to having to drive two gas-powered vehicles to work every day plus any work-related meals or coffee outside of the house.

[disneysteve]

I'm going to guess any increase is completely offset plus some compared to having to drive two gas-powered vehicles to work every day plus any work-related meals or coffee outside of the house.

Very true. A lot of the increased spending people are seeing due to COVID is offset by lower spending in other areas. We're spending more on groceries, for example, but way less on dining out. We're maybe spending a bit more on utilities but zero on travel. Bottom line is our overall spending is down significantly due to COVID.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Ours is down a lot without eating out for sure. On average we were spending $800/month eating out. Probably half that or less for the most part. Also travel. Gas we never spent more than $100/month but it's even less now strangely enough.

[disneysteve]

Ours is down a lot without eating out for sure. On average we were spending $800/month eating out. Probably half that or less for the most part.

Exactly. I see so many people "complaining" that their grocery bills have shot up, but they don't seem to be looking at that in context. Is overall food spending up? Probably not. Or people "complaining" about higher costs from WFH but ignoring that they're hardly driving, not using gas, not paying for parking or public transportation or going out for coffee or lunch.