Crying over my power bill

I got our latest power bill in the mail today and almost died when I saw it. $327.64 for 32 days which is apparently $11.38/day. It's about $100 more than it usually is. Is anyone else's bill this large? I am constantly making sure lights are off, wear a jumper through the day and only turn the heat pump on about mid-afternoon etc etc and still it is that high. I don't know if I want to see what the next one looks like

I hate to think what our next power bill will be as we have been using our heater all day everyday for last week or so.

I have heard that turning your heat pump on & off costs more than leaving it going to keep your room at a set temperature rather than turning it on to get it to a certain temp then turning it off.

OMG I would die if our powerbill got that high!

We only have a one bedroom place mind you but we have laptop and internet going most of the time and a 41" lcd going most of the time as well as a dehumidifier that only turns off about 4hrs a day and it was only $90 last month most ours gets up to is about $160.

Ours is also up from approx 150 to 300 i almost died at it was a flippen read! i dont understand how it was sooo high

It was sooo cold last month though - I think most of us have been using heaters. Our one was high too - about the $220 mark but then we are at work during the day so that saves on power

Sorry but I feel a little bit better now that some of your guys bills have jumped about as much as ours!

HeidisMum wrote: I have heard that turning your heat pump on & off costs more than leaving it going to keep your room at a set temperature rather than turning it on to get it to a certain temp then turning it off.

Someone had a thread on this a while ago and a link to the Mitsubishi website which contradicted this. So I only turns ours on as it starts to get colder in the afternoon.

OMG our last one was $180 and I *know* this next one will be higher because our new house is so much colder. I'm dreading it

Ours went up from $220last month to $303 this month.

I run our heat pump all day though and think this actually helps with our bill - I put it on low and 18 during the day when we are not home (we leave for work at 7.30 and get home about 4pm) and over night and bump it up to low and 22 from 4.30pm-7.30pm.

We also have a heated towel rail going and underfloor heating in the bathroom and toilet.

I do a load of washing a day and a load through the dishwasher plus our plasma tv is on for about 7 hours a day as like the noise in the background.

We have a oil heater in DS room that switches on at 11pm until about 5 am.

SO...I am quite pleased with ours really as was stressing it would be around the $380 mark as our power bill is always around $200 in summer

We've switched to Powershop and so far it's working out much cheaper than being with Meridian. The bill from 16 may until 16 June was $233 which I thought was really good, as I was still at home with DS and it was freezing here in Chch. I haven't calculated the savings this month, but for the april/may bill, we saved $50.00 on what we would have paid with Meridian. We have a big oil column heater in DH's room, which is on low during the day and turn up from the early evening through to morning, a small column in our room which is only on if it's super cold and only at night, and a convection heater in the lounge which is on from 5pm until bedtime (approx 10pm). We also have a heatpump in the dining/kitchen and that's only on from 4pm until 8pm and then from 5am to 7am. I run the dryer at least 2-3 a week and the washing machine on nearly daily, at least once. We have gas for hotwater though, and we need a new gas bottle every 3 months.

Ours is a big fat $370 this month, this one is actual and the last was not so guess they underestimated that sucker.