(I don’t think there are any revealing details here, but under a cut just in case)
Did you know the Ontario Energy Board has an electricity welfare program? (they don’t technically use the word “welfare”, but that’s the general idea)
Because *I* didn’t.
Did you know that Ontario-Energy-Board-regulated electricity providers have different peak hours in summer and fall (May 1st – October 31st) than they do in winter and spring?
Because *I* didn’t.
(Specifically, they flip which times are mid-peak and which are on-peak. Which means if you’ve been trying to move some of your on-peak electricity usage to mid-peak times, you need to change your strategy when the seasonal rate changes or you’ll end up making things *worse*.)
So the bad news is, my family’s been severely fucking up our attempts to reduce our electric bill for three and a half months, and moderately fucking it up for years. Good news is, now that we actually know what our cards are and how to play them, between that and the recent drops in electricity rates we can probably cut our electric bill to, like, $10 – $20/month (our 2016 average was ~$130/month; 2017’s been more like $100 so far, but they just dropped the rates again, so an equivalent amount of usage would now cost ~$80).
I don’t think I actually have any Ontarian readers, but the rest of you might want to check if anything analogous is going on in your area. That’s a lot of money that could be going towards food, shelter, etc.
Tags:
#shown above: an example of why I haven’t played Flight Rising since December #why play dragon capitalism when you’re playing *real* capitalism #(I suspect in the long run I’m going to end up with some serious miser issues) #(we’ve been bleeding savings to some extent or another for so long) #(I’ve gotten used to the idea that my future selves will always need my money more than I do) #(that the overall trajectory of one’s finances is always downward) #(but the sooner you start acting as if you’re already broke the longer it will take for you to become *actually* broke) #(and the softer a landing it will be when you inevitably get there) #(so if I ever end up in a position of true financial stability) #((rather than the one-time cash infusions that have kept us afloat so far)) #(I’m going to have a hell of a time convincing myself of it) #(I think part of me’s always going to believe that the good times are temporary and I need to be preparing for when they end) #anyway I’m glad I double-checked the electricity-price rules #there is probably some warning tag I should put on this but I am not sure what #oh look an original post #the more you know #tag rambles #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #adventures in human capitalism
Brinens and Things 