What do you pay for utilities in your house?

[click4credit]

Electricity: $45/month
Gas: $25/month
Phone: $25 including calls (using VOIP)

[banana]

I have oil heat in my house. The price is very high and just continues to get higher each month. I remember back in 2002 when I was paying .99 cents a gallon. Now it is close to $4.00 a gallon for oil. It is a small fortune to fill up your oil tank.

[Cassandra]

Going off the bills for last month:
Gas/Electric: $103
Water: $33
Phone/DSL: $55
Cable: about $50

[Wolf]

Untilities in Arizona for 1427 Sq Ft home built in 2008

My father owns this 3 bedroom home I live in however I pay for all utilities. all of the following is based on per month fee.


Gas Winter $85.00 Summer 25.00
Electric Winter $75.00 to $100.00 Summer $350.00 to $400.00 YES per month
Water $40.00 - 60.00
Sewer $30.00 - $50.00
Garbage $25.00


Note when living in a home their is always extra expenses you will NEVER think about until after you have been in the home for a while and realize it.

[Wolf]

Utilities cost in a 1427 Sq ft home in Deserts of Arizona

My father owns this 3 bedroom home I live in however I pay for all utilities. all of the following is based on per month fee.


Gas Winter $85.00 Summer 25.00
Electric Winter $75.00 to $100.00 Summer $350.00 to $400.00 YES per month
Water $40.00 - 60.00
Sewer $30.00 - $50.00
Garbage $25.00

There is ALWAYS unexpected bills when living in a home that you would of NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT before hand... I suggest adding 100.00 extra per month to your total amount of debt.

[elessar78]

Gas: $60-70/month average
Elec: $60-70/month (average)
Water: $40

[adviceseeker]

For me:

Water: $11.00
Electricity: $60.00
Phone/Internet: $65.00
Cable: $15.00

I save by unplugging all unused electrical appliances, cable is the cheapest plan offered and as for water, I make sure that all my tap has no leak!

[Snodog]

Gas is $12 in the summer and $92 in the peak of winter. Average is $41/month. We keep our house at 74 so we could cut back but we like to be comfortable and gas is super cheap compared to our old oil home. When I got my first gas bill it was so low I thought something was wrong with the meter!

Electric averages $67/month. They are gouging us for about 15 cents per kwh plus we have lots of phantom electronic devices.

Sewer is $22/month
Water is $15/month
Trash is $10/month but they only allow 2 bags.

1740 square foot in Pennsylvania.

[moto017]

1300 sqft house in Austin, TX 3 person household

electric: 90-130... just bought a new big screen and now its 130. still trying to figure that out. maybe its the cold.

no gas

water/trash: 80

internet: 40

cell: 55

total: 300-350

all necessities for me so i consider them utilities.

[disneysteve]

we have lots of phantom electronic devices.

I'm sure this is true for most of us. Try to get in the habit of unplugging things when not in use - the toaster, the microwave, TVs, etc. All of those things do suck up power even when they're off. We need to get better about this at our house. I'll unplug a bunch of things when we go away but not so much when we're home.

[kork13]

we have lots of phantom electronic devices.

I'm sure this is true for most of us. Try to get in the habit of unplugging things when not in use - the toaster, the microwave, TVs, etc. All of those things do suck up power even when they're off. We need to get better about this at our house. I'll unplug a bunch of things when we go away but not so much when we're home.

When my house was robbed and they grabbed everything attached to my electronics (power strips, HDMI cables, etc.) right along with the electronics themselves, I went ahead & bought a couple smart strips for my TV & computer setups. Not certain exactly how much it actually saves me, but the computer one is probably pretty decent... it controls my computer, monitor, printer, speakers, modem, and wifi router. It automatically cuts power to everything all at once, and eliminates the "phantom" power draw.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

A toaster uses energy when plugged in but not toasting? What is it doing with the energy? Is your toaster programmable or something?

I unplug my drip coffee maker, but that is because the power switch seems to be a weak point. The switch breaks before the heating element. So I try to extend the life of the coffee maker by not even using the power switch. Leave it set to ON, then just plug in or unplug as power is needed.

I'm not going to go average out our utility bills, but here is a glimpse at some recent ones:

Sewer $40/month

water $73 quarterly, so $24/mo

trash $33 quarterly, so $11/mo

natural gas $51 (Oct 13- Nov 13)
gas bill will likely be much higher in Dec, Jan, Feb ($110-135?)

electric $30 (Oct 6- Nov 4)
electric bill will likely be much higher May-September ($70-130?)

Phone and internet $56/mo

We have Trac phone for long distance, and do use it a lot. I think I could justify putting this in an entertainment or even travel category, as it keeps me sanely in touch with family whom I would travel to visit much more often if not for the phone. I don't have record of how much we spend, but we buy large quantities of time and signed up for a double minutes program when we first registered.

House is about 980 sq ft (though cubic feet is probably a more telling number). I do now consider internet to be a utility, but I do not consider television a utility, nor do we pay for it.

[HalfDozenDaily]

I'm in Ontario, Canada in a bungalow with a completely finished basement. 4 bdrms, 2 bathrooms, large living area etc.. and our hydro/water was recently bumped down to $203/month (which I don't understand their reasoning as we went over by a few hundred at the end of the last billing cycle) and we pay $69.00/month for Gas. I'm trying *very* hard to keep our bills low as Hydro rates are supposed to go up 34% in the next 3 yrs here.

[disneysteve]

A toaster uses energy when plugged in but not toasting? What is it doing with the energy?

A lot of electric items draw power even when they're off. It isn't just things you'd assume draw power (although I don't know if our toaster does). Even things that are seemingly "dead" when they're off can still draw energy. I've heard that up to 10% of your electric bill can be due to this phantom power usage. It is particularly true of things with stand-by modes, clocks, timers, or remote controls.