gotta love the utilities

[Lee Schierer]

We get one utility bill for electric, as our home is total electric. We've lived in this house for 41+ years and have been on balanced billing for most of it. In recent years, the electric supplier can't seem to understand what balanced billing is, every 3 months they change the payment amount. It was driving my wife, who pays the bills, crazy because she has to change the bill pay amount with our bank. I told her to add up what the actual costs were for the previous 12 months and divide that by 12. Then ignore the payment the electric company calculates and just pay the 1/12th amount each month. Once in a while on the anniversary date we need to pay a little extra to catch up. Apparently our calculator works better than their computer.

[Kev Williams]

Just got my natural gas bill, with a 2 year comparison and our new equal-pay amount...

This year I paid less for gas than last year-
This year I used less gas than last year-

My equal pay went UP $4 a month...

If the $4 increase on a equal pay/budget plan bothers you that much you could just pay them what you owe every month instead.

heavy sigh.... It's not like I can't afford the $4 increase. What bothers me is the simple fact that they should have LOWERED my equal pay by about $5 a month, NOT RAISED IT, AT ALL. I've researched their plans-- in May of this year they asked for a price decrease - sometime between then and now (can't find an actual date) they've announced an INCREASE, to the 'average' tune of $1.48 per month. Even factoring that in the average, and my bill is less than the $60 they consider average, I'm still upside-down approx. $7.50 a month. Yes, I realize that it will eventually even itself out.

In the meantime, what this seems like to me, correct or not, is a typical new-style millennial bean-counting; a sure-fire way to generate working capital without earning it. Or paying interest on it. Depending on how many customers are being overbilled, this borders on unethical IMO...

[Mike Henderson]

If they can get you to overpay for the year, they get to use your money for that period of time. Do it for enough customers and it adds up. If they refund your money at the end of the year, they still got to use it for that time, and they made money on it.

I agree with everyone else - just pay what you owe each month. During the time of low bills, put some money away for the expensive bills - if paying the expensive bill is a problem of cash flow.

Mike

[Paul F Franklin]

Utility companies base the budget amount (equal pay amount) on their prediction of what your bill will be for the next year. The fact that you used less this year or fuel cost was less this year has very little to do with it. They know your average usage per degree-day, they have climate predictions for the next year, and they have fuel cost predictions for next year. They use this data to make their best estimate for next year. It's not perfect of course, there are many uncertainties. In my experience they generally do pretty well (the competent firms, anyway).

They do have trigger points set up so if actual gets too far from predicted (either up or down) it will trigger an adjustment.

[Brian Elfert]

heavy sigh.... It's not like I can't afford the $4 increase. What bothers me is the simple fact that they should have LOWERED my equal pay by about $5 a month, NOT RAISED IT, AT ALL. I've researched their plans-- in May of this year they asked for a price decrease - sometime between then and now (can't find an actual date) they've announced an INCREASE, to the 'average' tune of $1.48 per month. Even factoring that in the average, and my bill is less than the $60 they consider average, I'm still upside-down approx. $7.50 a month. Yes, I realize that it will eventually even itself out.

In the meantime, what this seems like to me, correct or not, is a typical new-style millennial bean-counting; a sure-fire way to generate working capital without earning it. Or paying interest on it. Depending on how many customers are being overbilled, this borders on unethical IMO...

If you're so bothered by it and are convinced they are making a bunch of money off what might an extra $60 for the year then cancel the equal pay plan and just pay what you owe each month. That way there is no credit built up. Depending on when your year starts you may actually owe them money for a number of months so it works in your favor.

I had budget billing for electricity until I had solar installed. What I didn't like was that I often owed them $150 to $200 at the end of my budget year. I would have preferred they increase the monthly payment instead.

[Bruce Wrenn]

It helps if they actually read your meter. Fifty years ago, lived in a rented house, where bill was estimated one month, and read the next. Estimated month was always more than 2/3 of combined months bill. It meant that they were fleecing me and our neighbor every other month for no cost loans. Once in that house came home and there was disconnect notice on the door for non payment of bill. Just so happened that bank statement came that day with canceled check in it. Called customer service, and they said they had made a mistake and would have power on the next day. Told CS rep that was no problem, but if power wasn't on by when I got up, I was taking my chain saw and start cutting poles until I met service truck coming to turn on power. Less than 30 minutes service truck shows up. Guy said dispatcher said he didn't care what he was doing, go turn my power back on! Here since Christmas, Duke hasn't been able to read meter three times. Meter reader can sit in his truck and read meter, although he only needs to be in area of meter to read it. Second month called and asked why wasn't my meter read. CS rep asked me to go and see what meter was flashing. Came back and told them screen was blank. It was a bad meter, which should have been replaced no later than second day after meter reader couldn't read it the first time. Remember getting my bill was a couple weeks after meter couldn't be read. So Duke estimated my power usage based on last year. Fine and dandy, except for one thing. Last year we were using heat pumps which died over the summer, and this year we were using gas furnace instead, which means we used a lot LESS electricity than the year before. Two months ago, again they failed to read meter.