Horia Varlan/Flickr
Is your utility bill too high? Now you can actually check how your rates compare using a tool on WhiteFence.com, a site similar to BillShrink.com in that it helps you find low-cost providers for household services like cable TV and cell phone service. WhiteFence paid for a sponsored post on BargainBabe.com two months ago, but it wasn’t until now that I realized the site has valuable pricing information that consumers can use to get a good deal.
Such as a comparison of average utility bills in 21 major cities. The most expensive cities and the corresponding average monthly electric bills are Baltimore ($132), Houston ($120), Orlando ($115), Minneapolis ($114), and Portland ($108). The least expensive cities are San Diego ($30), San Francisco ($36), Los Angeles ($36), Denver ($43), and Atlanta ($48). I live in Los Angeles and I can’t imagine paying $132 every month to turn the lights on!
You can also compare average monthly rates by state for cable TV, phone, natural gas, and high speed Internet by clicking on the “More Info for Services” tab. If you want to lower your electricity bill beyond getting a better rate, consider unplugging appliances. Not convinced your appliances cost much to run? Plug in numbers on your fridge and you may change your mind.
Data for the rankings comes from the hundreds of thousands of orders placed on WhiteFence’s websites for household services. WhiteFence used relationships with service providers to get utility prices. Read more about the survey’s methodology.
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Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price.
good post. i live in LA and was paying $190/month at one point, for an apartment!!! i can’t imagine paying as low as $30 like you say. I wrote a post about how i was able to greatly reduce my electricity bill, check it out:
http://www.gettingthewin.com/2010/04/how-to-reduce-your-electricity-bill-by-20-50/
anyways i just moved, so hopefully the energy bill at the new place is much less.
I live in Los Angeles, also, where we are billed every other month for water and power via the LADWP. Still, our electricity bill alone (we aren’t billed individually for water in our townhouse complex) is MUCH higher than $36 per month! Even $72 for our two-month billing would be a bargain! That $36 has got to be an error. Throughout the year, we pay around $100-200+ every other month and, again, that’s for electricity alone! We don’t leave lights on, I use the dishwasher about once a week, do laundry (two loads) once a week. Perhaps our computers are the electricity burners. If L.A.’s electric rates were so low, there wouldn’t be such resistance to the DWP’s unwelcome rate hikes! (BB, check your bill again.)
i agree, hwo could LA be one of the lowest places with utility prices?? not sure where this stat came from but it is certainly not true for most people i know….are you kidding..rates are high here…
I live in LA as well and if your utilities are that low I have some work to do. Its time focus and set a goal to get down to $30 bucks a month 🙂 Thank you for the post and check me out on http://www.getadealdude.com.
Holy cow, I must be doing something wrong. I’m in a city in LA County (El Segundo), and get power from Southern California Edison. Over the last two years, our lowest bill was $148 (April 2008) and our highest bill was $337 (January 2010), with an average of $227. And we don’t have central air or heating, either.
Probably the biggest costs are from an extra refrigerator and deep freezer we have in the garage. I’ve got to start unplugging things like the link in the first comment suggested. I know we leave three computers running overnight, but that’s when I like to run my backups and virus scans, when no one is on them.
I learned a lot of good info from this article and will definitely save it in my bookmarks. Thanks for the effort you took to elaborate on this topic so throroughly. I look forward to future posts.
I live in Podunk Oklahoma the city of Ponca City, I am in a small apartment and have nothing running except the fridge. My monthly bill is always over $60. a month. The rate is high and no one seems to care for a place of this size it should be cheaper. I am only here till Sept when I can depart from this place I HATE it so much.