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Are these bills expensive?

 
Old 04-11-2010 at 01:32 PM   #1
lawleypop
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Are these bills expensive?
Kay, so. I'm getting SUPER fed up with our bills... I don't know where the heck everyone gets "oh your bills should average out to around 50 bucks a month." I've heard this from people who have a house of 4 people. I have a house of SEVEN and keep getting bills that kick me in the ass. ._.

So, are these bills about average? It seems like SO much.

Union Gas: 264
Cogeco: 124.36
Horizon: 474.72

I mean, this is a little more than over 120 dollars PER PERSON.

Input pls. ;D

(and yes, I realize that Horizon should be only coming every 3 months, but even if you divide that into 3 months, that's around 75 dollars per person every month).
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Last edited by lawleypop : 04-11-2010 at 02:46 PM.
Old 04-11-2010 at 01:35 PM   #2
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the cogeco bill is really high. for internet, you can get unlimited for a little over $80. if it includes other stuff its not that bad.

union gas bill also looks high. ours are usually around $100 max. depends on how many things in your house run on gas tho. ours is only heat.

horizon one looks low to avg to me.

i live in a house with 6 people total.

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Old 04-11-2010 at 01:36 PM   #3
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unless the horizon one is only for one month. ours is usually every 2 months and its around 500

the rest are monthly
Old 04-11-2010 at 01:40 PM   #4
lawleypop
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Well I'm only assuming that Horizon comes every 3 months. If it comes every 2, that makes it even worse. ._.

What internet provider are you with, if you don't mind me asking?
we're with cogeco and I think we pay 79.99 for 125 gigs a month and I think we pay a tiny bit more for TV. I'm sure it's the bandwidth that kicks our ass though.
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Old 04-11-2010 at 01:56 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by davisae4 View Post
the cogeco bill is really high. for internet, you can get unlimited for a little over $80. if it includes other stuff its not that bad.

union gas bill also looks high. ours are usually around $100 max. depends on how many things in your house run on gas tho. ours is only heat.

horizon one looks low to avg to me.

i live in a house with 6 people total.
Actually, 39.99.

Get TekSavvy DSL Unlimited internet. 39.99 a month, or 200GB (more than enough for avg user and even heavy downloaders) for 29.99 a month.
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Old 04-11-2010 at 02:39 PM   #6
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Yeah, The talk on provider is actually in another recent thread. Your speeds are not much lower using DSL over Cable and TekSavvy or Velcom are both cheap companies.
After taxes and such I pay $41 for a dry-loop connection (no phone) with unlimited bandwidth and a constant 512KB/s (normal)

Horizon, we get almost $600 bi-monthly normally (electric oven)
Union Gas is about $100 monthly (furnace and hot-water tank)
Velcom is $41
Reliance is cheap ($25 a month payed every 3 months), and I convinced our Landlord to take on that fee next year (it's for the rental of the hot-water tank which is not a utility)

Your gas bill is the only unusual thing, and it's probably because of an inefficient system.
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Old 04-11-2010 at 02:46 PM   #7
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$500 is probably reasonable for Horizon, and yes it is definitely every 2 months. On the bill it should break it down into Hydro and Water/Sewer charges, you may want to check and post the amount of each of those if you can. With 7 people I'd expect $300 range per bill for electricity and $150 range per bill for sewer/water.

Your gas costs are definitely on the high side, gas rates went way down this year in addition to it being a super warm winter, so I'd expect it should definitely have been much less than $200. If you've been on an equal payment plan (EPP) with Union gas, you should try to check if there's a significant surplus in your account at the moment. I know I've essentially overpaid enough on my EPP here to not have to pay Union another cent until September / October of next year.

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Old 04-11-2010 at 03:02 PM   #8
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Velcom sounds like a deal, unlimited bandwidth? Wow. I know my friends used a similar provider with a different name that offered great quality internet with no bandwidth cap but I can't remember the name..
Old 04-11-2010 at 03:07 PM   #9
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Is my house the only house that pays much less than that for Horizons? Our last bill, for six people, came to $265.20.

