Gas bill

I'm not normally one who gets excited about a bill. I mean, who likes receiving and paying bills?

However, I have to say I was really happy yesterday when I received my gas bill. Our first month in the house, the bill was more than $150. I figured something had to be wrong, so I called the company, and they said that was consistent with the figure for the same month in the prior year. Are you kidding me?!?

The next month we noticed that our water heater was leaking, so we figured that was the cause of the high bill, and sure enough it hasn't been that high since. However, about 1 1/2 years ago we installed a programmable thermostat, and that has helped tremendously! We weren't always on top of turning the heat down, but with the one we can program, we can set it to switch automatically at pre-determined times.

The nice thing is that I can keep it kind of cool (freezing out Marilee whenever she comes over :), but if I get cold I can bump it up a few degrees, and then it will go back to its normal programming at the next time interval we programmed. It's awesome! (And I don't say that just because it's so sleek and has a stylus ...)

Needless to say, we started equal pay, a program where you pay the same amount every month of the year for your gas. Obviously that's very helpful in budgeting. Anyway, when we started the equal pay program, we were paying $79/month.

Since getting our new thermostat, it has continued to drop every time they re-adjust the amounts. In our bill yesterday they had adjusted it yet again. We're now paying $39/month for natural gas! Yes, it's cut our bill in half!!

Consumer reports said that it would take something like five years to recoup the costs of a programmable thermostat, but I guess we're the exception -- it has already paid for itself and then some. Yes!