The electric bill cometh

Oh my! I knew the electric bill would be bad this month after that Arctic blast came through a couple of weeks ago and the heater was running pretty much constantly (and we had it set no higher than 68 at any given time!). But I didn't expect it to be THIS bad! Last month it was $207 and this month it was... $322!! *gulp!* We have a two-story house (which I do NOT recommend, just for this reason!) so our electric bills are always higher than in our last house, but this is just ridiculous. We were even using the fireplace more, but clearly it didn't make a whole lot of difference. We're changing the filters again, but I'm not sure that would have helped much on this bill. Luckily the temps have been much more mild the last week or so and the heater is running much less now. Hope it stays that way! I'm WAY over my wish for snow now! Hee!

This on top of the return of the dreaded furlough days at work is NOT a good combination! But the good news is all of our tax info is now ready so we can file our taxes this weekend. Here's hoping for a nice refund!!

Ebay and cutting costs

My auctions ended Sunday and 27 of the 28 items I had listed sold for a total of $384. That's a bit more than I expected. So after ebay and Paypal fees I should still be able to pay off two small bills with the money and still have $25 left over for a little reward for me. Hee! It always feels good to write a check to pay off something for good. I've got another stack of items to list tomorrow that will hopefully bring in a few hundred dollars as well.

We got the electric bill a couple of days ago. It had dropped $49 from last month, thankfully. Probably would have been even more of a drop but we had some unseasonably HOT weather a couple of weeks ago. It's getting down in the low 40s here at night now, but for the most part I'm holding off turning on the heater. I did turn it on briefly the other night around 4:30 a.m. because it was just a bit TOO chilly, but it was only on for 15 minutes or so and hasn't been back on since. I open all the blinds on the windows facing the sun during the day to get some warmth inside after the chilly nights. I'd love to have an electric bill below $200 next month because I know once the cold weather is here to stay this winter, it will be much harder to keep the bill low. Of all my monthly bills, the only two I have any power to lower are the electric bill and groceries -- everything else is pretty much the same amount each month. So these are the two I focus on the most.

I bought some baseball card sheets at Wal-Mart and have begun the process of organizing my clipped coupons into my spiffy turquoise binder. It will be so much easier when I know where to find everything I need before hitting the stores. Also need to organize all of my Sunday inserts. I have a huge pile dating back to July, so I'm going to store them by month in an accordian file.

It may be a bit early to start this as I'm still stockpiling, but I want to try the envelope system for my groceries starting Nov. 1. I'll start with a bit of a higher amount, but ultimately I want to get it down to $50 per week. There are four of us to feed, plus the cat and dog, but I know that it is VERY attainable. I've seen countless blogs of families, some larger than mine, eating on $50 or less per week. No reason why we can't do the same.