Tr, I can't remember if we had Pedernales when we were out there, lol Is that who y'all have?

Yep, that's who we have. Thoughts????

Well, I remember it being a lot less than Austin, lol
We have Bluebonnet now and it is much cheaper than friends in Austin now
Everything has gone up tho

We need to vote for regulation again! Just a suggestion...PJ

My bill is starting to climb. A little over 100 but my gas is now in the 20's. I have a gas stove and water heater but electric dryer which I use at least once a day. Last July I got a bill over 300!

Man - what sounds bad to ya'll sounds great to me?! My last bill was a bargin (so I thought) at $168 - before we turned on the A/C this week. All last summer it was $350-$400...we have no pool or anything major sucking juice and keep the a/c around 78-82...We have crummy TXU - mainly out of fear of the unknown and horror stories friends have suffered when tryin to change to other companies. Something has got to give or we're gonna have to give up eating soon -lol
~Angie~

We hurried and singed up for average billing with TXU before they demanded our first born as payment. After that heat wave last August we had to make a choice, eat more pasta & hotdogs or eat well in the dark.

Me too Angie!! My bill last month was $350.00 Im telling ya..I don't know whats worse...gasoline or electricity....
I feel some days Im paying to work due to the gasoline costs...sighh..I work 52 miles one way so 104 round trip every weekday....
Dena

Boy, y'all have some big bills! Guess I shouldn't worry about it so much. I just think ours is large for only two people in a 5 1/2 year old house. Our fridge, washer and dryer are all 11 years old. I'm still thinking it's the stove/oven, though.

I'm paying like 15.9 cents per KWH

Our electric is high winter time 250.00 summer 450.00
Three years ago we had a whole new A/C system put in even new ducks to the tune of 10,000.00 bucks hoping this would save us money on ele, HA NOT one cent was saved casue the bill stayed the same. So much for all the lies we were told on how much the new A/C would save us.
We also tried another company and did not see any savings so what are you to do.
BTW, It's only me and DH so it's not like we have kids running in and out of the house or leaving doors open.
As for gas my little toyota that I could fill up for 20 bucks now takes 40 :( I'm glad I have a small car cause I'd have to sell or park one that cost 80 or more to fill up.

Barb, there are other ways that energy could be escaping.
Our last bill was $126 and I have had the AC on steadily since the end of April, we started putting fluorescents (sp?) in almost 3 years ago and I really can tell a difference, we caulked and recaulked around windows and have made sure all of the weather stripping is good
Just a littel thing like keeping the shades closed on the west side makes a diference
Tr, older appliances suck a bunch of juice, lol
Tell hubby you need newer Energy Star appliances

My last bill was $258.29 for 2317 KWH and if I figured it right....258.29 divided by 2317, we pay just a bit over .11
per KWH. We're in a really good co-op. Our yearly average monthly usage is 2718KWH. The really big bills are just around the corner. I'm dreading the bills for July & Aug, they're always the highest, last year both months ran around 3500 KWH. We have a new house & appliances and almost all florescent lighting & well insulated. Me & my puppies are usually the only ones here, but I keep it at 75-76 because of my allergies. I can't breathe with high humidity or dust.
Be sure and change your filters often and get good ones.

I'm so sorry some of you have such high bills!!! I'd really be going over everything with a fine tooth comb if I had that bill, lol. Course, I think I'm a little obsessive when it comes to electricity.

I dug out last months bill. For the month of march, we used 1049 kwh divided by 110.95 = .11 per kwh. Our highest bills are always in the winter, this past winter reaching close to 300.00. But, I guess by comparison, it's not so bad... Just that I remember 5 years a go our bill was only 60.00. I know they started charging more, but?? Oh well.

Thanks for y'alls input. I'm still buying a crockpot, lol.

Jolana, We have done all of that and of the west windows I put on the film tint have blinds. I miss the bright sun in the house but not the heat that came through them.
We had a new patio door put in three years ago, son caulked all the windows. All of our appliances are no older than 7 years, washer and drier only two years old. Now one thing that does cost more is the pool but not much cause I've talked to my neighbors to see if theirs were high as mine and theirs was only about 40 bucks difference.Could be the size of our home also, ours is larger than others on the block but you couldn't tell me that by the looks of theirs. Only down fall of our lay out is there's no dinning room?????? Why would they leave out an important room like that. It would cost more than I'm willing to pay out to have it redesigned so I live with it LOL.
I'd rather look for another home and I think I have DH catching the bug of looking hehehehe. We'd like to move out into the country north of us DH works at Alliance so we don't want to get to far out but enough to have some room.
House I'd like a good one LOL, The most important thing I want in a house is a beautiful wrap around porch, I want to be able to sit outside whenever I can in a rocking chair.
DH wants in a home is a big building out back for all his tools and stuff and I'd love it to so he can get it all out of the garage and we could park the cars in the garage.
That's what happens when you marry a mechanic. Oh and a DH that loves it cold inside :( I freeze my buns off at night and have to dress as if it's winter but I can't say anything cause he works out in the heat all day in a hanger with ovens running at or more than 1000 degrees, poor guy.

The cost of utilities will continue to climb, as the stock holders expect the same return as the oil companies are getting.

Of course the people who can afford stocks are the top 10% income bracket.....so, as the saying goes, the rich keep getting richer, while the poor, keep getting poorer, and the middle class supports everyone.

I am considering moving from the middle class to the poor, so I can get the freebies.

