Saturday, February 25, 2012

It's Electric!

As part of my goal to save more money, I will be reviewing different financial categories to see if there is anything I could be doing differently. In addition to my personal spending, I also want to look at our household spending. Obviously, there's nothing we can do about our mortgage payment, short of refinancing, but since we just bought the house last year, that's not really an option now. Plus, our interest rate isn't too bad (4.25%).

One area where we can and have spent a lot of money is our electric bill. The house is wired for all electric use and according to our last bill, the majority is for heating. Hot water is second. We already do a lot to try and keep costs down. Our friends can confirm we keep the house on the chilly side and many of the rooms don't even have the heat on. We replaced the hot water heater almost immediately after moving in so that has helped some. I rarely wash our clothes in warm or hot water (unless it's something that needs it, like towels or sheets) and often skip the heat cycle on the dishwasher. The hubs can tell you I am a fanatic about unplugging things that aren't in use.

Even with all these little steps, our last bill came in at $289 for 1,662 kwh of electric. Ouch! So I decided to take a chance and signed up with Constellation Energy. They offered us a 12 month fixed rate of 9.55 cents versus our current rate of 10.67 cents with Atlantic City Electric. If it doesn't work out, at least I have 90 days to cancel without penalty. Hopefully we'll be able to beef up our joint savings with the reduced rate!

In other news, I did some unnecessary spending today. It was Molly's last basic obedience class and afterwards we went to Petsmart for a new toy & bones. I also had to buy her ear cleaning solution. So two wants and a need in that purchase.

Day Four Spent:
$22.35 Petsmart
$30.01 Wawa (gas)

Day Four Saved: $0.00

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