There has been a lot of media coverage in relation to the dramatic increases in electricity prices - and I am therefore wondering how much ordinary people are forking out for energy in their homes...

I have chosen the 'Winter' bill because that period is typically affected by heating costs and therefore that bill is likely to be the largest for most of us (as not everybody uses aircon over the Summer)...

I am about to add a poll...

BTW, I have chosen 'energy' bills because some people have gas appliances - so please indicate whether or not you pay for energy other than electricity (click on this if you have Solar too)...

I shall also include a response for people to indicate whether their household consumed above the 'typical' consumption of 7,000kWh pa (per NSW's IPART)...

My electricity will be read in early November. Last year that quarter was $224.85. It will be interesting to see how much higher it is. I don't use any heating. My summer bills are much higher because I use the a/c when I am just about to expire from extreme heat lol.



I stopped using as much electricity when they put the price up. I bet they're glad not everyone is like me.

Interesting poll thy.equitist

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Oct 28^th, 2010 at 11:04am:


I'm impressed, Pansi - from memory, it's been at least a couple of years since our household bills were in that vicinity...

Ironically, we don't use aircon (just fans) but we do use some heating in winter...

The bills in WA are bimonthly, rather than quarterly, so it's a bit skewed.  Our winter bill was about $350 I think.
On the bill they have a graph comparing your current usage, the usage from the previous bill, and the usage from the same period last year.   My usage was down on the previous year, but still cost about $80 more.

Quote:


The official reasons are contained in this report/fact sheet, which also does CPRS comparisions: -

http://www.ipart.nsw.gov.au/files/Fact%20Sheet%20-%20Regulated%20electricity%20r...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC8I3J-1GSM&feature=recentf

Fractional Banking and the Federal Reserve System Explained!

Don't use a dishwasher,
turn powerpoints off.
Sell Fishtank.
Don't watch too much TV and don't pay for PayTV.

Managed to keep our electricity bill way low - under $100.

Then we moved in with the In-Laws (save from Rent and help pay their HomeLoan) ...and the Electrical output is so wasteful.
But what can I do...in-laws remember.

Coral Sea wrote on Oct 29^th, 2010 at 10:41pm:



Wow! coral sea, that's stiff. It also depends on the size of the family and the property though. I know people who used to run the pool filter for eight hours a day are cutting down to 3 or 4 hours. There's only so far you can cut back before life gets awkward. Maybe we need awkward and misery to learn the lesson about waste and sustainability??????

<<electricity prices in America are two times lower on average than in Australia. >>
................................................................................
....

That's good. So, in comparison to electricity, how does your telecommunications costs rate? It seems we are paying more to communicate than we are to power our homes.

Actually you guys would have felt the pinch with rising fuel prices due to the falling $US.

It's a good idea to compare prices like this. On another forum, I started a thread comparing energy prices. I converted them all into a common unit like kWhr (I think you might use BTu) and compared the prices for petrol, diesel, electricity and natural gas.

Of course I found out that Octane ratings are totally different in the States. It would be a good idea to repeat it maybe on the Environment forum. I can do the conversions and put in table form.

You'll find a lot of variation in Electricity bills depending on whether you're dealing with a family living in a 4br home or a single person living in a flat.

For telephone service I use GoTalk on VOIP and fixed phone lines. It costs around $50 per month including unmetered Australian calls. Overseas calls typically cost about 1-2 cents per minute.  For most friends overseas we tend to use Skype these days, which costs nothing. 

My Internet service is 20Mbps. I use Telstra out bush (unfortunately) because they offer the best deal. Otherwise I hate Telstra.  They're not too bad for broadband but like GoTalk, they kept giving me marketing calls - until I threatened to change providers if I got one more marketing call.

For my mobile phone service, I use Optus on a $49 monthly plan. I get 1Gb of data and heaps of calls (I only use about 15% of the allocation), but I hardly use it for data except for emails and checking the weather radar occasionally. I also get unlimited free calls to my wife's mobile which is on the same invoice. I use a Nokia E72, and I occasionally use the WiFi on that either at home or at coffee shops.

Ours will get cheaper when we allow competition too. The more essential services that we privatise, the more we pay in the end.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Oct 29^th, 2010 at 9:05am:


Yer, it is a bit of a shock to realise that most household telecommunications bills exceed energy costs - I think many people don't appreciate the relative costs of utilities, because they forget that energy and council bills tend to remain quarterly and telecommunications accounts tend to come monthly these days (often from different providers)...

I was shocked to learn yesterday that my infamously-stingy Mum is forking out $95 a month for pay TV...

Either way, I am taking steps to dispute our last power bill, for the horrendous sum of $810: I think I know what happened to cause such an extraordinary increase in our household usage and costs (problem at utility end) - but to prove it I am waiting for a fully itemised list of the time-of-use billing breakdown over the relevant quarter...

With half-hourly readings, the person I spoke to estimated that the list will be about 50 pages long...

Crikey, that's one at >$1,000 per quarter - which is approaching $100 per week...

I'd be interested to know why the usage is so high...

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Oct 31^st, 2010 at 9:12am:


I couldn't agree more. Essential services are ESSENTIAL and shouldn't be left at the whim of the markets.

Equitist wrote on Oct 30^th, 2010 at 6:56pm:


I'll bet it's teenage kids. Teenagers and early 20's living with parents tend to be wasteful.

skippy. wrote on Nov 1^st, 2010 at 1:30pm:


What size of a system do you have? (ie Power Rating)

Energy bills certainly chew up a sizeable portion of the household budget these days - and everything I hear points to much higher prices...

I already envy Skipp and others who have either escaped or loosened the grid leash with Solar...