Am I going to regret this?

[anomaly13]

I signed up for our electric and gas companies budget program. Basically you get charged the same amount every month based on you past year's useage. They adjust it every 6 months based on more current usage. I thought it would be nice to have a fixed amount due every month this winter. Gas is $50 per month and electric is $55. I am planning on them flipping after the winter, our heat is gas and our a/c is electric. In the past our bills have combined to about $100 every month, slightly more in the winter and less for a few month in fall and spting when we don't use heat or a/c. I am worried that the gas will jump a lot in the spring when they do the adjustment, but hopefully the electric will take a cut to keep the total at about $100.

Anyone else on a similar program? What happened in your experiencne?

[kathleen_mary]

We are on the budget plan and frankly, it baffles me. Our gas bills are insanely high, though, compared to yours. Our first bill was for $600. Then we got on the budget plan. We paid $200 a month until this month, and just got the new budget amount, which is $86. So I guess we will pay less all winter, and then six months from now, they'll adjust for usage and we'll have big bills all summer. The customer service agents for our gas company are seriously ridiculous to deal with and cannot explain how they calculate it (because they don't even take meter readings with any kind of regularity).

We replaced the windows in the house in the spring, though, so I'm hoping we'll use a lot less gas this winter. We have a boiler that is about 50 years old and according to the guy who just serviced it "it will never break, but only runs at about 40% efficiency". But replacing the boiler is out of the question.

[lunamama]

I like being on a budget plan. IT challenges me to use less electricity. I have consistently lowered the monthly average every year since we have been doing it. PLus, having the same amount taken out every month is so easy to budget.

[zebra15]

I did this when I owned my house. It seemed like a good idea until the month when I had to play catch up and that bill was sky high... Never again....I would rather pay per month, whatever my bill is, than what the utility company *thinks* my bill average is then find out I owe way more then I ever thought imaginable. I've heard stories where the opposite has happened as well and the person gets a huge rebate.

[ChaoticMum]

We've done it before and I've never regretted it. It was nice not having to pay huge amts all winter - usually we ended up getting a bit of money back and our bills lowered...

[sunflower.mama]

We've always done it for oil and it has been great. I wonder if the gas co. would do it on a 12 month basis instead of 6 month, that way you'd really have a steady, predictable expense.

[O's mommy]

We've been on the budget plan for years. I like it because I know what to expect and can budget for it. Ours is usually $250 for gas and electric September-April and May-August $215. It catches up those months. I don't know why it takes several months to "catch up" every year but it is that way every year so I know to expect that. I think our bill is kind of high for our 1,000 sq. ft house when we keep it at 67 day and 65 at night.

[hollytheteacher]

When my dh talked about doing this with our electricty people, the person on the phone said she actually doesn't recommend it. She said with oil it is usually really great/helpful for people, but with electricity random things can happen and usually people end up going way over without realizing it as much and most people on the budget plan around here end up going over and having to pay a huge amount to "catch up" but the opposite seems to be true for heating costs...so who knows? haha

[roadfamily6now]

we have this with our Natural Gas and it is $170 a month. It is great in the winter when we use $300+ a month but hard to swallow when we look at our summer bill and it is only $50. LOL

Still, paying the same amount every month really makes it easy to fit into our budget!

we never play "catch up" since they do a pretty good job of averaging out a years worth of bills. Seems the old owners must have used about the same amount of Gas we do.

[Logan's Mom]

I have it for our electric bill and really like it. I don't recall having a huge catch up bill and have been on it for about 2 years. I think ours is done once a year, but could be wrong. They seem to be pretty spot on with estimating. I like how its easy to budget and I just set my online bill pay which makes it one less thing I need to think about. I also take a look at the bill and like to challenge myself to see if I can use less energy versus same month prior year. If I see a big difference, I can look to see how many calendar days are on the bill. Also, its easy to remember if we had a really cold snap or heat wave, so I take that into account. Basically, using this method takes away any surprises and makes paying my bill a no-brainer.

[Ola_]

Our gas and electric companies offer budget billing but we aren't signed up for it. I like that when we've been trying to use less heat/AC I can see the difference right away, and the smaller bill is a reward for our efforts.

[mama_ani]

I am on equal billing for both hydro and gas (gas for heat & hot water) and really like it. I like knowing the exact amount to come out each month. I find we use less than we pay so we usually end up with a free month or two at the end of the billing year.

[griffin2004]

I've been on the budget plan for my electricy and gas for a year and I love it. I think they must have estimated high because I didn't adjust up at my midyear review and in fact dropped $30/mo for this year.

I love the predictability of it. Those winter budget-busting power bills just killed me.

[pbjmama]

I like budget billing, ours does not vary that much. When the bill comes I can see where we stand so if there was a huge difference I could choose to make it up or pay part of the extra amount owed.

[annethcz]

In our previous home, we had budget billing for natural gas and it worked out really well. We didn't do it for electric because our bill didn't vary as much from month to month.

[RiverSky]

We've done it for years on our electricity bill and it goes up/down less than 5% on occasion, but mostly, stays right at the same general rate. I LOVE it!!!

[CookiePie]

We do it for oil & it is a huge help. Otherwise we get very large bills during the winter when our work is slow & we don't have extra in the budget. So it was a lifesaver for us.

[Hey Mama!]

Unfortunately we haven't lived in a house beyond a year so we cannot take advantage of this, but I'd love to do it for gas. Our gas bills last winter were around $300, and in summer are $25. It's ridiculous.

[leavemealone]

I've been on budget billing for a while now but I haven't ever done the analysis to see if it's really worth it. I do know that we tend to overpay in the summer and underpay in the winter. Each month, we'll receive a notice showing the budget billing payment and whether it resulted in a debit/credit balance. I think it balances out pretty well overall for us.

[maggiemae]

Originally Posted by Ola_

Our gas and electric companies offer budget billing but we aren't signed up for it. I like that when we've been trying to use less heat/AC I can see the difference right away, and the smaller bill is a reward for our efforts.

same here