I’m happy for you that you can minimize the effect of gasoline prices, but I thought you should be forewarned about natural gas prices for next winter. It’ll be easy to let that slip your attention this summer when your usage will be low, but it may be a nasty shock next winter.

Currently, near-term natural gas futures are selling for $12.079. A year ago they were $7.87. Futures for this winter are running about $12.50-13.00. Futures for the same span for this past winter were trading about $9.60 last year.

What does this mean? Be ready for the actual gas cost (not your customer fee, but the cost per ccf you use) to increase dramatically this winter. I would budget on that bill increasing 33%-40% over this last winter, and possibly more, if futures do not retreat from these highs or the weather is worse.

You can give them a call at 877-513-7863 to speak to a debt specialist.

Thanks American Freedom Financial!!!!

I do smoke outside. Oddly enough, I dislike second-hand smoke. Right now I can’t seem to handle stress very well. Hopefully with more fishing and fun outdoor stuff I can de-stress some.

Connie – the amount up there ($86) is for comp. & collision per month. Our car is still worth a little more than $5K

Renee – my husband loves to watch Lost online. It looks much better on his computer than our TV. Growing up, I never had cable. But we lived within range of a lot of local TV stations. I wish we had that ability.

I personally would have a hard time without TV since I like having animal planet or HGTV on in the background while I work!

For most things this resembles my boyfriend’s and my spendings since cohabitating.

Since you’re pondering it, I highly recommend ditching the cable TV. Since moving out of my parents home 3+ years ago I had to make that decision based on fincances. I was a sucker for the local weather, cooking, and comedy channels, but couldn’t afford it on my own.
I chose instead to stick with internet; I get my local news and weather every morning via RSS feeds on my local paper’s website and look up home projects and new recipes on the cable network’s respective websites. For comedy, there’s always Podcasts via iTunes, same with favorite TV show episodes and a lot of movies. Of course, Netflix is awesome and 1/2 as much as cable.
It’s worth a shot for a couple of months, and summer is a great time to try to live without the draw of a TV… it will really get you making use of local attractions, gardening, or working out more

Great job during April!

SavingDiva – April was a bad month for weather. Just wait till you see May’s gas bill. I was shocked. But we were very cold this year for a long time. Just now we are getting leaves on the trees.

We have CFLs in almost every room of the house. The only exception is our spare room which we don’t use and the lights in the basement since we barely use it.

We also plugged in our freezer when our fridge broke. I really think that thing eats the electricity. As soon as we can, we are turning it back off.

And now to state the obvious…I wish you the best of luck with finding the strength to quit smoking whenever you’re ready. Besides helping your finances, you’ll be so much healthier and a better role model for your son. My partner finally quit when I made it clear that I would be pissed off and unsympathetic if he ended up leaving me too soon in life due to a smoking-related disease

I only see 2 items that were inflated: Food and the office chair.

Hopefully with your fridge working this month that food number will drop, and you won’t be buying another office chair. Things look good for you for May to have lower expenses.

Keep up the good work.

Any chance you could quit smoking? My sister did and rather suprisingly started banking the 20 bucks a week a year or two latter and she’s got 2400 in the bank. This from a lady, who like me, can’t save money if her life depended on it. Quite an accomlishment!