Shock & Awe: Electricity & Gas Bills
January 20th, 2010 | 8:28 pm | Posted in Finance | 4 Comments »
My electric bill and natural gas bill were the highest that they have ever been this past month.
It wasn’t even close — I blew my previous highs (from 2005) out of the water.
Now I know that the winter season is upon us and there were a few weeks of frigid weather back in December but an electric bill of $233.67 and a natural gas bill topping out at $335.24 totally caught me by surprise.
At first I thought it was a mistake. Or maybe it was an extra long billing cycle…but it wasn’t either of those.
Ouch.
I loosely budget $500 per month for bills — water, gas, electricity, phone, and cable.
Those two bills alone exceed my budget.
So what’s different from years past?
I’ll tell ya.
See, he hasn’t quite figured out what a blanket is for yet.
He all but refuses to sleep underneath one and, as a result, we keep the heat on a little higher and an electric heater running in his room all night.
That costs a lot.
Okay, so maybe I was a little premature in stating that kids don’t cost that much!
January 20th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Head to Babies R Us and buy a blanket sleeper. It’s basically like a snuggie for babies. They stay nice and warm all night, no matter how much they kick. Much cheaper than constant night time heating.
January 21st, 2010 at 5:57 am
Thanks for the tip — we’ll definitely have to check those out!
January 21st, 2010 at 7:32 am
We have a sleep sack for our (almost) eight month old. After he goes into his PJ’s, he goes into the sleep sack. It has armholes but his legs and the rest are bundled up. He stays warm and our heat bill hasn’t suffered. Besides, my wife has always said that babies shouldn’t be sleeping with blankets until they’re a year old anyways as a way to reduce the chance of SIDS.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:01 am
[...] And because I felt short on money (and those nasty utility bills caught me by surprise), I had to ease off of my pace here — and even take a bit from savings to cover some of my [...]