Thrilled to receive our $495 electric bill this month.

Last month was $666 and $674 the month prior. 🤨

Oh my. With our solar panels, our summer electric bill is $12.75 per month. In the winter, with our geothermal system, the bill has topped out at about $200.

I just got my electric bill, due next month: $149??? I hardly used my heat pump/air conditioning. It's been off for over 2 weeks, just running overhead fans. I don't get how it's that much.

"We had to turn on our furnace. We are all electric with heat pump."

Me as well, since mornings here are < 45F. I got a new heat pump this year.....While electricity prices may be high, they're cheaper than propane (my only other heating option, other than firewood).

I've been told that our water heaters are one of the biggest users of electricity in our households.

We just had a new heat pump central air system put in and hope to see some greatly reduced electric bills. Our old one was getting extremely inefficient and expensive to operate.

Costco gas in still the least expensive in my city, at around ~ $3.00 per gallon right now.

Just bit the bullet and turned on our heat. It was only 59° in our living room this morning. We have a 20 x 35 tile floor with radiant heat. It's a cold slab when it gets chilled, takes a long time to heat up but is very efficient once it's up to temperature. Ususally only need the thermostat at around 64-65° even in sub-zero weather.

We’ve had enough of a chill that i turned off the AC , which will stay off til early summer, and flipped on the furnace for a little while. Not ready for it full time yet. I am the so called budget plan for gas and electric so rather than having enormous bills in spring and summer,and almost none fall and spring, I now pay $177 per month all year. My house is small. I live in the mid atlantic region. I have natural gas heat, and refuse to be cold.

Gas for the car is currently around $3.83. Glad i no longer have long commutes. I think my ext car will be hybrid. I am not ready to jump to an electric car.

My electric bull for July and August is due, $1246.31. Looking forward to that going down now that the a/c isn't on much, and more when the pool is closed in October. Watching fuel prices seeming to stop their decline and inch back up I decided to pull the trigger and fill my oil tank. $3983.29. My goal is always to hold off turning on the heat until November; once it's on my tank will last about 3 months.

Filled up at Sam's Club yesterday at $3.08/gal. The way world oil prices were tumbling this morning (down ~5%) gas should dip below $3/gal next week. That amounts to almost a $2 drop from it peak a few months ago.

As a single senior living on a relatively fixed income, inflation and current prices are having a major impact on my budget. I notice it most at the gas pump and the grocery store. Gas prices skyrocketed after the war in the Ukraine broke out but then declined this summer to still high but more manageable levels. Currently they have increased to nearly the same high levels we experienced in spring - just shy of $5/gallon for regular and that's at the tribal stations, which typically offer the lowest prices locally. But the prices still continue to climb at the grocery store......my bill is 2-3 times higher for the same goods as it was just a few months ago. I plan ahead and shop very carefully from a list these days :-)

Rents in my area have increased dramatically as well. I am fortunate to have a very accommodating rental situation that also includes all basic utilities. I'd be paying about double anywhere else, which I cannot afford. It is very concerning! Affordable housing is almost nonexistent in my area.

This is a common conversation - the utility bills are quite a bit higher even when usage is not any more. On our utility bill, it always has a comparison to other users in the area and it has always been telling us that our usage and bill is less than our most efficient neighbors. It's encouraging but I can't imagine what families are going to have to do.

Whn they talk about the economy, the real wild card is Mother Nature. If it's a mild winter or cooler summer,, usage is less.

As for gas, the cheap one around here is Costco and it was $3,49. Yes it's come down, but it had been under $3.

Just my 2 cents here in South East Pa.

Utilities are low at my house in L.A. because the weather tends to be in the 70s all year, and so I can adjust the temperature of the house by opening and closing windows, if I want to. The problem with this is that I am fairly close to the airport, and so I get some airport noise if I open the windows in my bedroom. Gasoline is expensive, but I do very little driving.

In Cathedral City, we have solar panels, and so that keeps our electric bill low. It does get a bit colder there in the winter than it does in L.A., but not enough to require much heat.

I don't pay that much attention to grocery prices, as a rule, and so I really have not kept track. A lot of what I eat is very inexpensive, such as beans and rice, but I eat them because I like them. Vegetable prices vary seasonally, and so it is difficult to compare. I always keep frozen vegetables on hand. Other things I buy (such as fresh fish) are always rather expensive, but the prices go up and down.

