Much Ado About Nothing: Price of electric is…shocking – Pt. 2

By Editor | August 3, 2022 |

By Carmen Ensinger

So, last week I was complaining about my electric bill, which almost doubled over the previous month. I’m not alone – it happened to everyone. In fact, compared to most my bill is chicken feed.

My June bill was $69 I think and my July bill jumped to $118. You are probably thinking – I’d give my first born to have an electric bill of only $118 so why are you complaining. Well, it’s the principle of the thing and if you know me at all, you know that when something gets under my skin, I can’t seem to let it go.

I wouldn’t exactly call it OCD, but it’s similar. I get something in my head, or take up a hobby and I become obsessed.

For example, when I took up coloring two years ago. I wasn’t satisfied to just have one or two coloring books or even five or six. I now have at least 100 coloring books and at least 500 crayons. Kroger had the 24 box of crayons for 25 cents when they were closing – I bought them all – 16 boxes. Why – I might wear out the blue and green colors because they are my favorite. That is how my mind works. Lucky for me all those coloring books were only a dollar at Dollar Tree.

So, I knew I was in trouble when I got into this energy conservation thing. I was determined to bring my bill down no matter what, even though my bill didn’t compare to what other peoples were.

People on Facebook were posting what their bills were. One lady here in Carrollton had a bill of $1,200 for her house! A restaurant in Jerseyville had a bill of $3,000. Other people saw their bill jump from $300 last month to $600 and $700. Makes my $118 seem terribly insignificant, doesn’t it?

But even before I got my bill, there was something that was bothering me. I have a huge window in my living room that the sun beats in on in the evening and that room stays about 10 degrees hotter than the kitchen and dining room.

I bought those insulated curtains when I moved in and it seems for the first four years I lived here they worked, but I noticed they looked terrible and the backing had worn off so I had bought some on clearance last year and traded them out. These were supposed to be insulated as well, but seemed much thinner.

I put them up but they made no difference. It still got very hot in here every afternoon despite keeping the curtains drawn. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the hotter it is the more the AC is going to run – or in this case the more miserable I’m gonna be since I’m not gonna run it till I absolutely have to, so I gotta figure out how to keep that sun out.

I have never claimed to be rich, or even semi-well off, but I can officially now say I have achieved the level of becoming “official white trash”.

You see, my idea for keeping the sun out and therefore cooling off my living room was to go to Dollar Tree and buy that black foam board and tape it to my windows, thereby preventing the light from beating into the living room.

I’m happy to say that it works. First day I noticed at least a six-degree difference from the previous day. Of course, the room looks like a tomb, but I’ll adjust. Of course, I will get to remove them in the winter cause I use the sunlight to heat the rooms then.

You know something, when I was talking with the lady from Ameren, I mentioned this to her thinking she would think I was crazy, but she thought it was a great idea. She said that these are desperate times for everyone and everyone is coming up with different ways to save money right now.

It was a cheap fix too – cost me less than $9 to do two rooms – can’t beat that. So, if it saves me some money, I’m more than happy to be “white trash”, although I’m not even sure we can even call it that anymore with all this political correctness and all. Maybe we should just call it “colorless trash”.

Okay, yes, I Googled another word for “white”. My options were unpigmented, undyed, bleached, snowy, milky, natural and colorless. Colorless won out in my book.

My next purchase will be one of those smart strips for my TV area. I need one of the fancy ones to keep on my DVR drive and my router while cutting the power to the TV and DVD player when not in use. I found one for $20, but I went ahead and ordered a $43 fan for my living room first. Hey, it was half price and has a remote and auto shut off plus is supposed to be energy efficient.

Oh, I also found that Ameren was offering at no cost at all to those who qualify a Google Nest smart thermostat. So, I have one of those coming as well. I have a Honeywell now, but when I went with US Cellular wireless internet (which is fabulous by the way – so fast I can now have IPTV and 6,000 channels for $175 a year – yes a year) I lost the internet connection and can’t get it connected again. This Google Nest is number one rated system in the U.S. right now.

Anyway, I’m doing my best to keep my bill down. I can’t say I love a challenge, but this has become one. I truly feel sorry for everyone who has an electric bill higher than their house payment and I don’t know how they are going to pay it.

I guess the increase in electric has done one thing though – it has made us forget the high gas prices for a week or so.

There is more to this story, so…stay tuned.
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■ Carmen Ensinger is a pet-lover and a reporter for River County News – Better Newspapers.