Has a slight heart attack.... O.O

[Belle5]

I just rejoiced over a $450 bill. Ours has been as high as $900
No we don't live in a mansion. We do have 9 people living here though.

Sounds very similar to my story.
We had been getting used to paying close to $1,000 during the summer months, but by rate shopping and installing some energy efficient features we have cut the bill in half this summer (so far). We have eight people living here in the summer--very close to your nine...It does make a difference. My older sons like to keep the upper floor nice and cool...

 

[SandrA9810]

Well the dishwasher is set to air dry. Because the water is heated so much, it keeps it hot as long as you don't open the door. with or without heat, the dishes still don't dry. And with central florida's nasty hard water, if you don't towel dry, then you have hard water stains every where.

We have a ceiling fan in the living room and bedroom. That are only used when we're in the room.

I've always washed my clothes on warm. And set the dryer to ulitimate dry/cotton. Instead of timed dry. And well air drying isn't much of an option. The closet is just big enough for the washers and dryer to face each other with the vacuum cleaner sitting in the middle. And we can't have anything like that on our porch.

And computer always gets turned off if we're leaving or going to bed, or doing other things.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Well it averaged about 90$ during summer - 15-20 for water (since that's seperate now).
So if I say put in our electric at 75$ for 30 days.

But that's not a valid comparison. You're not living in the same structure.

I've underestimated every bill this month.

Wouldn't it be smarter to overestimate, based on multiple months of experience combined with (now) knowing that the current unit uses more electricity than the former one?

Will the electric company come do an audit, with recommendations how to reduce usage and so costs?

Maybe the best thing to do is rework the budget. If expenses can't be reduced, maybe income needs to be increased - e.g. via second jobs?

 

[disney1990]

4500sq ft over three floors with two teen aged girls on the top floor. I go up about every other day and adjust the thermostat.

I would have one of those plastic caps over my thermostat so it couldn't be changed. Our DDs (when they were teens) knew to never change ours. We have about 2400 square feet and our last bill was $110. We haven't turned our A/C on yet this summer. With both of us out of work right now, it will be a while before it goes on.