$265 per month right now for gas and electric (same company, combined bill). Every 3 months the utility company adjusts bill for the next 3 months. Last winter the bill was about $330 per month. We have a good sized home, 4,800 sq ft plus 275 sq ft sunroom. The trick is I keep a lot of doors closed. We have 2 newer heating/cooling units. We are up north in zone 6a by the Great Lakes. This summer was very hot for our area.

Not much to be done about any of these bills aside from adjusting spending. The forces in play are universal and much less pronounced here than other places.

Actually I could do something about my energy costs by moving to a smaller, more energy efficient home. But current interest rates make that difficult, too.

I've learned that I can get a break on a very expensive med for my multiple myeloma -- provided the costs for prescription meds for both my DH and me total at least 3% of our annual income. That may prove to be easy. All I have to do is start taking the manufacurer's drug, Revlimid, which is $2300/mo. under my Part D.

Doesn't that make you feel better about utility costs? <smile> Ours are way up too, along with everything else touched by inflation.

Like Lars, we open and close windows. No AC or furnace in this house. The house has hydronic radiant heat only. I've been keeping it @ 67F. Last month natural gas was $21, electric $62. Gasoline $3.83/87%. My cars been in the shop ALL week, so I haven't used any gasoline. :0). The dealer does FREE repairs & maintenance for the first 3 years. My husbands employer issues gas credit cards to ALL employees. He hasn't purchased gasoline in 35 years! I cook 99% of our meals from scratch. Found pork short ribs for .77cents a lb, deli chicken for .68cents a lb, froze a few lbs. Corn on the cob .17ea. We still have very few daily expenses. Edited to say: Insurance/medical/auto/home, HOA fees, Internet & phone, property tax ....those expenses are huge.

I only pay for the hydro (electricity) I use, the apartment bldg is heated with natural gas, which the landlords pay for. I watch what I use, use the oven sparingly; my apt is very bright with lots of windows so need few lights, and only at night (just one in the livingroom, really). For the first time I switched from Time of Use hydro to a tiered price. It's 9.8c kwh 24/7. I wanted it that way so my a/c would never run at peak pricing.

GardenGal your post could be mine. Rentals are sky-high costs, and I'm fortunate that my landlords are more concerned with having good tenants than the almighty dollar. They raised the rent quite a bit more than mine when the new tenant moved in, but it's still below what another 3-bdrm would be like in the city. I dread the thought of ever having to move, as I age. Nothing remotely affordable for a senior. Housing is high cost, as are interest rates, and more and more people are renting vs buying a home right now.

Our electricity bill this month was $256.00 and our gas was $80.00. This really isn't bad considering we had 27 days over 100 degrees this summer and still had a 100 degree day this past week. Our AC went out on that last day so that was $408 to get that fixed. I've been getting estimates on new guttering for our whole house which will set us back about $2,000, then a new deck which will be about $5,000. These two things need to be done badly.

With my windfall, I decided to get ahead... Just spent $650 on groceries, toiletries, and over the counter medications. I hope it'll last me more than 3 months. 🤞🏻

The reporting has been a bit inconsistent and vague but apparently my state's Air Resources Board has or is about to ban the sale of natural gas appliances (furnaces and water heaters) with a 2030 effective date. Heat pumps have not been popular here because other than the few areas that have true municipal electricity suppliers (like the City of LA), power costs are high and heating by gas is considerably less expensive. Natural gas is available in all but thinly populated areas.

As with the growing popularity of electric cars, there is concern that the decades of neglect concerning the power distribution infrastructure, leading to the now existing problem of aging long-distance lines with inadequate capacity, will become an even more debilitating major issue than it is already.

I think most of the population lives in the coastal zone that is more mild and that limits heating and cooling costs through the year. Inland areas are substantially hotter in the summer. At current electricity rates, when gas heating appliances are no longer available, power costs even in the mild areas could approach what some of you mention you're paying now. As that time approaches, I suspect solar panels on roofs will be the rule rather than the exception. And as with many other things in the consumer marketplace, people at lower income levels will suffer.

