Cost of gas/electricity per month? - Page 2

[2cutiekitties]

Originally Posted by hennaLisa

I should have said, we live in Atlanta.

I live in Atlanta too, and spend what you spend as well and we are still cold too. It is expensive here.

[sunnysandiegan]

Bills are going to vary a lot for multiple reasons. Therms (gas) and kilowatts per hour (electricity) will be a bit more comparable since those are units of measure and leave price out of the equation.

We have a 1421 sq ft townhome (two stories) in a mild climate. We have gas: furnace/heating, dryer, stove/oven, and hot water heater. The washing machine and refrigerator are the only large electric appliances we have. No A/C or separate freezer. We haven't even used our furnace since February 2009.

For fun, I went into our account online. I can see 25 months of information. We had a MAJOR flood on May 1, 2009. That happens to be the exact day they read our meter, so part of the high electric expense from the fans and blowers made it on the April bill and the rest is on the May bill. With the reconstruction, even our June bill was slightly higher than average, but I left that month in all calculations. I'm a math geek, so here's some fun facts...

Our therm usage ranges from 9 to 32, which averages just under 18 therms per month, and our most common usage is 13 therms (the bill is different for each instance, tho, due to pricing fluctuations). Our bill for just the gas portion ranges from $7.82 to $34.72, which averages $18.57 per month.

Our kWh usage ranges from 295 to 672 (flood) / 414 (ignoring flood), which averages 369 (w/flood) / 349 (w/o flood), and our most common usage is 350. Our bill for just the electric portion ranges from $43.14 to $131.85 (flood) / $58.97 (ignoring flood), which averages $55.13 per month (w/flood) / $50.18 (w/o flood).

Our bills come from the same place and include both gas and electric. The lowest is $56.72 and the highest is $150.92 (flood) / $91.79 (ignoring flood). The average is $73.70 (w/flood) / $68.74 (w/o flood) and our most common bill is $65.

In the past 25 months (including the flood months), we have spent less than $1845 in gas & electric bills. We're home a lot and we cook most meals from scratch. Our kitchen was out of commission for the better part of nine weeks due to the flood and reconstruction. Our therms (mostly gas here) usage was still high. In fact, when I analyzed our usage keeping in mind the flood and the changes we made after it (new hot water heater and new range/range hood and new sliders and new flooring), our new gas appliances are much more efficient!

[sunnysandiegan]

Originally Posted by SleeplessMommy

average electric usage per household, USA:
11,040 kWh, an average of 920 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month.... Tennessee had the highest annual consumption at 15,624 kWh and Maine the lowest at 6,252 kWh.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/ask/electricity_faqs.asp

In the past 25 MONTHS (more than two YEARS), we've used 9,228 kWh...an average of 369 kWh per month (and that includes two extreme months for us and one higher than average month). In the 2009 calendar year, we used 4,794 kWh (includes the anomalies mentioned above; averages 399.5/mo). If I just take the last 12 months, we have used 4,145 kWh (averages 345/mo).

[my2girlz]

Last month we used 831 KWH for $99.85 and used .6 therms/day for $20.89. We live in MN in a 2600 sqft home. In the winter we are usually at $100/month for electricity and $100/month for gas.

[BJewels79]

I'd LOVE to have those bills! We're in Florida (northern, so a little chillier). We are all electric, 1100 sq ft. Heat stays around 70 and AC around 78....our budget billing for electric is barely under $300/month!!

[~PurityLake~]

Originally Posted by hennaLisa

I need to know what other relatively frugal households manage to spend on gas/electricity per month. Please share!

Our bills seem unreasonably high to me - in the winter we tend to spend $150/month on gas as well as $150/month on electricity. We have a gas heater and water heater, and electric everything else including space heaters which we use at night. I often wrap up in blankets and even wear a ski jacket in the evenings indoors.

If you have any tips for how to lower bills, I would love to hear them. My husband keeps saying we need a way to heat just the areas we're in - rather than the whole house. Our house is about 1600 square feet. Any suggestions?

Our "house" is a drafty mobile home that is older than us and is ~ 900 square feet, located in Anchorage, Alaska.

The electric bill is currently $71/month.
The gas bill is currently on budget billing at $90/month.

The snow has been on the ground for a week now.

[samstress]

funny, i just recently figured out what we spend on utilities in an average month. figured out the average over 12 months because, obviously, we spend more for gas in the winter for heat and more for electric in the summer for a/c.

electric - $24.40/month
gas - $42.79/month

our electric bill has gone down since i enrolled in the summer discount plan last year. i get a credit on our bill during the summer season and, if necessary, the electric company will turn off or cycle our air conditioner's compressor off and on during an energy emergency.

[littlest birds]

We have gas heat and stove and water heater, along with a wood furnace. We live in a drafty old house that is often in transition due to the major work we have done the past several years, including gradually increasing insulation and adding removing certain exterior doors.

