Boogie woogie, woogie
Yesterday, I received an email from the electric company. Today, I got the bill. For the second February in a row, I owe about $250 for 28 days of warmth. That's 297 lira, 9,972 rupees, or 26,835 yen sputtering away in my 650-square foot, 60-degree subterranean apartment.
I share walls with people. Shouldn't that provide some sort of insulation?
I can only imagine what might happen if I raised the temperature to something approximating tepid, if I tried to sleep without the flannel sheets, thick blanket, heavy quilt and down comforter in my fleece pants and baggy college sweatshirt.
Spelunking in West Virginia's Organ Cave wasn't much colder with year-round temps between 52- and 55-degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, spelunking in West Virginia's Organ Cave also required hiking boots, a head lamp and far too much crawling on my stomach in the dark.
The past couple of years have been much better than the first couple of years when the company mixed up our boxes. I paid for my neighbors and nobody paid for me. Not only did they have double the space, but the girl upstairs spent the better part of two years pregnant, running the air conditioner non-stop in DC heat and the furnace plus space heaters to keep the babies warm on cold winter nights.
Once I figured out that I was paying for the wrong meter, once I sorted out the cutoff notices and technician visits, I flipped the switch on my low-energy bulbs and shed a little light on my living situation. I started matching my shirt to my trousers and looking a little less like a harlequin or a harlot. Marginally. Maybe. Unintentionally, at least.
Winters still cut like a knife, though, a big, vibrating, cutting into the turkey at a family Thanksgiving, electric sort of knife.
I would swallow my pride and little else, cutting into the food budget and choosing to stay in on cold, February nights. I would try to find a way to balance the $22 summer payments with the $250 winter fare. I had little choice but to pay the bills and figure out creative ways to stay warm on winter nights.
Come let me take you on a party ride, and I'll teach you, teach you, teach you. I'll teach you the electric slide.
Tag: Bills
posted by Kristin @ 7:52 PM
8 Comments:
Doesn't your electric utility have the option of budgeting you annual electric bill so that you pay, say $75 year-round?
My February electric bill is about $13 more than yours, but that's for roughly 2500 square feet of space at 68 degrees when we're home, 65 at night and 62 when we're not.
Your bill seems criminally high.
wow, thats a heck of a bill for that amount of space.. But at least summer balances things out (I face the opposite situation... my place is crazy warm (a combination of location in the building and facing of the windows)... good for winter... bad for summer).
See, this is why I always rent with utilities included. That seems like a crazy high bill for heat set at 60 degrees? Is there any way to insulate around the windows to keep in the heat? When I lived in Britain (in a small town right on the North Sea, so very cold in the winter) people used to seal their windows w/this plastic wrap-type stuff. UGLY as anything, but it really did keep out the drafts...
I feel your pain... or your cold! At least I have gas heat. I think that's slightly more reasonably priced.
Hiking socks, a thick and soft hoodie and a couple layers of comforters should do the trick. At least, it works for me all the time.
It always makes me wonder if those meters really work.
wast3gate - I should look into a more balanced approach. I suppose I can afford it but criminal's an apt word. It's not even warm in here. Or big. Or particularly well lit.
Daniel - It does stay pretty cool in here, which is good, because I couldn't afford the air conditioning as well as the heat.
Ryane - I don't have many windows, but I should really get really consider curtains/drapes/extremely heavy tapestries for the doors. I'd get less light, but I'm never really home during daylight hours in the winter any way.
Utilities included are a very good idea. Next time, I swear.
Ann - Gas heat would help. A girl can only wear so many clothes and still walk.
mm - There is something to be said about burrowing under comforters. Lots and lots of comforters. And who doesn't love a hoodie and hiking socks?
Barbara - I have no idea how I'd even begin to validate the numbers they send or the amount of electricity they say I've used.
Well, for openers, I can think of lots of very nice ways to stay warm ...... probably the easiest is the one Dctra. and I used. (I do mean moving to Florida!)
We opened all the windows at night, even in C in the winter, but did keep it warm when we were home. You still have to pay a lot of money!
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