Texas Fall/Winter thread!

[blueriver]

I know those of you up north are accustomed to higher heating bills, but we’re accustomed to bigger electric bills in the summer running the HVAC for cooling, and smaller bills in the winter for heating. But I just now paid a bigger electric bill than we’ve gotten for any one month in at least the last 3 years; $269.82 (10.67 cents per kilowatt hour). Of course that was actually due to 2 things; (1) the unusually cold weather we’ve recently had, and (2) I ran the window unit (A/C with heat strip) in the shop/recreation room a lot, 24/7, when I normally only rarely turn it on at all.

I just paid $116.47 for my house of course 100% wood heat .. My shop and hog house are a seperate meter and they were $132.16 ... I weld a lot and the farrowing house has 4 heat pads 7 heat lamps 2 exhaust fans ... And the barn is on well ... I think that's reasonable

 

[jinman]

We haven't received our bill covering the arctic storm, but I run a 4000 watt heater in my cabin and a space heater in the bathroom turned toward the open vanity and open shower. The 4000 watt fan-forced wall heater runs off 220 and has no problem keeping the cabin at 50+ degrees. We also run a space heater (1300 watt) in our wellhouse. in our add-on bath in the basement, we have a wall unit heat pump/AC combo. Below 20 F, we run a 1300 watt space heater turned toward the open vanity where I have a cut-out to allow warm air to go into the wall. This seems to solve all freeze up problems. Of course, our house is a heat-pump system, and gets inefficient in the 20s. It can be set to "EM" or emergency to run it's heat strips if needed, Mostly it works well without the heat strips.

Of course, we pump our own water and have an aerobic aeration pump that runs 24/7/365. The pump automatically comes on to the sprinkler heads every two or three days. With one automatic light to boot, our maximum winter bill has been around $330 in previous years. I suspect this month it will be between $300 and $350. I think if you add in your water bill and/or sewer bill, you'll see what a bargain we have with the coop electric. I do want to get a fireplace insert with fan forced air. I think that could save $50 or more each month during the winter.

 

[Bird]

Bird, you are so quick with all expenses, do you have them all computerized. If so which program do you use and do you scan or use the receipt bar codes?

Don, I guess I have too much time on my hands.:laughing: Yes, I have them all computerized, but a slow, old fashioned way. I enter all receipts manually into Quicken, and now going from Quicken 2010 on the old Windows 7 desktop to Quicken 2013 on the new Windows 8.1 laptop.

But for many things, I also have spreadsheets on Microsoft Works on the Windows 7 machine and now Excel on the Windows 8.1 machine.

 

[Lou66]

You know I don't have any idea how much my Electrical bill is at the house or land,, don't know what my gas, trash, water, sewer, insurance (life, health, dental, cars, truck, house, equipment) or the lands and house taxes,, I don't know what the cable/telephone, house and two mobile, internet service.. I guess a few more..
It's like magic it just gets paid each month.. I know most is auto pay,, Betty takes care of all that,, So if she died it would take two months to get it straight,, If they don't get paid they will send me a late notice,, I will know that one is not automatic.. When we got married she said you make the money and I will spend it.. so far so good,, not knowing,, she may be doing a better job than I did.:laughing:. Lou

 

[Western]

Brandi Brandi Brandi:confused3: Always take the "cannon" to a "gunfight". If you have to go out by yourself, best be armed to protect you and yours! That Pitt could have turned on you!! and heaven forbid, your daughter and grand babies where out side coming or going!!!!:shocked:

You should sleep with the .45 and you're cell phone within reach, you should have them both. Might want to have some good standby glasses for when you have to wake up and go into "combat mode" too.