We use a lot of wood which we do not pay for although we rent a splitter. We keep our thermostat set at 55 at night and 60-65 during the day. We turn it down on warmer afternoons like we have right now. When it gets really cold in January or so we will keep the thermostat a little higher to compensate. The gas comes on if the wood isn't keeping it up to temp, so keeping a good fire in the basement furnace makes a big difference.

We are in Kentucky. Our house is about 1800 sq. feet. Even with the wood going steadily our gas bill will reach $200 during one or two coldest months. It runs at least $40 in the summer just for stove and water heater.

We enclosed our front porch as a room and airlock to create an extra insulated layer. We don't use it as a room in winter although we are going to dry our laundry in there this winter.

We close off rooms, lower thermostat whenever we can (and wear slippers!), work hard for the wood, and try to get the house a little better sealed each year. Gas rates increase for us this year.

[redvlagrl]

I was feeling really bummed that my bills were the highest ($273), until I realized that they also include water usage! Phew!

[Hey Mama!]

Our utility bill includes electricity, trash and water and never gets below $150 a month.  Everything is run on electricity except for our heater. We live in a 110 year old house that has had a few updates (new windows, possbily some insulation).  Our gas bills in the summer are $20 a month for no usage, that's just to keep it on. In the winter our gas usually runs between $100-$150 a month.  We have a programmable theromstat that is set for 63 at night and 68-71 throughout the day.  So, our we average about $300 for the two monthly year round.  This is a huge savings from our previous house.  There we received $300 a month gas bills in the winter.  Another old house but it had the original windows and no insulation. 

[fustian]

Originally Posted by bandgeek 

I know some people in much older houses that have $200 gas bills even though they keep the thermostat below 60 (yes really!). I think most of it has to do with the efficiency of the house not how low you keep the thermostat.

I wish

I keep our house at 60 degrees during the day and 53 degrees at night.  Our monthly oil bills in the winter run $500-$600 (heat and hot water).  Last year, we spent $3500 on oil.

Electricity costs us $80 - $100 month on top of that.  

Our house is about 2800 square feet and is over 150 years old.  We live in a cold city.
 

[laohaire]

Our heat and hot water is fueled by oil. We don't have a monthly bill - we just call for a fillup whenever it's looking low or whenever we think it might be a good time to buy.

Averaged out summer and winter, I think our oil costs about $100-125 a month.

Lately our electric has been $50-60 a month.

We waste a great deal of electricity, I'm afraid. Or rather, my husband does. He leaves the computer on all night, stuff like that. I'm anal and shut everything off. I have spent a good amount of effort conserving electricity, most notably by not using the dryer anymore. I recently strung up clothesline in my living room so I can keep drying all winter (lately I'd been leaving the clothes out all day and they still weren't quite dry by dusk).

We don't waste so much heat, though. Thermostat is set at 62 during the day and 57 at night. Our house is pretty tight, new and really efficient windows, good insulation everywhere but in the kitchen, etc. Not bad for a 105 year old New England house.

Honestly, 62 does feel cold to me. I would be perfectly comfortable at 65 (and every now and then we crank it up to there, especially if I don't feel well). 62 would be ok if I were cleaning house, but just sitting and working at the computer it gets really chilly. I wear long underwear, a "fleece" jacket, etc. At night, I'm ok as long as I have my cat on my feet. That's how he justifies us feeding him, lol.

[sanguine_speed]

Our house is 3000 square feet, and is Energy Star certified (which means it should be very efficient!)  It's only a year old.  We have brand new energy-efficient appliances.  We keep our temps at a reasonable level.

Our hydro bill is awful beyond awful, at $500 every 2 months.  It's been consistent for the past year, and it's baffling.  We moved from a much less efficient home with very old and inefficient appliances and also had central air, and in that house we paid under half what we pay here.  And even though we have central air here, our bill didnt' go up with the summer temps.  And we're not heated by electricity.  We still do the same amount of cooking and laundry that we did at the old house, but with more efficient appliances, so ???

We are investigating wtf is wrong, and our next step is a private energy audit.  We've already tried the Kill-a-watt, tried all sorts of suggestions to minimize use, even shut off the power to see if our meter kept going (it didn't), and flipping all the breakers to measure what's using what...and can't figure it out.

On top of our hydro bill, our heating bill averages $90 per month over the year.

[Poddi]

Our gas bill is usually $100 in winter, that's only for partially heating the house and hot water.  The bedrooms are heated by electric heaters.  I think our electric bill go up about $50 per month in winter.  So all together it's probably a $150 per month heating cost in winter (from Nov. - Mar.).  Our house is about 2300 sqft, though I think the unfinished areas are heated, too.  I thought that's pretty reasonable, at least compared to our neighbors'.  We have one of the smallest houses in the area.  Most houses in our area are over 3000 sqft.