Electricity

It wasn't a shock when i got my electricity bill but it was super frustrating. A one adult and one child household, no pool, no dryer, not even a computer. Yet it was almost 5x the average and over $1000 for just 3months (the average is about $500 for a family not watching their usage). At the urging of folks in facebook land i called the company and even he was amazed! We basically boiled it down to using the heating over night. Before you go, whoa why would you do that? Well because it gets down to -8 here and the windows are single glazed and the curtains are flimsy. Plus with a kid prone to croup (3 times so far this year) i was happy to have the heater going. But really i even felt that this shouldn't have cost as much as my bill. The electricity man even mentioned that our last winter bill was even higher and we didn't use the heater as much then. So what on earth is it!?!

Honestly im at a loss. People have suggested a faulty hot water system but as the bill was high in our last house (we assumed it was all the heaters we had going which is why we moved to a newer house with central heat) could we really be so unlucky to have two faulty systems? We thought it might be a big old TV we had but that was replaced at the end of the last bill so there is no way it applies to this one. The only two things that we still have from the old place are the fridge which is 6yrs old, or the washing machine which is also not old. Heck i read blogs from people who have 8 kids who have lower bills then me. One woman even commented that she always has the heater going and used the dryer daily and dishwasher (we don't have one) and hers was half ours.

So what can i do? Well the electricity company put me on a payment plan that gives me a higher discount for my next bill. They also put me onto a company that can come over and assess my usage and see where the fault may lie. I got rue some warmer pjs and will upgrade our bedding so i can turn the heating off over night, maybe just a small column heater in his room to keep the edge off? (haven't previously done this as i don't trust him not to fiddle with it). Thankfully the weather is warming up so i wont freeze to death but i don't trust that this is the only culprit. There has to be something wrong!

On a side note:
I also find it interesting when people get uncomfortable talking about money. We all have bills, we all earn money. Surely talking to each other can help us budget by seeing hey Joes grocery bill is half mine maybe he can help me, or Susan seems to pay less car insurance ill ask how she got a good deal. Too me, its something that would benefit us all to talk more about. So get out there, discuss your budget and find ways to move and grow with each other.