How do we make this move to the poor, except for paying for gas and electricity?

I live in a house that is close to 100 yo, no insulation except in the attic, hollow walls, raised. No central ac-when I checked into it was told would need 2-3 zones. And a unit last about 7 years on the coast. 12' ceilings up and down, even the attic has a 10' ceiling. Lots of windows, BIG windows. House on pier and beams. Hot in the summer and cold in the winter. We only heat the bedroom and the bathroom and only a/c 2 rooms in summer. Just 2 people, wash the dog beds at the laundry mat. Don't cook. Electric bill this month almost $100. Will be the lowest we get for months. Ceiling fans. Efficient ac, efficient appliances. Doesn't matter. The electric company decides how much your bill is and that's what they send you. When I was gone for 3 months they sent me a $250 bill for one month!! I cursed and yelled and finally they came and read the meter, my bill was $198. BAH! No one was at the house! Could one little porch light cost that month? The next month, when I was home, the ac was running, the bill was $149. Go figure.

Just wait till gas gets to $6 a gallon! Thank goodness for those big windows, they are going to be open & we'll be sweating!
Tally HO!

All you gotta do, is give up owning stuff. If you don't own anything, and you aren't employed, or you are underemployed at the "poverty" level, then you qualify for subsidized housing, food stamps, free medical care, and all the rest of what we now pay for, in exhorbitant taxes, as middle class, because the poor pay no taxes except sales tax.....when and if they actually buy anything.

We've decided to move back toward Houston. Just can't make a living out here and with fuel costs - pffttttt!
Everything that makes "country living" so attactive is also soooo expensive.
Gardens gobble water, land takes mowing which takes fuel (ouch), horses need feed which has more than doubled in cost, trash pickup has doubled due to their fuel costs and it's a long, gas guzzling trip to anywhere!
Sad...

Making a living is a challenge anywhere, anymore.

In the global economy, everyone (save the top 10%) is in the same boat, and that is a small rowboat, not a yacht.

mikeandbarb...you are scaring me! We just had a new AC system installed and DH replaced all the ductwork. We are waiting for our new bill as we are expecting it to be cheaper than normal. I hope we have better luck with our new system than you have!!!
We run over $300 in the summer months and we have Reliant. Our house is less than 2000sqft and in the past summers I feel like I live in a cave...we don't open the blinds, only turn on the necessary lights, don't bake! It is ridiculous!!

We do the average billing thing, so our bill is around $240 - a little less or a little more each month. That is better than having those surprise $400 bills in the middle of the summer. We try to conserve too by keeping the air conditioning around 78 in the summer and the heat around 70-72 in the winter. I wish I could complain about my electric bill being just over $100.

My house is just over 2000 ft. and I put R-30 insulation in when I built it. The electric bill has never been over about $330., even in peak heat.

Of course, my tree placement was designed to block the sun in morning and afternoon, off the house as much as possible.

You really wonder how people handled the heat in Texas, before air conditioning, don't you??? Musta been firebirds.

lol, Rick. I've always wondered that too. Especially when you think about the women in corsets and long skirts and the men in long sleeves and pants, working in the fields. Tough people!

Well.....they ain't out there in long sleeves and corsets anymore! Occassionaly the human animal demonsrates some common sense. Not often.....but occassionaly.

We are in a approximately 1,450 sf mobile and our bill for May was $170.00. I think our bill is reasonable compared to our old house (2,000 sf with vaulted ceilings). Our highest bill last summer was September and we only paid $345. I work with folks who live in Dallas that pay much more, some run $600. in the summer. BTW, we are with a coop.

Pam

Don't you think this is relative? How large an area are you cooling, how much insulation do you have, how many trees do you have, who is your electric company, how low do you set your thermostat, etc,etc,etc? Our electric bill is higher than some of yours, but I do have a lot of usage.

Carrie is right. Watts are watts and some of us use less. Some have smaller areas to cool while others have pools and whatever else that could be using electricity.
We have two refrigerators one in the garage for holding cold drinks and extra food when we have company or family over. While not everyone has a dishwasher and like myself I only use our's every two to three days because we eat out or cook light when we eat at home.
My husband is big on one pan meals, OK I might have to use two pans sometimes but that's my limit LOL makes it easy for me and I'm all for easy in the kitchen now days.

Last year was our first in this home. I worried that the fridge was terribly inefficient (it runs almost constantly). We have all electric appliances, and about 1725 sq. ft. The house is 24 years old, but the a/c is not that old (it's not brand new, either).

Anyway, the bills were high all summer last year (I think the highest was 280) but in the winter we dropped down to $80 one month at the lowest. (Our water is heated by gas and so is the furnace, so our gas bill consequently climbed in the winter but only to $80 at the highest. In the summer it is about $20/mo.) So now I know that it's mostly the a/c that costs us, and I'm not as worried about my old fridge. I run my washer/dryer every day, but I don't worry about limiting them b/c they are fairly new and very efficient.

I'm sorry to hear some of y'all have bills in the $300s and higher. That really sucks. :( I hate how expensive it is to live, and how hard it is to know whether there's anything you can do about the electric charges or not.

We have Dynowatt, and we've been happy enough with them. My hubby was just happy to break away from Reliant...even if only on principle (although I think we are saving with Dynowatt...I had a solicitor from TXU come to my door, and he agreed that Dynowatt had a great rate when I told him I didn't want to switch).

Any updates to this thread, especially for the greater Austin area?