by Beks
The roommates have been out about a month now and we are starting to receive our very first utility bills for just the two of us. We all used the same common areas and shared the TV so I didn’t anticipate much of a dip when they left. Sure the water bill would drop a little but that’s it…
Or so I thought.
The water bill did drop a little, only about $20. Since our water bills are sent every two months, this wasn’t a full cycle for two of us, but it’s a pretty good indicator of what we’ll be paying next time.
The cable bill dropped more than $30. They took their cable box and DVR with them and I didn’t realize the monthly expense of the extra cable box. That’s what I get for writing checks and not reading bills!
The most shocking bill of all? Electric. Since we’ve had roommates from the day we moved into our home, we never knew what the total would be without them. The statement would always hover between $135 and $160 per month. This month? $78.
We don’t have roommates to cover half the bills BUT…
Overall, we aren’t that far from what we’ve been paying.
Who knew we were so ‘green’!!??!!
Beks is a full-time government employee who enjoys blogging late into the night after her four kids have gone to sleep. She’s been married to Chris, her college sweetheart, for 15 years. In 2017, after 3 long years working the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, they paid off more than $70K and became debt free. When she’s not working or blogging, she’s exploring the great outdoors.
I would jump for joy if my bill was that low. Somehow- I can’t convince the kids to pay their share 😉
I was thinking the same thing! We only have one utility bill but our electicity for the year totals $6000 or about $500/mth. That’s for heat/AC, water (well pump) and regular household electricity, but still. Those #1200/mth bills in the winter months are painful and only slightly compensated by the “small” $200 bills in the summer. One more reason to hate a Canadian winter. I particularly hate the new 8% tax they just stuck on top of that bill too. Like I needed the electricity portion of my budget to jump by 8%.
We read the electricity daily (can you say OCD?) and if it goes up unexpectedly, we usually can identify why.
When our son and foster son left home for college, there was a noticeable dip. Not so much less hot water for the showers, it was the lack of their desk top computers. Both had 200w power supplies and were on 24/7. That’s 4 100w lightbulbs on, all the time.
Jenn: you need to look into your insulation, etc. We live in a 100% electric home like you (water pump, sump pump, electric heat and hot water, plus we run our consulting business from the house.) The house is 3200 square feet and we live just outside Ottawa (the 7th coldest capital city, thanks to global warming – it used to be #3). My Hydro bill for past 12 months is $2700. Of course, there are only two of us living here, we keep it cold (20c in winter) and we have a ground source heat pump so our a/c is almost free. With the heavy-duty windows and insulation, we run the house down to 23 in the early morning during off-peak hours and then it is set to come on at 28c but hasn’t yet this year. In the evening when off-peak hours kick in, we reduce the temp to 25. What little a/c is run takes the heat and pumps it into the hot water tank so the usage is almost the same with a/c or without.
If your bills are that high and you’ve already done the insulation and energy efficient windows, I’d recommend you look into a heat pump. We had an air-to-air one before that cut our electricity bill by about 1/3 and the ground source cut our bills by over 1/3 of the previous low. Payback time is longer because we are so frugal with electricity anyway, but there are other big advantages, including how quiet it is.
Thats’ why it’s a good idea to live by yourself if you can. Unless you already have a family of course, then having self discipline and sharing the bill would be great.