If your electricity company has a special rate for saving money on your electricity, you should look into it.
In Arizona we have two major electric service providers, Arizona Public Service and Salt River Project.
We have APS and are on the Time Advantage Rate (this plan is no longer available for APS customers unless you are already using it).
On the Time Advantage Rate our “on-peak” hours are between 9am and 9pm. There’s no way we can shut down everything for the entire day, so the main thing we avoid using during these hours is the dryer. Mr. A and I wash clothing before 9am, or on weekends. On occasion our son AJ washes and dries a load during the on-peak hours.
We have to run the air conditioning unit during the day, which is a huge energy hog.
In spite of this, we still end up saving money on the Time Advantage Rate.
This is what we pay for kilowatt hours during the summer months:
- OFF-PEAK [M-F 9pm-9am and all day Sat. and Sun] usage $0.05774 per kilowatt hour
- ON-PEAK [M-F 9am-9pm] usage $0.17866 per kilowatt hour
On our most recent bill we used 4003 kilowatt hours between July 21 and June 18th.
2280 of those were OFF-PEAK. The remaining 1723 were ON-PEAK.
Compared to last year, with the same number of days (33), we used a 111 less kilowatt hours, and $0.42 less per day.
As you can see by the graph below, we have consistently used less electricity for the entire year of 2010.
Our electricity charges for July 2010 was $497.92.
By contrast, if we were on the standard plan with APS, we would have paid $625.92.
By my calculations, we saved $128.00 using the Time Advantage Plan.
I would love to see these amounts go down, but there are four adults living in our home, and someone is home at all times. I mean, if we were all four leaving the house every day to go to a job outside the home we could turn the temperature down. We keep the thermostat at 81°F at all times and that is the lowest we can keep it. I have tried going lower but one major problem arises and that is our oldest son Big A getting heat rash under his arms. It is painful and takes several days to heal so I am not putting him through that to lower our electricity bill.
We are also on the budget plan where they take the amount we used in the last year and break out 12 equal payments $296.00 for the next year. This helps considerably. And we make an auto-payment so this saves an additional forty-eight cents. Hey, every penny counts!
While researching this, and trying to talk my mom into trying it out, I learned that Salt River Project actually has a guarantee that if your bill isn’t lower then they will reimburse your account and put you back on the plan you were on before.
I am excited to see how much money my mom will save.
I also tried to talk another friend into signing up with one of the savings plans. I know she would save money but she absolutely refused to even look into it. Oh well. Maybe I put a bug in her ear to check it out someday.
Do you use a savings plan through your electricity company? If you don’t know, you should make a point to check. Maybe your electricity company guarantees that you’ll save money so it could be a simple and painless way to put a bit more of your hard earned money into your pocket.
I just found your ad on enemyofdebt.com and clicked through. Too cool! I’m in Phoenix too. We are on the 12p-7p plan. We have 6 in our household, have 2400 sq ft single level with 2 AC units, and face south. Our July bill was $459. We keep our AC at 77* until 7pm, when we crank it down to 71* bedrooms & 74* common areas.
We were on the 9-9 but found that having the air on lower at 7pm made such a difference. We haven’t tried the equal payments yet so next month we’ll have to ask for that. Equal payments would be so much better!
Where in Phoenix are you? I just moved from Glendale to Surprise (and work in Tempe lol).
Allie
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
September 6th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Wow Allie, you are doing FANTASTIC with your electricity bill! I wish we could try putting the temperature down that low but my husband hates the cold.
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Nice post. Kudos for the attention you are giving to your energy use. For SRP customers trying to decide which price plan is best for them, we have the following page that can help: http://www.srpnet.com/prices/home/ChooseYourPricePlan.aspx
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Mrs. A, very good point you bring up about off-peak plans, they are a smart move. Personally, I can’t wait until solar panels are more affordable….I plan to turn my house into it’s own generator.
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Was trying to remember the site that helps local communities find affordable solar power and I just found it in my favorites: http://www.1bog.org in case you’re intereted.
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Salt River Project occasionally tries to persuade me that I should get into their monthly averaging plan. But the truth is, for about 8 of every 12 months, my bills are less than the amount they say would be the average; for three of those months, they’re LOTS less. I’d rather pay more in the summer (yeah…LOTS more) and have a rock-bottom bill in December that leaves something in my budget for Christmas presents. If I had to pay SRP’s supposed “average,” I’d be broke year-round instead of only in June, July, August, and September.
As for the time-of-day thing: they sent a guy out here to set up the meter when I asked for that. When he found out I have a dog that lives INSIDE the house, he informed me that people who have dogs are not eligible. They WILL NOT let you participate in time-of-day pricing if you have a pet dog. They seriously suggested I get rid of my little corgi!!!!!
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