Saturday, September 26, 2009

Yay for Deregulation!

Last year everyone was cursing Texas's deregulation of electricity. This year, with natural gas prices at all-time lows, we're celebrating lower electricity bills! For those that don't live in Texas, it can cost a LOT of money to cool your house in the summer. $400-$500 electric bills aren't that uncommon, especially in older homes. In one of the places we lived a few years ago, we would have summer bills that averaged about $350, and that was in 1,000 square feet.

We were locked into a year long contract since last summer, and when it expired I decided to switch. Our rate went from 0.14 per kwh to 0.10 per kwh. I was totally excited to get a bill for $107 today! We have NEVER had an electric bill that low, even when we lived in a tiny apartment five years ago. I need to do some research on when the best time to lock-in a rate is. The rates are so low right now that I'm tempted to go ahead and lock-in, but I'm not sure. I felt like I jumped the gun last year and locked in right before rates dropped, because I was afraid of them going up. I've heard that January is the best time. Going to have to research all of that. If anyone has any thoughts on that, feel free to leave me a comment!

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