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Utility bills for August

September 6th, 2006 at 06:25 am

Electricity: $78.88
Natural gas: $35.04
Cable modem: $46
Cell phone: $10 (family plan, father won't let me pay)

In exchange for living on the futon for six weeks for a total of $75, I am paying 2/3 of the utility bill for August and September. (It's a somewhat convoluted situation.)

So, I owe $106.61. I guess my guestimate of $100 for utilities was pretty accurate. I was hoping I'd overestimated. I think it'll drop next month, though.

Does running two incandescent ceiling bulbs for 6-ish hours a day, plus a desktop computer with an LCD monitor for 12 hours a day, over the course of 2 weeks, actually add up to $30 in electric bills?? Because besides my clock radio (which I need for my alarm), those are the only additions I have made to electric consumption in this household besides, like, turning the bathroom light on when I'm in it.

I'm kind of annoyed.

I'm expecting the gas bill to jump because of me (probably from $10 to $30 - $40), but I had no idea I had that big of an electrical footprint. EEK!

I tried, I really did. Because I actually have TWO OTHER COMPUTERS THAT I NEVER EVEN PLUGGED IN. Argh, this will majorly suck.

3 Responses to “Utility bills for August”

  1. Wayne Says:
    1157639055

    Two things that could reduce your electric bill are to replace those incandescent light bulbs with flourescent bulbs and make sure that your computer uses the energy saving features (like turning off the monitor and hard drive after a few minutes of inactivity).

    Good Luck,

    Wayne

  2. amberfocus Says:
    1157830202

    I've put in a fluorescent bulb into my desk lamp, and it'll be the only lamp I'll use. I've stopped with the ceiling lamps altogether.

    I always shut off my monitor manually, but putting my computer's harddrive in powersave mode is a little trickier. It has a tendency to... not wake up again, causing me to lose a lot of data (especially half-finished writing stored in browser forms).

    I might bust my computer open to check the wattage on the power supply. I just always thuoght that idle computers didn't consume much electricity, even if they're left on. I'll have to see if I can get that confirmed (or dis-confirmed, as the case may be).

    ~mimi

  3. John Says:
    1232081136

    Do you have a refrigerator? That's probably what is consuming lots of power since it run 24/7. What about central heating/air conditioning? That consumes lots of electricity too.

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