Equal Payment Plans

Discussion in Gas & Electricity started by janetsjunk1972 • Jan 21, 2015.

  1. janetsjunk1972

    janetsjunk1972New Member

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    Does your service provider offer equal payment plans? If so, I suggest you take advantage of it. What they do is they equal out the total cost for a years worth of service at your home, then they average the amount through the entire year. What happens in the end is your bill will typically go down each month and you don't have to pay larger amounts during certain times of the year. You don't know how many times we scrambled to pay our electric bill in the past when it went up by $200 or more. Signing up for equal payments brought our summer heating from around $350 to the mid $100 range.

    Have you signed up before? If so, do you agree with me or did it not make a difference?
     
  2. Jessi

    Jessi<a href="http://www.quirkycookery.com">QuirkyCooke

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    I think it makes a huge difference for some people. For most, winter prices are higher because of heating bills. For some, it's also higher in the summer because of air conditioning.

    To even that out with the spring/fall months is nice so there aren't quite as many surprises.
     
  3. Waynefire

    WaynefireActive Member

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    I have taken advantage of it and it is called budget billing where I live. The problem is the electricity keeps building up in the bill. Then at the end of the year period you have set up for the budget bills you are going to get a bill for the entire amount and it can be a HUGE bill. I think mine was like 600 bucks.
     
  4. steph7h

    steph7hActive Member

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    We have the budget bill plan for our propane service, which I do like because it evens out the bill during the year so we're not paying huge amounts in the winter for our fill-ups, but I would caution that you should not assume that they are calculating it all accurately. We have had huge jumps in our budget amount over the last 8 years. Some years they have set it as low as $60, sometimes over $300. If they start the payment out too low ($60 is way too low for us), then if you have a balance at the end of the budget bill year, they will have to raise your payment to make up for that balance. So make sure to keep an eye on your overall balance and if you're going to owe money at the end of the budget bill year, start paying extra so your budget amount doesn't jump up more than you can handle in a month.
     
  5. Rosyrain

    RosyrainActive Member

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    There is a budget power plan where I live too and they make your bills all equal. The problem with that system is that it is much harder to determine when you are saving money on your bill and when you are actually spending more so I have opted out. I like to test out different energy saving techniques and then see how much money I saved when the bill comes.