Here are the options I have come up with:
1) Calling in an actual reading each month. Usually there are four actual readings each year, and the rest are estimates. For some reason, the actuals DH called in for January and April did not get into the system. He spoke to a person, not a machine and gave the numbers, but they never made it in. That contributed to the scary bill. The company has no explanation for why the numbers never got in the system. So I could call in each month on the 17th and each bill would become an actual bill. This would eliminate surprises every three months. The amount owing would always be different though as we would use a different amount each month. So each month would be a mini surprise.
2) Setting up equalized payments. When I talked to a rep this morning, we could start equalized payments immediately. Based on our yearly use, they suggested $75 which does not seem out of line with my spreadsheet. At the end of a year, if it was too low a payment, they would increase our monthly equalized. If it was too high...decrease. There would not a balloon payment at the end of the year if they estimate was way off.
I honestly am leaning towards equalized. It is a set amount each month and would
Anyone have experience with equalized and want to weigh in on my options here?
8 comments:
We have equalized payments for our electric. Every January, they look at the usage from the pst 12 months and average it out, and then based on the rate...establish the new budget payment. It is easier to adjust the budget once a year than every month.
However, we do have a balloon payment at the end if our equalized payments don't cover the usage. For us, this really doesn't happen....some years we owed an addition $25...or I have adjusted it myself if I was concerned (ex, your payment is $75...but you bump it up to $85 if you are concerned).
We do this with oil as well.
I love our equalized billings for natural gas. No big surprises. Under our system we have an adjustment bill once a year. In the eight years we lived in our house we have had only one big bill of $100 over the usual monthly amount. Most years its been a small extra or a credit.
Go with the actual readings that you call in - this is exactly what I have done here in AB for the last 20 years. In earlier years the equal payment(budget billing) was great as come the end of that yearly period , you used to get a very nice credit to use in the following colder months and the equalized amount per month is nice to be able to realize a fixed amount you must put away BUT the fact is you are paying that amount even in the months that it would be lower(summer and warmer months)and there have been very few people we know on it, that get ANY credit at the end of the period. In fact everyone has told us they have to pay at the end of that budget payment year(usually April) and it is usually a fairly large sum to clear because the companies are not charging enough each month. Also wrt paying in months were you know for a fact that you have used very very little of the utlilty such as spring and summer, you are in fact "loaning " your money to the companies who gather interest on it which they get to keep ( while interest rates are nothing at the moment, remember these companies have hundreds of thousands of customers using these budget billing plans so for example by simply multiplying their numbers of customers, pretend it is 100,000 and an interest rate of 2%
you can see how they make quite a tidy sum. If you can go back and look over your bills for the year, I would simply add up each month and then divide it to arrive at the sum you could personally stick in your own chequing account that gets some interest. ( and another nail in the budget billing plan is that that 75 they have quoted is likely just enough to cover services charges they have with very little going to your actual usage- for example here in AB via Altagas, the monthly service charges whether you use any gas such as winter or not such as in summer remains fixed at just over 70.00 so in our case your quoted 75 monthly payment would leave only 5 bucks to cover the actual usage of the utility)
I live in a warm climate, so my first thought was to do your actual reading...it would motivate you to try to use less natural gas and maybe you could end up paying less in the long-run. However, I know winters are long and using gas is unavoidable in many places. Here, I could put an extra blanket on the bed and sleep in a sweatshirt and be totally fine. So take my thoughts with a large grain of salt!
LBC Teacher
I have budget billing (equalized payments) with both my electricity and gas. I love it. So much easier to plan.
I think equalized makes sense, for sure... easier, especially since there's no balloon catch up.
You can get it equalized? I wonder if that's possible in Ontario. I will try to look into it. Thanks!
Carla was talking about that this week too. I used to do equalized but have stopped that the past few years. I prefer going month by month and getting a break in the summer ($33 for natural gas this month!) My reasoning is that not knowing how much it's going to be keeps me more accountable and I work really hard trying to keep our usage DOWN.
But that's just me...
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