Thursday, October 24, 2013

A Look At My Electric Bill After Turning Off The Air

Last month during my frugal September post, I talked about some ways that I would be trying to incorporate more frugal habits into our lifestyle to save money and get out of debt.  One way that I hadn't anticipated but went through with was cutting our AC/Heating unit off. 

We actually didn't cut it off the entire month but more like half of the month.  One day it was just too hot.  The heat carried on through the night and the fans didn't seem to be helping at all.  Neither one of us wanted to be the one to turn it back on because we really wanted to see how long we could go (I'm always up for a challenge and the hubby is just competitive) and we were afraid the temps might change back cooler.   We were also afraid that if it stayed hot, the bill might skyrocket to cool the house back off again.  However, after failing to cool off, we turned it back on anyway.

And without fail, the temperature dropped like the next day and it has stayed cool since. 

So here's our light bill.


 
The first line is the current billing period, second is last month, and last line is the same period a year ago.  There is a big difference in the usage.  What was even more surprising to me was that the light bill was lower than it was a year ago.  This ruled out some of my other theories on why it had dropped.


My previous light bill was $228.93 and this one is $122.33. 

That's a difference of 106.60 for turning the unit off for about two and half weeks.  Thank you, Lord!
 
The unit is currently on now, but I'm going to turn it off again. The look of my electric bill was just too much motivation, even if it's just 1./2 of the month.  Although, I'm sure since the temperatures have dropped with the season, we can go longer without cutting it back on, before it starts to get cold.
 
 
What's the longest amount of time you've gone without turning on your AC/Heating unit?


8 comments:

  1. We recently turned ours off, too! And it has a made a huge difference!-Ashley

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  2. I'm glad you saved some money. My hubby gets made at me because I made a rule that we can't turn the air condition on unless it's atleast 92 degrees. Now, that's it's fall we can't turn the heat on until November. However, I had to break that rule recently as we hit the 30's this week.

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    1. My hubby's a "hot" head sometimes. That's a good rule and I bet you save so much money! I might have to try that next summer. 30 degrees! Wow! We haven't gotten that low.

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  3. You are good at it. I'm a couponer, I buy store brands, but, I have to have the a/c. And heat. Partially because once Ladybug gets a cough it takes her forever and steroids to shake it.

    My a/c in my car is out. I drive 50 miles each way to work. $1,000 to fix a car with 150,000 miles on it just didn't make sense. After riding in the hot car I'm willing to pay for a/c! Pay! That's awesome. I need to start blogging about my getting out of debt too.

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    1. Oh my God, the air went out in our other car too, in the middle of the summer while the second car was in the shop (we were working on it bit by bit so it was a while). I thought we weren't going to make it. Same problem. Old car and too much to fix. Still no air in it. lol

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  4. It's amazing how much you can save! Last winter we were using one of those small electric heaters to supplement our heat because the windows in our apt are crap and the landlord turns the heat on sparingly...we were shocked at the electric bills. Now we try not to turn it on until the temperature drops below 50 degrees but are working on insulating the windows with an eco-friendly insulation so that we won't have to use the heater at all.

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    1. We've cut ours off again now. I like the idea of not using the unit unless it reaches a certain temperature. I need to implement that here.

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