Electric Bill

This Christmas season has been enormously expensive for me. I knew about the direct expenses and I was in control of how much I spent for gifts. I am an accountant...so you can imagine how detailed my list of spending was...per person...by gift name...and by amount. I had two sets of relatives up over the holidays, and my food bill tripled.

So this week the soft expenses started rolling in. First, I received my water bill. It was only $10 more than my usual bill, but it was double my normal consumption. Usually, Joanne and I don't use that much water and I pay a minimum fee each month. In the summer, I may use more when I water the grass but mother nature was kind to us and we had a very wet summer. I normally use 1500 gallons per month, in December we used over 3000. Ok...OK...$10 more isn't so bad.

Then I received the electric bill. It normally ranges $80-$100, and my highest bill last winter was $130. Keep in mind that I like my house to be fairly cool and I keep the heat on 66 degrees. My December bill was a whopping $200. My eyes nearly popped out of my head! I couldn't believe it when I opened the bill. So I decorated my yard for six weeks, and I had all of the outside lights on timers that came on at dusk and turned off at 7am. Then, I decorated the living room and also had those lights on timers for about five hours each day. In my head I couldn't imagine the lights costing me so much extra money, and I loved them. It was so nice to come home every night and enjoy the beautiful decorations.

I had an extra four people at my house for 10 days as well as another four people there for two days. When they were there I had to run the dishwasher two to three times each day and also do the overflow the manual way. We also had extra showers every day as well as extra laundry. It really is expensive to have relatives over for a visit. I will have to remember that for the future. It is going to hurt me to have to pay that gigantic electric bill!