Union gas for last month was $133.20

Cogeco was $132.32, and includes free long distance, cable, and internet

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Old 04-11-2010 at 03:14 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chad View Post
Velcom sounds like a deal, unlimited bandwidth? Wow. I know my friends used a similar provider with a different name that offered great quality internet with no bandwidth cap but I can't remember the name..
TekSaavy has unlimited as well, it works out to about the same as Velcom.
I love the service that Velcom has, over the summer I had a few issues with the internet and they dealt with the Bell repair guy and had everything fixed within the week.

Here is the thread we took over to talk about companies before: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthread.php?t=2670 1&page=2
EDIT: I thought we talked about it more then we did, so see posts 29 - 33 for the brief, slightly more technical talk on the 2 companies.

Also dsahota's estimates are right along the lines of my Horizon bills for a house of 6.
Have to love being the one to deal with bills in the house.
Least favourite part is the costs and hassles involved in changing names when you move out.

Speaking of which, breaking off from Bell internet early over the summer (only 1 year with them on a 3 year plan) cost something like $300. It's deadly. And it's actually because of Bell that I wanted to be the one to deal with Bills after the other guy left.

The HIGHEST bills I've ever had from Union Gas is $285, and that was including the deposit when first connecting with them, after that the worst was $124.24 for February.
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Last edited by kldv : 04-11-2010 at 03:20 PM. Reason: Added Union Gas information.
Old 04-11-2010 at 03:33 PM   #11
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3 people comes to about $60 for 2 months for hydro. we don't pay gas or water since it is included in the rent. Our internet is expensive. about $90 a month for 3 people.
Old 04-11-2010 at 03:40 PM   #12
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The company is called Acanac and is $25/mo for high speed internet with no bandwidth cap. 5Mbps/800Kps. Best deal out there.

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Old 04-11-2010 at 03:53 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chad View Post
The company is called Acanac and is $25/mo for high speed internet with no bandwidth cap. 5Mbps/800Kps. Best deal out there.
Note dry-loop (no phone) is another $8, plus taxes (about $1.75)
Still the cheapest at: ~$35

Acanac: $35 (including static-ip [for those wanting to access a server at home])
Velcom: $41 ($2 for static-ip)
TekSaavy: $41 ($3 for static-ip and 200GB limit)


How is the customer service with Acanac?
Do they do any throttling?
Also: "the promo is only available for the first year."
After the first year the cost for Acanac rises to $39.95 a month plus dry-loop cost, plus tax
Velcom and TekSaavy has a set price.
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Old 04-11-2010 at 06:00 PM   #14
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I lived in a house of 7 last year as well, and I was the one who got the bills every month (or every other month) so I remember those dreadful moments quite vividly. We paid around the same that you are paying right now, if not a bit more (it depends on the month). Like somebody else suggested, take a look at the breakdown of usage, and compare it to previous months. At the very least, it's interesting to look at the trends for your house throughout the year.

Little things definitely add up though .. especially if people in your house use mini fridges, or wash their clothes frequently, or don't turn off or unplug things when they're not using them.

In the end, it's kind of inevitable sometimes .. student houses are old and inefficient. We had two back doors that had a HUUGGEEE amount of cold air leaking in (fairly large gaps between the door and the frame lol) .. so our Union Gas bills were DISGUSTINGLY high in the winter. I taped a lot of newspaper in the cracks of one of the doors to avoid the cold coming in (very ghetto but it seemed to work .. it's not like we had a big budget to fix it ourselves lol) but when the landlord showed the house to potential tenants for the next year, he kept ripping it off since it was ugly and he didn't want to give the potential tenants a bad impression. He also adamantly refused to fix anything, I guess since the utilities weren't his problem.

Anyway you probably know everything I've written in this message anyway .. so the real point of this message is .. my house paid around the same as you.

Oh, and also, if somebody in your house signed up for one of those scam things (like Universal Energy) then you might be paying out of your ASS .. I've heard of bills going RIDICULOUSLY HIGH after signing up for UE, like in the thousands!!!! They come to your door and try to trick you into signing a contract.

Last edited by ladyh : 04-11-2010 at 06:03 PM.
Old 04-11-2010 at 06:52 PM   #15
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Well, I don't know if it means anything, cause I live in an apartment, but I pay about $41 for internet (teksavvy), $60 for electricity every 2 months, and thats about it except for my cellphone. Maybe that can compare to what the bill should be divided by the number of people in a house.



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