Tips And Guides

Usually when I get my electric bill I drop a few “F” bombs, crumble the thing up (except the part I need to pay with) and throw it in the trash. It always seems like we are getting screwed by them. As if our bill was not high enough in the winter or summer, they raised the rates again. And it is not just us, it is the neighbors getting shafted as well. So I took action. I actuall started reading that stupid newsletter they send in the bill.

At first, I was expecting a bunch of crap about how they are going green, or they are expanding, or anything propping themselves up (I am speaking of Alabama Power). But actually, I found some pretty good nuggets. And just by using their information against them, I have dramatically dropped my bill. Here are some of the things you may or may not know.

1. Running your computer costs about .07 cents per hour. Seems like a decent rate. But for a day, if it runs non stop, it will cost you $1.68. Uhhhh ….. I have 2 computers (just bought a 3rd so I won’t count that). So now 2 computers running cost me $3.36 per day. This number is not near as exciting as .07 anymore. Take it one step further, and it will cost about $100 per month to run my computers. Holy CRAP!!! That is crazy. And I got this information from their newsletter. They were telling you how cheap it is to run your computer: “You can run your computer for 3 hours for less than .20″. Can you believe that? I couldn’t. Needless to say, our computers are off over half of the day now if not more.
2. The next newsletter said to use your ceiling fans to help cool you off instead of your AC. This was of course when Alabama broke an all time record for 100F days in a row at 11 days, then 1 day at 99F, then another 5 days over 100F. Yeah, this summer definitely blew. Any way, they said you could run a ceiling fan for about .01 per hour. Once again, on the surface, this seems pretty cheap. But I have 9 ceiling fans, and I was already running them all the time. So 9 fans at .01 per hour gives you .09 per hour. So, over a day (which is still 24 hours) it is costing me $2.16 to run my fans. Which over a month, is $65.

So now, thanks to their wonderful newsletters about using more electricity since it is so cheap, I flipped it and used it against them and have saved over $100 on my electric bill in the last 2 months. Not too bad. I tried to explain the deal with the ceiling fans to my neighbor who is in his 70’s and he thought I was full of #$%^. Then he got in a bill for almost $400. I thought I was going to have to yell “CLEAR”. You bet he turned those darn fans of now.

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