Getting Your 2022 Financial House In Order Part II
I covered insurance coverage in Part 1 of getting your financial house in order. In Part 2, we will look at energy bills and saving money.
When you're planning your 2022 finances over the next few weeks, it's time to change how you manage your energy bills and budgeting. You'll get a better handle on your expenses, have some peace of mind that you won't be hit by a big statement and still be able to enjoy comfortable temperatures in your own home. Peace of mind and creature comforts combined into one transaction is a definite win-win.
No matter what part of the world you live in, you're likely to experience very cold or scorching weather or sometimes both, which means high heating bills in the winter and high air conditioning bills in the summer. Not knowing what your energy bill will be from month to month makes it difficult to budget properly and can leave you in a hole at any time if your energy costs soar in a particular month.
Review your energy usage over the past 12-24 months and calculate a monthly average. Then take this amount and adjust it to consider inflation (3 – 10% depending on where you live). This amount will serve as the budgeted month you will pay for the next 12 months, i.e. 2022.
If you've paid too much at the end of 12 months (because you've managed to cut back on your usage), you'll have a monthly credit on the following bill and also a lower monthly payment. Inversely, suppose youve used more electricity than budgeted. In that case, you'll owe your energy company the difference and see a higher monthly bill for the following 12 months.
Another more expensive way to save money long-term on your energy bills is to replace your heating or cooling unit or even your hot water heater. And, once again, working with your energy company can help you manage this fairly high cost in a very reasonable way. Since I've had the new heating and cooling systems installed for nearly two years now, I've noticed an absolute decrease in my monthly energy bill, with a much more efficient and clean system.
What are other ways to manage your energy bill?
Thank you for reading and hope you have a good rest of the day!
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