Minneapolis/St. Paul Nesties
StewieG
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Xcel Energy Bill - is this normal
Ok - this is a shot in the dark that any of you might have some insight on this, but here goes.
We are on a budget plan for Xcel energy (so bill is averaged out and the same each month). Normal bill is $73. I just got our new bill and it was $182!!! WTF?! I looked closely and I don't understand all of the charges, but it sounds like this was a month where they readjust to a different average amount. But, a $109 difference????
I am going to call them today, but does anyone have an insanely high Xcel energy bill? We are a family of 5, but it's summer - lights are off, not a ton of electronics plugged in and although our air conditioner is a part of Xcel, it wasn't on THAT much more this summer than last summer.
Re: Xcel Energy Bill - is this normal
They will up the amount of the buget plan if you're way over the usual amount of electricity that you use, at least in my experience.
They also choose one time of the year (randomly) to adjust your bill for he next year. They take an average of the last 12 months and use that as your new amount. If you had a big month in the last 12 with lots of electricity, then it will jack the new year's monthly bill up.
That's part of my shock. We do NOT have gas with Xcel - that is with Centerpoint.
You obviously used more electricity over your cycle period. Even though you think that you haven't used more it is hard to say you haven't or have.
Our budget is about $140.00 a month and there are only two of us, in a 1800 sq foot home. So, I think that yours was way low for 5 people.
If this is your first year being on budget it will take a couple years to get it to be more accurate also.
Photo taken at 16 months old
This happened to some friends of ours last year and they ended up having a difference of over $300 because it was their first year in a house.
yes, it's perfectly normal. We have always done that except for at the new apartment because our cost is so low I didn't feel it was necessary.
My bill was higher this month also. I have a dinky apartment (that I HATE) but normally my bill is $35-40 and this month is was $88. But we ran the AC a LOT in the last billing period. lol
Ok - I now see that we actually had it good for the past year with how low our bill was for 5 people in our house. This isn't our first year in our house, but it is the first year on the Xcel budget plan, so it was quite a shock. We do the budget plan for Centerpoint (gas), but it always seems to get adjusted DOWN when they do the adjustments at the end of the cycle.
Glad I asked you guys this. You have definitely talked me down from the ledge.
I think that we have less of that shock at the end of our cycle now, than we did the first year. It will get better and more accurate as time goes on. Budget is still nicer IMO, than having the big ups and downs from season to season.