Blogging Away Debt

Were We Able to Reduce our Electric Bill?

Our electric bill for last month was a whopping $91. That was the highest bill we have ever had. First thought was that the price of our electricity raised, but that wasn’t the cause. It was our usage that had increased. I was not happy with that bill at all and we made some changes to try to get it reduced.

We spent $30 and installed CFL light bulbs in our home. I unplugged the freezer that we really do not use. I turn off my computer powerstrip when I am not working. I unplug the microwave when not in use (and I drive my husband crazy with doing it LOL). I did attempt to stop using our fans at night to sleep, but that didn’t work. I think I am going to try to buy some timers when they go on sale. All in all, the changes we made should have made our electric bill go down.

It didn’t 🙁

Our bill came the other day and it was $96! It is an actual reading too, so it’s not a matter of them estimating incorrectly. I am a little bummed.

Looking at the bill, we used about 100 KWH more than this period last year. Ouch. Thankfully my electric company gives a few more stats that are of interest.

Average daily temp this year: 5
Average daily temp last year: 25
Percent Colder: 44
Avg KWH/Day this year: 21.6
Avg KWH/Day last year: 18.4

So it has been quite a bit colder this year than last year. I’m not sure if that would equate to using almost 100 KWH more in energy, though. We have natural gas heat, but our blower uses electricity. Also, there was about a week of bitter cold temperatures where I used a small space heater sporadically in my office. My office does not have a heating vent so it was very cold in there. I tried to hold off as long as I could, but when you can’t type because your fingers are cold that’s not good.

I may try doing a few more things like getting a few more powerstrips if they go on sale (so we can turn everything off when not in use) and of course the timers for our fans. Other than that, I’m not sure there is much more we can do. I’m sure our computers are taking a bit of juice but my husband and I both need them for work and of course this blog.

I guess we will see what next month brings.

Oh My…It’s March, We Made It!

by Tricia

When we purchased our health insurance in December, we only signed up my husband and myself because my son was still covered through the state sponsored plan through the end of 2006. I figured that I would call and add him to start his coverage in January.

Well, I couldn’t do that. The earliest I could add him to our plan was March. I had thought about getting some short term health insurance for him because he is 5 years old and likes to jump off everything, but I didn’t. With life going on, it slipped my mind.

It didn’t even hit me until a few minutes ago that yesterday was March 1st. Our son is now on our policy. Yay!

All three of us have health insurance, we are contributing to a retirement account, we have money in a savings account, our debt is going down, and next week we will be having our exam for life insurance policies. Our financial house is slowly but surely getting the solid foundation that it needs.