How To Manage Your Utility Bills?

However, the expected costs can be easily estimated and reliably measured by some experience, for example, average water bills. These expected costs allow a homeowner or a renter to allocate a portion of his income for these upcoming expenses. These expected costs include utility bills that can be averaged and paid off with ease.

What Are Utility Bills?

Generally, household bills are considered to be utility bills. These along with their average amounts for a month are:
• Water Bills – $73
• Electricity Bills – $112
• Gas Bills – $72
• Internet Bills – $136
• Cable/ TV Bills – $60
• Trash and Recycling Bills – $15

These bills occur in almost every household. No matter how small or big a homeowner’s house is, or how much he cuts on his costs, most of the above-mentioned expenses will always occur and will always need to be paid off.

Managing Utility Bills:

Management is a key skill to have for a successful life. This management skill is not only required for efficient and effective work in one’s professional life but also an organized and stress-free environment in personal life. When it comes to utility and normal household bills, not many individuals are well organized. Many people lack good management skills when it comes to these expenses which hits their income and savings pretty hard. To deal with this problem, a few simple steps should be adopted.

1. Make An Average Of Re-occurring Bills:

First and foremost, a person should always create an average estimate of the utility bills that are bound to occur after a definite time. This can be done by two methods:

• The first method is simple but does not give a close enough estimate as to the second method. In this method, utility bills of a few previous months are added and averaged as a whole. A separate average for each bill, for example, a separate average water bill, is not required. All utility bills of past selected months are added and then that sum is divided by the number of months which are taken for the sum. Let’s suppose a person’s combined electricity, gas, and water bill for the last 3 months of September, October, and November is $310, $300, and $375 respectively. So to estimate for the next few months, he would have to add all 3 amounts (310+300+375) and then divide the sum i.e. 985 by 3 (the number of months taken for the average). In this case, the estimate comes out to $328.

• The second method is the most effective one and yet takes a little more time than the first one to reduce average water bills and other such bills. In this method, an average of each bill for the past few months is taken as an estimate. For example, suppose there are only two utility bills for a household i.e. water and electricity. So for calculating an estimate through the second method, an average water bill and an average electricity bill for a few months are calculated separately (suppose both are $150 and $160 respectively) and then added to each other ($310).

2. Separate A Portion Of Income:

After creating a good estimate, a homeowner or renter must separate a portion of his income for the payment of these bills. This not only reduces untimely burden and stress but also allows a much better and dynamic approach to saving and spending.

3. Reduce Extra Consumption:

Spending less is advice that has held up its value across centuries. It is always beneficial to cut extra costs and spend wisely. For this purpose, one should remove and eliminate any unwanted and unnecessary subscriptions and payments. For example, in this day and age of the internet, people rarely use their cable services. So it is extremely cost-effective to discontinue such cable service.

Conclusion:

Saving is the key component for a successful and rich lifestyle. In this day and age of materialism, it is hard for an average man to afford a luxurious lifestyle and buy things that are up to date. So, it is necessary to cut extra and useless things out of one’s life, average out the expenses that are bound to be paid, set aside a specific portion of income to pay out those expenses, and then save the rest of the income for any desirable item and for any unfortunate events or hard times.