Do You "Equal Pay" Your Utilities?
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Do You "Equal Pay" Your Utilities?
| Thu, 12-29-2005 - 1:07pm |
Another helpful tidbit for budgeting...
Many of the utility companies have a payment plan akin to "Equal Pay" where you pay roughly the same amount of money each month for 11 months, then the 12th month is the "settle up" month where either you pay them or they pay you, and in that month, they can better determine your rate for the next 11 months.

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Our gas bill is on a budget. We pay $66/month - and sometimes if we can afford it, I round that up to $70 or $80 - just so we have extra money paid before the winter months!
We haven't done it for our electric, but we might eventually..... it is really convenient!
~Aravis~
I just checked with our gas company here (Scana Energy-Atlanta), and they charge an extra $6.75 per month for this service. Kind of a bummer. I would have liked to try it, but I don't want to pay for the service. :-D
Pat :-D
We don't have an option like that in NJ but our electric bills have been pretty steady.
Iris
Oh, how ridiculous that they charge for this service! It benefits them, too, when people go on the level plan--our gas and electric companies actually go to great lengths to encourage people to sign up for it. It levels out their income over the year, and any extra they get in low-payment months they can invest. If they're charging for it, they're just trying to skim extra off the top.
I definitely wouldn't do it if I had to pay a fee--and $6.75 PER MONTH is insane. Sheesh. You can get a cell phone plan for that much! LOL
If you're interested in the idea, though, you can do it for yourself and make some interest at the same time. Go through your bills for the past twelve months (if you don't have them, you should start saving them--the way I do this is with a cardboard file divided into twelve segments, one for each month. Each month I take out last year's receipts, bills, and statements--keeping anything that should be kept more than a year--and throw in the current year's as they arrive). Add up the total due for the twelve months, and divide by twelve. That's your monthly average. I usually add a little extra, to account for inevitable increases. Each month when I pay the bills, I subtract the amount I actually paid for power (or whatever) from the monthly average, and I put that amount in a savings account (ING has a great set-up for this). In expensive months, I can withdraw money from savings to cover the difference. It works great, and as long as money is sitting in the savings account, it's drawing interest.
Heather
Our heating utility has that.
Becky
CL of 4th, 5th & 6th grade Scoliosis
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