Saturday's Saving Tip: Budget Billing for your Utilities

I got my power bill in the mail yesterday and I was reminded of why I love Budget Billing so much!

• Budget Billing through the power company
  Does your electric company offer budget billing? Mine does (Alabama Power). What it does is average your power usage over the course of 12 months and then each month you pay the average. It helps protect you from fluctuating costs when your usage is higher from one month to the next.

Se, we had an unusually mild May this year. I have pictures of Gavin playing outside in mid-May with pants on, it was that cool. (In the South, pants are usually packed up by the end of April!) It really didn't get hot until the last week of May. So our power bill for April 19-May 18 was low. Like around the $140 range. But because we have Budget Billing, we paid our normal $160. The overage goes into our "difference". You always want your difference to be "negative" because that means you are using less than you're paying for and when they reevaluated your bill (twice a year) your monthly payment will drop!

But when it gets hot in the South, it gets HOT! We were pushing triple digits by the first week of June. And it hasn't let up! I've tried very hard to only run the air when necessary, but when it's 102 outside, what can you do? So our power bill for May 19-June 20 was $222.59. Wow...what a jump! (It wasn't all because of running the A/C - a couple nights the outside lights got left on allll night and I wasn't really on top of my game about turning lights off and all. But it was mostly the AC.)

But thanks to budget billing, we still only paid $160! AND our difference is still -$6.63. It was $69.22 - so even though over the last we months, we paid $69 more than we use, it was a little over time so that when our usage jumped $80, it didn't affect us at all!

Hopefully I can redeem us this month!

Do your utility companies have a similar program? I'd love to hear about it! I wish the water company had a similar policy!