Ouch!!!

[Marilyn]

Just opened our electric bill. It's $421.51 this month!!! We used 2424 KWH's. This is not the most we have ever used, but our rate has gone up significantly. We were paying $0.12/KWH a year ago after we changed providers to save money. Our current rate is $0.167/KWH!!!!

There is a website we can go to here to compare rates offered by the various suppliers available to us www.powertochoose.org, so I got online and the rates vary, but we are on the lower end. Many companies are at $0.17 up to over $0.20/KWH.

I guess as gasoline goes up so do other types of energy. It probably costs more to get the coal to the coal power plants, and other power plants in the area use natural gas which is also getting higher.

Time to evaluate our thermostat settings again. It's supposed to be 101 deg in Austin this weekend. It will be a little cooler where be are, but not much.

[AngieDoogles]

WOW! I can't imagine using 2424 KWh in one month. Last month Brendon and I used 412 and the month before that only 300. Admittedly, we are very conservative with energy and also only have a 2 br, 2 ba townhouse, but that difference still blows my mind!

On top of that, your rate is MUCH higher than mine. I couldn't find a figure on my statement, but I did the math and it came out to $.084/KWh. Crazy!

Hopefully next month will be lower. This reminds me of Tink's "announcement" about the light at the end of the tunnel.

[Marilyn]

We turn our computers off when we are not using them. The thermostat upstairs is set at 79 (I did have it turned off, but hubby had me turn it back on and set it high since we are in a high humidity zone). The one downstairs is at 73 when we are home and 78 when we are away. We turn off lights and televisions when not in the room. We use the small florescent light bulbs, have double insulated windows with tinting. Lots of insulation and attic venting, a high effency HVAC system, newer high efficiency appliances. I'm just not sure what else we can do. Hubby attends energy conservation seminars for his home building and is one of the most energy effecient home builders in the area. I just don't understand where the energy consumption is coming from.

[Mandy]

It's the same here - disgustlingly expensive!!
We too have newer high efficiency appliances, turn off lights when leaving a room, turn computers off when finnished, have double insulated windows.
I dont know what more we can do, and i seriously cant figure out how they add it all up!

[Janet]

Looks like I need to do some conserving in a bad way. We used 1,678 kWh this last month at a cost of $140.60. The average cost was $0.0783 per kWh. Not sure what was going on but the average cost last month per kWh was $0.0826.

We leave our ceiling fans on all the time to keep the air from turning on so much and my son and I do leave our computers on. I check in on and off throughout the day and it would be a real PITA to turn it on and off, plus according to the computer tech it's hard on computers to turn them on and off. Ours are only shut off during a storm.

Guess I need to put energy cost savings on my list of things to do too.

[HALEY]

Wow that is alot for one month! i hate to see ours, the a/c been running for days now.. look out !!! i bet ours is going to be around 200.00 this month