Here is a snapshot of our electricity bill for the month of March.
That’s slightly on the lower end of our bill spectrum, but the average is not very far from that amount. Probably around $48. I am trying to find the lowest bill we ever had (I think it was around $38)…but in all probability, I might have shredded it already.
This is for an all-electric apartment (so no gas usage at all). It’s not like the retail electricity price is low in this area…it’s about 9.28 cents per kWh (see the number under “Rate” in the image). It’s just that we tend to use less electricity (by the virtue of grad school timings, our small but sufficient apartment, all CF lights, and our lifestyle).
Assuming that we keep consuming around 500 kWh (the “Usage” in the image above is the electricity used in kilowatt-hour or kWh), our annual electricity consumption can be estimated to be around 6000 kWh.According to this report by the Department of Energy (it’s a bit old with stats for 2001, but that’s the latest one if I am not wrong), the average household consumes about 10,654 kWh of electricity per year. So we are using just 56% of the national average consumption. 
For comparison, according to some alleged reports, Al Gore’s energy consumption last year was around 200,000 kWh. At our present rate of consumption, it will take us about 33 years to use that much electricity.How much is your electricity bill? Are you bring the national electricity consumption average down or are you pulling it up?
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When I had my apartment, I had free heat and hot water. So my electricity bill was a low $14 per month every month. I had to give it up though to save for college.
How’s the grad school stuff coming along? Got any advice for someone that might start his soon? I’ll have my bachelors this year and might start my global MBA in Jan 2008.
-John
Do you have an electric hot water heater in your apartment or is your hot water/heat run through the whole building with a central boiler system?
Our bill runs around 1200 kWh. That puts our bill close to $120/month. Around $65 bucks for the actual energy and another $38 for distribution, and then taxes and some fees.
We have electric everything. An old electric hot water heater, we have well water so we have the pump for that, electric stove, and then our finished basement is all electric baseboard heat as well as the upstairs bedroom.
We use propane for the forced air heating but that only covers the main floor. But I guess the good news is that our propane bill for an entire year is under $500.
The electric bill for my one bedroom was $11.47 last month. I have gas heat and hot water though. My cheapest bill was $10 and change. There is a $6 customer charge you pay before you even use any electricity.
If you have a smaller place than the average, of course, it would be easier to reach that 56% target.
My 1-bedroom (680-700 sq ft, I believe) runs me around $25 in the mild months (no A/C or heat), and $50 when I have the A/C really going in the summer. My average bill is probably $35-$40.
I have CFLs in all my lamps and FL tubes in my kitchen. The other fixtures came preinstalled with conventional bulbs. And I turn my computer off at night.
I also, however, run my fan at night, and tend to tumble things in the dryer rather than use an iron. So I could do a lot better.
I should have probably asked about “energy” bill that encompasses all heating/cooling/electronics/appliances needs.
Wilks and Jeremy: To answer some of the questions above, we don’t have hot water from any central system…so yeah some of the kWh goes towards heating water.
Wilks: Glad to hear from you, it’s been a while since you were gone after the law exam.
TF Miser: $11.47 that’s awesome! What’s your additional gas bill…if I may ask?
HC: We are probably in the same boat…right till “run my fan at night” …except that we don’t have washer/dryer at home.
Btw, “no A/C or heat” ? You must be in Texas or Florida.
golbguru, I also was wondering what type of climate you and some of the other folks are in. I think the main reason we have such a high bill is that up north where I am we need to use heat for a solid 7 months out of the year. So having any part of the electric bill coming from electric heating is going to cost a fortune
When I used to live in a 2 bedroom apartment I was paying about 50-60 bucks a month for electricity and that was without hot water, it was included in the rent. Now I am paying between 85-100 bucks a month for a 3 bedroom house which also figures in the hot water ?? Think I was getting ripped off in the apartment.
Wow, that’s quite impressive for an all-electric apartment! When I was in school, heat and hot water was paid, and our electric bill for a 2-bed apt used to be in the $10 - $40 range depending on the month (summers are HOT in Texas, you cant live without A/C!). But now, in our house, we routinely get bills that are well over $100 per month
I have been thinking of getting CF bulbs, but the frugal person in me doesn’t want to replace “perfectly fine” bulbs with new ones, yet. So over the next year or so, as the bulbs burn out, we will be replacing them with the energy efficient bulbs - hopefully that will help bring the electricity bill down a little.
Wow, I’m feeling a bit smug now, my KWhs last month were 121 and my average bill is around $15 for a three bedroom house. Granted it was about triple that when my previous roommates were here, they loved leaving the TV and video game systems on all night. I personally leave my computer on almost 24/7 but use it more than the CRT television and I make sure and shut off the (LCD, less energy) monitor as well as setting the computer to shut down the monitor before I leave.
Other stats people seem to be sharing; I do use gas in the house, but refuse to turn on the heater when I have so many blankets. My gas use is `10 therms per month with a bill of slightly less than $15. Also no AC, just an occasional box fan or two, I do live in southern California though so that makes bearing the temps a bit easier.