OK done with the brotherly chastise

 

[Bird]

You know I don't have any idea how much my Electrical bill is at the house or land,, don't know what my gas, trash, water, sewer, insurance (life, health, dental, cars, truck, house, equipment) or the lands and house taxes,, I don't know what the cable/telephone, house and two mobile, internet service.. I guess a few more..
It's like magic it just gets paid each month.. I know most is auto pay,, Betty takes care of all that,, So if she died it would take two months to get it straight,, If they don't get paid they will send me a late notice,, I will know that one is not automatic.. When we got married she said you make the money and I will spend it.. so far so good,, not knowing,, she may be doing a better job than I did.:laughing:. Lou

Lou, I guess, to some extent, I envy you. I do want to know personally about all those things, but I'd like for my wife to take care of them, but unfortunately she has no interest in such things. I know she could learn. When we were first married and assistant managers of a 104 unit apartment complex, in the days when all tenants paid their rent at the manager's office, she collected rents, wrote receipts, made out bank deposits, etc. She frequently asked me to check her numbers and I never found a mistake. And of course, when I went to the FBI National Academy for 10 weeks, I left her a list of the bills that would come up during that time and she took care of it. And she used to work for a women's clothing manufacturer that had a lot of sub-contractors. So their designers came up with the designs and then her job was issuing the sub-contractors the right amount of buttons, thread, trim materials, etc. to make the products. Apparently she was pretty good at it, because she quit to go traveling with me in an RV when I retired, and when we came back to Dallas for Christmas, they talked her into coming back to work for awhile because her replacement had done well.

Hmm, come to think of it, maybe she's just smarter than me and has me trained to do the work.

 

[Lou66]

Bird I think your wife is burn out on the number game,, Just like me,, I took care of all the money and people issues for thirty five years while working.. from maintenance to production cost.. which was in the millions and always had to come out on the penny.. If I had to I could do it.. just like your wife.. we married the right person/s.. ,,Lou

 

[NativeSon]

Charlie ... Fax me one of your neighbor / friends applications !!!

Blue-We don't have to mess with all that paper work, you just have to move a little closer. With the price of fuel it is all about proximity. Close enough and I know you will be on the friends list.


Charlie

 

[jinman]

Bird, my wife and I split paying the bills. I pay the mortgage, taxes, septic maint. contract, Medicare and Dental insurance, and car insurance on our three cars. She pays the electric bill, groceries, and telephone bills (cell and landline). The landline includes DishNet and our DSL internet. She also pays all our medicine copays through Tricare ($3 to $9 per perscription) and she fills the cars with gasoline. Of course, I buy all the diesel for the equipment. I may pay a bit more than her, but that's just the way I like it.

 

[pacerron]

Lou, I guess, to some extent, I envy you. I do want to know personally about all those things, but I'd like for my wife to take care of them, but unfortunately she has no interest in such things. I know she could learn. When we were first married and assistant managers of a 104 unit apartment complex, in the days when all tenants paid their rent at the manager's office, she collected rents, wrote receipts, made out bank deposits, etc. She frequently asked me to check her numbers and I never found a mistake. And of course, when I went to the FBI National Academy for 10 weeks, I left her a list of the bills that would come up during that time and she took care of it. And she used to work for a women's clothing manufacturer that had a lot of sub-contractors. So their designers came up with the designs and then her job was issuing the sub-contractors the right amount of buttons, thread, trim materials, etc. to make the products. Apparently she was pretty good at it, because she quit to go traveling with me in an RV when I retired, and when we came back to Dallas for Christmas, they talked her into coming back to work for awhile because her replacement had done well.

Hmm, come to think of it, maybe she's just smarter than me and has me trained to do the work.

I guess I have the best of both worlds and then some. Don't tell her. My wife makes out the checks and envelopes to pay the bills but lets me know if something is possibly too high or amiss. She doesn't trust the balance statements and has found a few mistakes, in their favor over the years, In the winter up here we have relatively short daylight compared to summer and I spend a lot of time with my power tools, in the basement, making stuff from wood, metal, plastic UHMW and all sorts of combinations. Starting and stopping
relatively large motors, welders, and other equipment loves to make the meter spin. Then there's all the cooking, baking, dishwasher running, deep well water pumping, and radio controlled hot water heating. They can turn it off during deep loads but it is so well insulated
it never gets cold.
I waste more time on TBN anymore than I should, but I guess you could say that is a relative saving of power:laughing:
Our power is 11 cents per kw and I love every penny of it. We are at the very end of a distribution line, in fact they had to set about a dozen high poles quite a distance apart and 2 transformers to get power to us. We read the meters and send in the checks. They come by once a year to check the wire sag/poles and chat. If there is an outage it is usually fixed faster than when we lived on the edge of a city.
I was a city boy but I sure love the country style of living we have had for the past 20 years.