Tag: gas and electric bill

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Every Day

Emergency Medical Stockpiles

The evening that I wrote my last blog post I woke up in the middle of the night sick as a dog. Things did not get better from there. Two days later Hubby got really sick too. I contacted my doctor and he diagnosed us through the portal because I knew there was no way that we could leave the house. Thank God we had a stockpile of medical supplies and everything that he told us to use, I already had. So we did not have to get a delivery from the drug store or grocery store. The first two days that I had it, I could not eat nor did I have the appetite to. But Hubby let me sleep and he checked on me when I would wake up to see if I wanted a ginger ale. Ginger ale and Gatorade were my lifesavers. Then Hubby came down with it and we just did what we had to do to survive. For one week, I ate just one dry English muffin, a small cup of chicken soup, and 2 eggs (which made me feel worse). We kept up the liquids because at our ages the doctor was very concerned about us dehydrating and landing in the hospital. My sons were equally concerned. Meanwhile I had lost 12 lbs. Not a fun way to lose it.

Finally I felt so bad the middle of this week that I decided I had to force myself to eat so I made us some fish fillets. The next day, we had steak, potatoes, and veggies. I made sure we had lots of protein because I was very weak. Yesterday, I woke up and felt 80% better. I looked around my home and it looked like a bomb went off. Yup, dishes everywhere along with everything else. Neither one of us had any energy to take care of those things. We were barely able to take care of Eloise’s necessities. So yesterday I reset my home and it is looking pretty good which made me feel a lot better. Last night, we both got a really good nights sleep.

Today, we feel 100%. So we will get the rest of our home in order along with sanitizing and cleaning everything.

I missed our Buffalo Bills game last Sunday and the inauguration of President Trump because I was sleeping. But I will catch up. I am looking forward to our game tomorrow. Go Bills!

Besides catching you guys up on my absence, I have a few more things to catch you up on. I have not spent any money since the last time I posted on here. So that is a good thing. Hubby is in the process of buying me a motorized snow shovel. I do the shoveling of our short sidewalk and porch and he does not like me lifting the heavy snow. He can’t do it because of his knee. So this shovel should take care of that:

https://www.acehardware.com/departments/lawn-and-garden/snow-removal-and-equipment/snow-blowers/7034161

Then he will sell our big snowblower. Our snowplow guy has been doing a great job on our driveway so we will hire him again next winter.

Also we were not able to get to read our electric and gas meters for our bill and submit them to the company. There was too much snow to get to them and I was in no shape to shovel a path. So we got our estimated bill for the past month. I think I told you I was expecting our bill to be around $300. this month which would be the highest bill we have ever gotten. The bill came yesterday and it was for $296.46 for 32 days. So very close to what I thought. It has been snowing every day for at least 2 weeks and very brutal cold temperatures. But we have stayed warm.

Then in the mail one day I got 3 coupons for 5 lbs. of Riceland rice. That is always needed in this home.

I hope you are all well and continuing to save money. Till later.

Categories
Every Day

This Month’s Utility Bill

I am trying to keep my mind busy so that is why I am posting this tonight instead of tomorrow. My son, Sean has been admitted to the hospital with a huge gall stone. They need to remove his gall bladder asap. His surgery may be tonight, if not it will be tomorrow morning. They want to operate as soon as they can because of the size and they are worried about it moving. If it moves, he will need two surgeries. I have been praying for him and if any of you who read this would pray for him, I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

We got our monthly bill for electric and natural gas today. The bill was for 28 days. The bill was $ 256.09. Our KWH’s were 490. Our natural gas was 5 therms. Our average daily temperature for this period was 31.

Last year’s bill for the same time frame was $228.23. It was also for 5 therms of gas and for 485 KWH’s(just 5 less than the current bill). The average daily temperature was 32.

So as you can see these bills are almost identical except for the cost. The current bill is $ 27.86 more than last year. At the rate we are going, we will be paying approximately $360. more this entire year than last year.

The only good thing I can say about the utility bills is that it seems to be warming up here so perhaps we can turn our heat off in May.

Categories
Every Day

The Dreaded Utility Bill

Do you remember last month when I told you that I thought for sure that our next utility bill would be over $300.? Well I am sorry to say that I was correct. We received our electric and gas bill yesterday. For 34 days of service, the bill was $ 302.41.

This month we used 584 KWH’s of electricity and 156 ccf’s of natural gas. The average daily temperature during those 34 days was 32 degrees.

Last year for the same February billing, we used 563 KWH’s and 162 ccf’s of natural gas. So we used 21 KWH’s more of electricity and 6 ccf’s less in natural gas this year. Our bill last year was for 29 days and the average temperature was 23 degrees.

It is a good thing that temperatures were warmer this year. My bill last year was $ 257.83 for a much colder time period. This year’s bill was $44.58 more than last year. Can you just imagine what it would have been if we hadn’t had a warm spell?

To be perfectly honest, I am getting tired of these bill increases. We keep our heat at 68 during the day now and 62 at night. We are not heating 2 of the bedrooms and none of the basement. We have cloth snakes in front of the outside doors. I use small appliances to cook. Lights are off during the daytime and on at night only in the room or rooms that we are in. All lights are LED’s. We no longer use an electric blanket. I clean with cold water except for dishes. I have been doing my much needed spring cleaning this week and part of last and using a bucket of cold water to wash floors, etc. Computers and TV’s are turned off when we are not using them. I really don’t know what else to do to keep this bill down as low as possible. It’s getting very irritating.

Today, Hubby and I are going to run some errands. We have an ice storm coming in this afternoon and we could get up to 1/4 to 1/2 inch of ice on trees and power lines. I am praying that we don’t lose power even though we pay an outrageous price for it. We don’t need to be without power for days.

We were supposed to have West for a few days this week because he is on winter break. However he is running a high fever so he is not coming. I am praying that he gets well soon.

Are you people frustrated with your power bills?