Also ispf: I had the same feelings, but I decided to use the CFLs in the most often used sockets and stash the old incandescents in a drawer for when the lesser used bulbs burn out.
Our electric usage is up >1,000 kWh. It’s my own fault though. Our daughter is notoriously slow-moving in the morning, so I made the mistake of suggesting something I had heard about somewhere else….heating her clothes in the dryer. The idea is “warm clothes in the winter, get moving while they’re still toasty!” It’s degenerated into “dress me and they have to be the ‘right’ temp year-round” and my wife is generally in charge of that and she’s not the fastest land animal in the mornings either. So they spend more time in the dryer than they should. They are also heated for 90% of the school year (which is not necessary either).
Other lesser factors are the electric stove, cooktop, microwave, toaster-oven, whole house air filtering, and year-round dehumidifier thanks in part to a ventless gas heater in the basement. I’m convinced (thanks to my Kill-A-Watt meter) that the dryer is most likely the culprit (nothing else used THAT much power over a 24+hr monitor period. I thought our washer was inefficient at .6 kwh/load, but it seems to be about right.
We’ve got mostly CFL/FL’s in high usuage areas and gas heat (air and water). I’m looking forward to the days when LED-based bulbs are cost effective (to replace 40-150W incandescents).
ispf: You can also remind yourself that CFL’s put out A LOT LESS heat in the summer. Does that help you justify them yet?
My lowest bill for a sub 800 sq ft one bedroom in MA is over 140. In the summer it can hit 190/200.
Not sure what the issue is but I don’t pay for heat and have a gas stove.
Kind of insane.
By “no A/C or heat,” I simply mean that in a typical year (which, so far, 2007 has not been), March/April and September/October are temperate enough that I don’t run my A/C or my heat.
In the winter, I have to have some heat at night (my bedroom has three walls with some exposure), and the summer is simply too humid too bear without A/C.
We live in a 4000 square foot house in Ohio and our electric bill has been level billed at $128 per month. Our big consumers are air conditioning and laundry (cloth diapers and two kids). I like it cool so I’m willing to pay to keep the air conditioning at 78 degrees. I’ve tried line drying and it is not for me. I have a baby on my hip most of the time, and hanging laundry was just too difficult with one arm.
Now, $128 is high, but that was determined BEFORE I got interested in saving electricity and got a Kill-a-Watt. We started turning off our two computers at night, unplugging chargers when they weren’t in use, etc. I also got rid of our 300-watt halogen torchieres, though I miss their light a lot.
We also replaced every one of the 96 bulbs in our house with CFLs, and our electric bill immediately went down $40 a month. I can’t wait to see our NEW level billing amount when they reassess it in August.
CFLs are amazing. It is worth it to replace working incandescent bulbs… you’re just wasting money (and electricity) every time you turn one on. It isn’t frugal to keep the old ones and replace them as they burn out. They were so cheap to start with that you don’t need to get your money’s worth. You need to replace them and give them away to someone who doesn’t care as much.
Fun topic!
I should have said that my average electrical usage before becoming conscious of it was 1150KwH, but now it hovers around 750KwH. I really believe that the CFLs made the biggest impact.
I have average of 25 usd of billing for electricy usage.
My bill runs about 35-45 in the winter and closer to 100 for the two months I use AC in the summer. It’s been a little higher this winter because I’ve been using an electric space heater to heat one room. The current heating system is kerosene, and the whole house is one zone. Turning it up a couple degrees when I’m cold turns out to be more expensive than running an electric heater for an hour. I live in NH where it can get quite cold, but electricity is only about 13c per kwh.
Wow I wish I lived where you do. In Connecticut for my 1 bedroom apartment.
Winter - Average $240
Summer - Average $160
3 Bedroom homes (from those I know who own them).
$300-500
hey there! my electric bill is around $128 per month..woahhh! wow! yeah!
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my monthly electric bill is 187.00 per month and it does not include my heating which is oil. i try to keep lights off where not used but the water heater and oven probably are the culprits
I feel like crying when I read this, my bill for a small 2 bedroom apartment, with no heat on, is 669$ for 1 month, running 4800 kwh per month. Ive never heard of such a thing, and we could never fit enough stuff in here to run that kind of power.
Wow. I live in AZ, and I’m not sure where everyone else lives that their electric bills are so low, but my parents and I live ina four-bedroom house and our electric bill is much higher. During the summer months when it’s about 112 degrees every day, our electric bill is expensive. About $200 is about our average then…
My electric usage for March (technically 3/9/09 to 4/7/09) was 188 kwh. That works out to 6.5 kwh per day. I was wondering if I could get it under 6.0 per day but I don’t know how to get it any lower. I even turn my DSL modem and wireless router off when not using the computer! And just about every light has been converted to CFL. I do have gas heat and water so that helps a lot, no doubt. This is for a 1,000 sq. ft. home in the Houston area, by the way. What’s crazy is that in the summer my usage will soar to over 900 kwh which is all due to the A/C. Hopefully, some more thermal insulation will help.
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