In my apartment gas and water are combined. Last month bill was $59. Electric bill was $17 but it turn off lights if I'm not in the room. Only cost me about $35 a month to fill gas tank. And groceries I spend about $90 a month.

Our total uility bill - gas, water, sewer. electric, garbage and an 18 monthly lake fee [til 2035] to redo our drinking water lake - has been running $180. Electric has soared the last two months and the total utility bill is now $280; that's all an electric increase.

I rarely use my oven anymore. It's just me so I use my little toaster over or air fryer for most things. Microwave to heat things up. I cook sauces, stews, soups and roasts in the instant pot.

I also rarely use my car. It has over 223,000 miles on it. I may buy an electric one when I retire, provided the prices come down and they make more stations in KY. According to the governor the plan is for more stations.

I have a nearly stocked cupboard and freezer with a lot of veggies coming from the garden still. I'm trying to limit my groceries to bread, milk, and cheese. I have enough sweet potatoes to last me all Winter long, provided they don't rot. I got tired of freezing and giving away green beans so I've been drying the inner bean to eat in soups and chili later on. There are so many.

I'm eating very little meat these days. I just wish I could find a decent peach or apple around here in the stores. None to be had. I only have one fruit in the garden, a single persimmon that has made it through the spring and summer. It's finally turning orange, very slowly. I planted a peach and two cherry trees this year and I may get a couple of dwarf apples. I don't need huge trees.

My house is total electric with electric baseboard heaters, no central ac, just a window unit that I don't use very often. I have been reducing my use of electricity by washing all my laundry in cold water. My new Maytag front loader gets even the dirtiest clothes clean in cold water. I line dry almost all my laundry, weather permitting. I hardly ever use my big oven. I cook for 2 people and have a countertop oven that I use. I also stopped using the heated dry function on my dishwasher.

Well, I keep my house warmer in summer than most (once I get acclimated) - 76-80F depending on the relative humidity - and use my ceiling fans. Also, this summer when we had weeks of unusual 90F weather, I not only kept my blinds closed on the windows that get sun, but clipped some of that foiled bubble wrap between the window and blind. I could really tell a difference from that! I use all LED lights in the house as well. With a few other measures, like always turning my laptop off instead of sleep mode, or avoiding vacuuming during the heat of the day, I kept my electric bill down despite the increase in rates. My highest one was $75. My gas bill would have always been about $30-33 in summer, but gas rates have gone up too - I took advantage of the supplier choice program to lock in a rate 25% less than some other suppliers, but still my gas bill has been 30% higher this summer.

My highest utility bill has been water - we not only had long stretches of heat, but also localized drought - by that I mean that it stubbornly refused to rain in my neighborhood, so I had to water my gardens and landscaping far more that I typically would. Water rates have gone up a lot in the past few years also.

My DD has been searching for an apartment - rents have really gone up this past year, in fact the one that she is moving out of is going up by almost $200!

I filled up my car last week for $2.98/gallon - not far off from what it was pre-pandemic (according to gasbuddy, the avg. price in the summers of 2018 and 2019 ranged between $2.58 and $2.90.)

Raee, Wow $2.98 our gas is still closer to the $3.50 to $3.79 mark. Of course I live in the " land of taxes " PA. Hubby is running to WV today. A few weeks ago WV was $ 3.35.

My gas and electric bill are combined. The total used combined for July 5 - Aug 3 was $35+/-. BUT: our utility companies in Alberta like to tag on multiple fees and riders. I ended up paying $103.09 which should have been $153.09 but we get a $50 discount for a couple months from the Alberta Government: WHOSE FAULT IT IS IN THE FIRST PLACE WE PAY ALL THESE RIDICULOUS EXTRA CHARGES.... They took the price caps off! While some might say, 'OMG, that's so cheap!" my parents live on the lower mainland in BC. They paid altogether $72 for TWO MONTHS COMBINED. And they don't have all the extra charges we have. My son showed them his utility bill (he uses another company) and his bill was $350! FOR ONE MONTH. And that's without the furnace on. Don't forget it stays light here quite late in the summer so it's not like he has lights on early either. We usually don't have to turn ours on until after 9 or 10 in the summer. Earlier now that it's Fall. We changed all our bulbs to energy saving LED bulbs. So much for that idea because the more energy we try to save, the higher our bill becomes because the utility companies lose money even though they're making record profits. I could go on but I have to go to work so I can set money aside for this winters utility bills which will soon come to $500+ more a month.

