Comments on SimplyForties: Comparing this year's bills to last; more to it th...

@ Mary,For curiosity, I checked our natural gas co...

2009-01-11T20:42:00.000-05:00

@ Mary,

For curiosity, I checked our natural gas cost versus last year. Gas prices only rose about 6% in our area. Lucky us :-)

However, we did use more mcf because I think December in our location was colder in 2008 than in 2007. The degree heating days for December 2008 haven't been published yet so I don't know for sure.

I'm totally jealous of your success with your bill...

2009-01-10T21:24:39.426-05:00

I'm totally jealous of your success with your bills! I'm not sure I'm willing to be miserable all winter but I really expected some big decreases and was disappointed when I didn't see them.

Oh, my goodness. TWENTY-SEVEN PERCENT MORE for nat...

2009-01-10T21:11:00.000-05:00

Oh, my goodness. TWENTY-SEVEN PERCENT MORE for natural gas! {gasp wheeze}

They raised our electric bill (the house is heated by electricity) but I managed to drop the bill significantly from last year, but using a space heater and keeping the central heating off except to take the chill off when "chill" was an understatement.

Gas bill is about the same. I deep-sixed the propane grill (which I used almost every day) and so am cooking more on the gas stovetop. Otherwise, I wash clothes mostly in cold water, the dishwasher heats its own water electrically, and there's not much I can do about the need to bathe every day or two.

I turned off the automatic watering system and saved all of about two bucks. I think this was dumb tax, though, on the late great pool backwashing screw-up. I ended up draining the pool until the pump was sucking air; took a good hour with the hose on full bore to refill the thing. The main part of the bill, though, is the sewer and trash pick-up; sewer rate is based on water consumption (and rainfall) in January, February, and March.