If you missed part 1 of my “back to frugal school series,” click here.
Another part of our budget that gets the frugal overhaul are the utility bills. For the most part, we have a monopoly here when it comes to utility companies, but this year, I planned on really evaluating all of our options. There is a new company that we are able to use, so it have become a contender. We do a good job of not using up too much energy, but in the winter we always seem to have an increase in our bill. It could be because I’m always cold (I mean ALWAYS…it’s ridiculous) or because we spend more time indoors, but now that we have been in our new place for over a year, I can look back at the bills and tighten the budget based on those numbers.
We will continue to take advantage of off-peak hours and wash clothes and dishes during those times. I’ve also tracked when the sunlight shines right into the main rooms of our home, so I can make sure I turn off the heat during those times and rely on mother nature. I would like to decrease our utility bill by about 15% this year so we can more aggressively save for some things that we have coming up. It will be interesting to see if we accomplish that goal.
Does the off-peak hours thing really work or does it vary by company? I thought that you just got charged a flat rate of $x/kW-hr.
It might vary by company, but here we have PSEG and by using our off-peak hours, we cut about 60 to 80 dollars off our bill. You can always call your company and find out their policy. They won’t deliberately give you the information, but if you call and actually ask they will tell you.
I loved tou in AZ. Here it does not seem to pay because the hours are crazy for off peak. I am too old to stay up that late.