Bummer! I got a notice by email a couple of days ago that our electricity bill is going up to $296/month. Shoot! It was down to $280/month. I was a little worried that it was going to go up again, because there has been more than one day in the last month that 80°F was more than I could handle, and turned the thermostat down to 78°F.
I need to continue to be proactive in watching the meter and making sure we're keeping the thermostat at 81°F, which is where we kept it at last year. I need to buy a floor fan for my desk area, as the air circulating is often all I need to feel cool enough.
Spring is here and summer is just around the corner, and it's very hot here during the summer. Thank goodness for air conditioners. I've lived through many summers with only evaporative cooling, and it's not any fun.
I need to do some more detective work to see if I can get our bill to go down again. It's also interesting how often our bill is being changed, they used to only make the change once a year.
Gosh, those are scary power bills at this time of year. That’s higher than mine, for a four-bedroom house with an 18,000-gallon pool in the dead of summer! And I do crank the air conditioning at night: the bedroom (of COURSE!) is the warmest room in the house, and I can’t sleep when it’s over about 78, even with the fan on. I do let the temp get up to around 80 or 82 during the daytime, though.
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
April 4th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Yeah, it always make me feel a little bit crazy when I hear of others with MUCH lower electricity bills. But then I have to remember, there’s four of us here, everything is electric, at least one of us is here 24/7, and often someone is up at every hour of the day and night. And we do a lot of cooking, at least three meals a day. Also, Mr. A does have some business use of the electricity by using his welder, or circular saw, etc. Also, the amount we’re paying now is the same every month, year round. The actual month’s usage was $240.
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Those are indeed very high electric bills, although I did pay very close to what you pay a few years ago. After doing some research I cut my bill down by forty percent simply by following-through on some simple energy conservation steps such as unplugging power strips, and limiting energy use throughout our home. Its amazing at just how much we haphazardly waste energy without even knowing it, if you want to cut your energy costs it might not be a bad idea to do the same, cheers.
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