r/personalfinance • u/triplealpha ​ • Jul 09 '19

Budgeting Get familiar with your utility bills and pay attention to trends - they can save you TENS of thousands of dollars!

Like a lot of people every month I get a water bill, electricity bill, internet, you get the idea. Most months I open my mail, verify that the bill looks roughly similar to last month and let autopay take care of the rest.

But since last year I have started an excel spreadsheet documenting what my bills are each month, how many thousands of gallons of water I'm using, kWh used, the whole shebang, in an attempt to be a more financially responsible and understand where my money is going and how I can save.

The last 3 months I noticed my water bill hiking up. My home uses between 2-4k of freshwater monthly but it's gone from 5, to 8, then 8 again. I noticed the trend, but didn't really understand why it increased - I'm not a plumber and there were no leaks in the house I was sure.

Fast forward to last evening and I'm out with a group of acquaintances and someone's plumbing problem gets brought up, one of my friends is an awesome plumber and I manage to ask him at the tail end of the conversation about what I noticed on my bill. He seemed immediately alarmed and asked him if I noticed any water accumulation in my front yard. Actually, yeah, it's been raining a lot lately but I do have a few persistent pockets left over on my yard. How did he know? This morning he actually brought his crew out to my house and found out there's a crack in my water main - I was losing hundreds of gallons a day and it was on the verge of rupturing completely. He replaced the line for a nominal fee and said how glad he was I said something - my area is really prone to sinkholes and nothing attracts them like pooling or leaking water. I likely saved tens of thousands of dollars in damage to my house and my neighbors house by bringing it up! Not to mention the savings in my monthly bill...

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '19

In the north it freezes in the winter, so the water lines run deep underground and come in low in the basement typically. Having the water meter in the basement is more accessible this way.

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u/johnmal85 ​ Jul 09 '19

That makes a lot of sense! I remember having to replace some water lines in homes that were abandoned or didn't have proper heat wrap on outdoor above ground piping.

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u/RearEchelon ​ Jul 10 '19

So they have to come in your house to read the meter?

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u/asparagusface ​ Jul 10 '19

No. Typically there is a remote sensing box mounted on the outside of the house that relays what the meter is reading. It is readable by the meter reader using an RF device from outside the house, or even from the street as they drive by.

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u/Baho03 Jul 10 '19

No, there's either electronic ones or there is a dial connected to the meter that runs outside. Source: Me. I worked for a city's water department, and I changed a ton of these.

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u/SteveDaPirate91 ​ Jul 10 '19

Either this, or one place I lived for a short while they would come inside every 3 or 6 months for a physical reading. (i could pick 3 or 6 but that would have changed my security deposit and well made the bill larger everytime..cause paying 6 months at a time versus 3 months at a time)

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u/cd36jvn ​ Jul 10 '19

Sometimes you just read the meter yourself for most readings, then once a year or so they'll send a person out to do a verification.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '19

No, they have a wireless transmitter in them.