In our family, I am the one in charge of finances. I think that is how it is with most couples -- the woman takes care of bills, bank accounts, etc. For us it made sense for me to be in charge of it because when I was in grad school we had to put all of the utilities in my name and when we consolidated things after getting married, we did it at my credit union rather than David's (our checks still only have my name on them, and my old name at that). Sometimes it gets a bit tricky, since the mortgage is in David's name only and the lenders won't discuss billing with me, but usually it works out just fine.
This is all lead-up to say that, when David opened the energy bill last Friday, he didn't actually look at it, but just put it next to my purse and took off for a weekend of ice fishing. When I looked at it, I nearly fainted: $415! Was it the grow light David constantly keeps on for the Meyer lemon tree he is nursing? Now we do have high energy bills every month, particularly in the winter since our house is poorly insulated (if we had central air, they would be equally high during the summer), and the bulk of the bill is heating gas. This month it was no exception -- the gas was about $380, so it wasn't David's grow light (besides, he has been using that for months). But the bill was still twice what we pay in the coldest months of the year.
At that point, I read the bill pretty thoroughly to see what was going on. The first thing I saw was a note that said there had been an increase in the gas recovery cost we were being charged. For a second, I felt like an idiot. Just about a month ago, a guy came to our house selling a program that keeps the gas recovery charge the same, regardless of increases made by the recovery company. It sounded like a scam to me, so I told him I wasn't interested. Perhaps I should have listened to him more closely? But the increase in the charge was only a fraction of a cent, so it couldn't have made that much of a difference. Then I looked at usage. According to the statement, we had used an average of 11.9 ccf a day. I have no idea how much a ccf of gas will heat a house, but the statement conveniently has comparison figures: the previous month and the same month a year ago. In both months, we had used only 5-6 ccf a day, so this figure was more than double that, which couldn't have been right unless we had been keeping the windows open or there was something very wrong with our furnace.
I finally called the gas company yesterday, and was told to go out and read the meter. Pretty simple and, when I told David, he replied that if he had been "thinking like a guy," he would have just gone out and done that. So when I got home from work, I checked the meter and, sure enough, the reading was 277 ccf less than what was listed on my bill. When I called the gas company back and reported the meter reading, she replied "they were way off!" No apologies, but she did recalculate what we owed, bringing it down to what I would expect to pay in March. Turns out we didn't need that gas recovery protection plan after all!
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