Do not even get me started on food! I work for a drugstore and sometimes do the price changes that come down every Tuesday. Two weeks ago I changed the price of a store brand humidifier. It WAS $40.00. It went up to $89! I thought it was a head office error and would change back within a few days. Nope. It went on sale last week for $60. The store cost? $19! Food has gone up close to 30% over the past year. Yet my raise was only 2%. The company I work for is owned by a major MAJOR retail company. I feel customers are paying for their advertising and all the stupid promo signs in the stores that NOBODY reads.

I'm just glad my house is paid for and I don't have to pay rent. Most places here go for $1500 just for the main floor of a house, no garage. Plus household utility bills. A co worker pays $700 to rent a bedroom in a basement. She shares the bathroom and kitchen with two other people, who each pay $700 as well. That's 2100 for a basement! It's crazy!

My electric bills this summer (around $170) were the highest I've ever paid, but I wasn't surprised since I've been running multiple dehumidifiers, air purifiers, and A/Cs. I used to buy my electricity from a separate supplier, using a plan that gave me free electricity from 7pm to 11pm. The rest of the time I paid a higher rate than the power company was charging, but it was a good deal because I ran the dishwasher and laundry machines during the evening hours, and heated my bedroom as well. At some point I dropped the plan, but I think it might be time to sign up again.

I switched from an oil burner to a propane furnace last year, mostly so I could use the chimney for my woodstove. The propane bills were high, partly because propane costs had increased and partly because I'm not as tolerant of cold temperatures as I used to be. I'll be supplementing the propane heat with the woodstove again this year. I'm fortunate that my son keeps me supplied with firewood.

Grocery store prices are so much higher, and some things are still hard to get. Also, another recent development I hadn't expected: chicken from several supermarkets--even our upscale one--that smells bad as soon as you get it home. I heard it was a supply-chain issue. One store manager told me I couldn't return it because they're not allowed to take perishable food back. I told her it perished in her store.

Some time ago either the gas or the electric company wiped out my level pay amount in January about the time the company's switched. They could not explain why $1,000 was gone since my normal usage was under $50. They replaced most of it except for what they said was two months usage. Neither company could provide statement or real explanation. I now do my own level pay by calculating a level amount based on the last 12-24 months and adding an additional percentage. I suspect with the requested increases I will have to increase the amount. The gas company did a dance with the latest mailing on the requested increase. Only time will tell what "customer would have an increase of approximately $10.95 a month or 12.65% on their total bill" really means.

I have resisted the electric company's current version of level pay as they do a three month level pay when the usage changes. Their split usage is the opposite of Alisande's. They charge more during peak usage which is nights and weekends. I think night time is considered 6-10 although at one time it was 6-9. Stores here are not allowed to take back perishables or frozen food but will provide a refund.

One thing I did do and I was surprised with the result. I normally raise the sliding storm windows in the spring and leave them up until cold weather. This area had near 100 for two weeks for some reason I decided to close the storms. It decreased my electric by a significant amount. I was expecting well over $100 and it was less than that.

Renting vs owning.

I am currently renting an apartment. There has been a leak as evidenced by a rising water bill, and plumber has said it is an underground pipe leak. Plumber's crew is in the process of actually tunneling under the sidewalk and building to do the repair. Continued tunnelling, repair, etc. will take days.

So glad I do not have to pay for the repair.

samkaren -- You pay for *water*, separate from your rent? That's unusual. Does your apartment have its own water meter, along with elec. and gas?

maifleur03: I normally raise the sliding storm windows in the spring and leave them up until cold weather ...

I've been keeping most of our storm windows closed all year too -- but to save myself from cleaning the dust that accumulates between the storm and the window. Saving energy in summer too is a bonus! Now I need to train my DH that for the windows we *do* open for fresh air, you only need to open the storm to the height you open the interior window. He opens the storm as high as it will go, which allows more rain, dust, paint-damaging sunlight, etc onto the good interior window.