Budget Billing for Electricity.

Our power company offers a budget billing program where you can basically pay the average of all your yearly electrical payments as a monthly sum. I had it at my last place and now that I've been at my new apartment for a year I was considering signing up for it again just because I like the idea of my bill being the same every month.

But this is probably a case where it would hurt me rather than help me. The program is great if you're on a limited budget and a monthly utility spike could send your checkbook into the red. But in my current situation where I can more than cover my utilities, it doesn't make much sense from a practical of financial standpoint.

For one, it would mean overpaying about 50% of the time. That's money is rolled up into a hidden balance used by the program to calculate my annual rate... in other words-- it's pretty much out of my hands until I leave the program; if there's a balance. It's not a major issue but having control of my money allows me to save more when costs are low.

The second thing is that it masks energy consumption. I admit I don't really look at my online electric bill and try to make sense of my killowatt hours. Seeing the actual amount due go up or down though is a pretty good indicator of my electrical usage. If there is anything out of the ordinary I'm more likely to notice and research it.

I'm going to stick with paying a variable amount every month since I don't need to budget.