Budgeting for heat

[SandraMort]

I'm completely at a loss for how to figure this out.

I'm supposed to pay 300 or so a month to the oil company based on a budget plan, but I don't think we're using nearly as much as the predicted amount since we keep the heat ridiculously low and are using wood. Can I call them and ask them to recalculate the payments or do I just end up with credit at the end?

How do predict how much wood I need to buy if I don't know how much cold weather we're going to have? Buying more often doesn't seem to cost that much extra, as long as I'm buying half a cord or more at a time.

If it helps, we have a two floor apartment in a private house. The first floor is kept at 62F most of the time and the second floor is either turned off or in the 50's, depending on whether people are upstairs. The kids' bedrooms are up there but they often sleep on the couch in the living room or playroom, so I don't need to heat their bedrooms. The areas of the house we use most often are easily heated with a wood stove and the rest of the areas shut off by closing the doors. I pay 100 per half cord (or 200 a cord, no savings there) and have used most of a half cord in the last month or so due to the cold.

 

[patandchickens]

Why not just call the oil co. and *ask* about it? If you're sure you're using less, it seems silly to be giving THEM the use of your money (to make interest offa) when YOU could have it

As far as buying wood more frequently vs a larger amount for a longer time, personally I'd go with whatever was cheapest and I had storage for. If some wood is left over at the end of the year, you can still burn it next season if it has been stored well.

With hay I am never comfortable buying 'in installments', as far as I have storage for larger quantities, because Surprising Things can happen and you don't want to wake up one morning assuming you can get wood easily but discover that suddenly it is in short supply locally and you have to pay a bunch more or even have trouble *getting* it (for reasons of supply, or reasons of roads being blocked for weeks by giant blizzard/icestorm/etc). Firewood is not necessarily quite as volatile a market as hay, but still, there is a great feeling of security (to me anyhow) of having a long-term supply sittin' right there where you can GET it

JMO, good luck,

Pat

 

[SandraMort]

Why not just call the oil co. and *ask* about it? If you're sure you're using less, it seems silly to be giving THEM the use of your money (to make interest offa) when YOU could have it

Um... bc I'm a coward?

As far as buying wood more frequently vs a larger amount for a longer time, personally I'd go with whatever was cheapest and I had storage for. If some wood is left over at the end of the year, you can still burn it next season if it has been stored well.

But I rent and the house is up for sale. It probably WON'T be sold, but I still hesitate to lay out money for much, just in case. In the past, every (and I mean without exception!) time I planted a garden, SOMETHING happened to force us to move.

Firewood is not necessarily quite as volatile a market as hay, but still, there is a great feeling of security (to me anyhow) of having a long-term supply sittin' right there where you can GET it

I totally agree, but see above

 

[FarmerChick]

I never heated with oil so I have no experience with these companies. But if on a budget plan, call and find what it totally entails and how it works. I am sure you get a credit if you do not use alot of oil. But a phone call explaining the system is what you need to do.


The wood is harder to determine cause it is based on what you need to burn to feel comfortable. And each month into winter it gets colder, so more wood is needed to burn..........so best advice is this, find a good storage spot, put down old pallets or something, and stack wood when you find it. Like Pat said, all of the sudden in the dead of winter when you need it most, it truly might not be available and having that supply in the yard all stacked up neat with a tarp makes one feel good!!!! And I guarantee next year the cost will increase on your cord of wood, so stocking up a small supply is money saving anyway.

 

[poppycat]

If you are renting, I can see where it might be a gamble to buy a huge quantity of wood that you wouldn't be able to move when you needed to. I guess you'd just have to weigh the costs against the risk of moving. If you don't have the storage, you don't have the storage. Just have to pay as you go.

But seriously call that oil company today! I absolutely despise making those phone calls, but just having finished a round of them to various insurance entities, I'm $400 richer. Look at it as working for a wage.

 

[FarmerChick]

oh SM you sure don't have to be chicken to call the oil company. All you are asking for is some explanation of how the monthly billing payment plan works....that is not a problem for them. I am sure they get those calls all the time......just call and say you need help on understanding it.....should be more than fine!!

Oh renting, yea I can see where you would not want to stack a ton of wood and then move or something. Then just buying as you go is the best way of course. Or storing very little.....not many more options if you can't do long term storage.

 

[patandchickens]

Well only the oil company is going to be able to answer your first question. Really. They do not all have the same policies. So IF you want your question answered, you DO need to call them rather than asking the internet.

As far as wood goes I guess I am not clear on your question then. If you don't want to buy "too much extra", don't, but it's still smart to buy as much as you feel you can. Look, if the house were sold on Tuesday, how long would it be (per your contract) before you had to move out -- how much wood would you use in that time if it were constantly quite cold -- and how much wood do you think you could/would transport in a pickup truck or moving van or such, or sell to someone else? There ya go, that's how much wood to buy

Not sure where "budgeting" comes in (because until you have lived in a place for several winters you just WON'T have a good estimate of your yearly wood or fuel use).

Good luck,

Pat

 

[annmarie]

You might want to consider getting off that "budget" plan altogether. Those plans are pretty awful for budgeting because it's basically a way of saying to the customer (you) "don't worry about how much oil you use, just keep shelling out cash and we'll make sure your bill gets covered". If you're trying to be more self sufficient, that's exactly the kind of consumerism you should be getting yourself away from. If it's at all possible, consider paying for each delivery as it comes, so you can keep track of how much you're using, and you'll be more inclined to be conservative with your use, knowing the faster you use it up, the faster that truck will be coming down your driveway, and the bill will be left behind. Just my two cents! As far as the wood usage, that's pretty impossible to estimate until you've lived there a year or two, and the only way you'll know in a year or two is by keeping records now of how much you're buying/using. You could ask the previous tenant or your landlord, but if your wood heat is a secondary source of heat, it's really going to vary from person to person and their different daily routines and their idea of a comfortable temperature.

 

[patandchickens]

That's a good point annmarie makes. We don't use one of those distributed 'budgeting plans' ourselves, not for electricity nor for fuel oil; we sort of budget the maximal winter amount for every month of the year, and then in the months where actual fuel oil or electricity expenses fall short of that, there always seem to be *other* seasonal expenses that we need to pay for, like stocking up on hay in the fall.

(If you don't happen to have other budget items that seasonally compensate for lower monthly heating costs you could just <gasp> put the money into savings. Obviously this won't work for someone truly barely scraping by, but for the vast majority of us here it would work just fine)

Pat

 

[SandraMort]

I didn't really have a choice. My credit sucks so they turned us down for oil delivery, so the landlady offered to set this up in her name. Working on the credit and THEN I can talk to them about dumping the payment plan. KWIM?