9/11/2009

August Utilities

Posted by with 5 comments | in
Frugal Dreamer got me thinking about my utilities this month, so I thought I would share as they will be debited from my account during this pay period. They are as follows:
  • Major utilities - $269.42
The major utilities include water, sewer, recyling and garbage pick up as well as gas and electricity.  If people are interested I could break down all the costs.
  • Satillite TV - $74.86
I'm actually pretty happy with this bill.  It used to be $92 plus/month until I negotiated a lower price for 12 months with the same services.
  • Phone/High Speed Internet - $66.06
We have the second teir of high speed internet and the most basic digital phone line available.  Unfortunatly there are not a lot of competors for phone/internet where we are.


That works out to be $82.07 each and everyone put in their share on time. Everyone is pretty good about this, and new roommate left her monies on the fridge for me - hooray!

It sure is nice splitting it five ways now that we have a roommate rather then four ways.

Keep in mind that there are five people in a three bedroom, 2.5 bathroom, 3 level townhouse.  In addition to the standard appliances we have two mini fridges (one beer fridge, and one for two of my roomates b/c there wasn't enough room in the fridge), and one small freezer.  People are pretty good about keeping lights and what not off but everyone has at least one computer, most of us have a computer and a laptop which increases the electricity bill.  Jordan and I also have three fishtanks, which use less electricity then people might think - but it's still more then if we didn't have them.

We don't have A/C but we do have a couple of fans to help with airflow.

Related Posts:

  • Utilities - 4 Year TrendAs long as I've been tracking our daily spending, I've been tracking our expenditures on utilities longer.  This late in the game, I wish I had a break down on gas, water, electricity, power, sewer, ect - but this includ… Read More
  • Utilities - Year in Review It's silly really - but I love being able to do my annual report on utilities because i've been tracking it for so long, I am able to create pretty graphs.  Keep in mind that each month is that which the utilities were … Read More
  • Home Phone?Do you still have a home phone? It seems that less and less people actually do...I actually feel like a bit of a dinosaur for still having one.  Every time it comes up, we always find a reason to keep it...but here's … Read More
  • ...One more changeAfter writing today's post yesterday, and then reading it again today, I felt good about saving the $20, but it didn't feel like enough.  We went back through the TV plan and decided to get rid of the premier package ($8… Read More
  • 2010 Utilities in ReviewBelow is a graph of our utility expenses for the 2010 year.  I thought it might be interesting to share this and to see if anyone else does a similar blog post.  Our average monthly bill decreased from $267.45 (2009… Read More

5 comments:

  1. Mom11 September 2009 at 08:34

    It's a good thing you share those bills! They seem like a lot to me. I complain because our cable and internet together are $92 per month, and if I add the phone line it is another $50. Can you tell there is no competition here?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jessie11 September 2009 at 08:51

    It is a lot... but I'm not really sure how to get it down any more...every three months or so I take on a different service provider and negotiate a bit of a better deal. I watch enmax and have moved from variable to fixed to variable when the prices change...Being the only one who really cares enough to keep tabs on it is hard too... and people really don't like it when I follow them around turning off lights.

    We are locked in for another year on contract with the TV but after that we can look at other options for that one.

    Does anyone have ideas on how to lower the major utility bill?

    ReplyDelete
  3. SS4BC11 September 2009 at 09:15

    Wow - Pay $65 for the highest internet and cable. I mean, I don't get any premium channels, but I get a good 65 channels. Speaking of which... I really need to get on my task of cancelling my cable this month!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jessie11 September 2009 at 10:27

    We have a but load of channels.. it's a challenge because with five people - everyone likes to watch different things...I wonder if we could re examine this to bring down costs. We set up the package a year ago.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous11 September 2009 at 14:02

    I think that for 5 people, this is pretty reasonable. If this were for 2 people, then it would be a little extreme.

    Unfortunately, with your major utility bill, you NEED all of those services. And again because there are 5 people, it would be hard to manage water and electricity usage.

    I think the system you have right now is good. The only way I could see it being reduced would be canceling or cutting back on the satellite. But again, with 5 people - this is beyond your control. I bet someone in the house watches it. And again, $82.00 each for everything you listed is a pretty damn good deal!

    I pay $100 for phone & internet and then (around) $20-$40 for electric, monthly.

    ReplyDelete

Hi! Thank you for stopping by and leaving a message.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Links ♥

Followers