Paying High Utility Bills
Often in the winter utility bills can rise to unmanageable amounts. In the summer, you can make do without air conditioning or cooling. In the winter no heat may mean pipes freezing and possibly breaking. This can be expensive to repair and to deal with the water damage once they thaw out. In addition, not having running water can make a home unlivable.
Once a utility is turned off there is a fee charged for it to be turned back on and it can take up to 48 hours to get service restored. Once turned off, the entire bill will need to be paid in addition to the turn on fees. If you haven’t planned ahead and put some money aside when your utility bills were low, then you may find yourself in trouble this winter.
Ways to pay high utility bills when you were not able to reduce your utility bills:
- Call before turn off date and make payment arrangements
- Use a credit card (the interest is probably less than the fees to have service restored)
- Look into community services that assist will utility payments
- Personal loan from family or friend
- Cash advance from work
The article “High Winter Heating Bills, Meet Credit Cards” on CreditCards.com is an informative article regarding utility bills and credit card payments. The article also has wise warnings about credit card use, a list of utilities that accept credit card payments, and information on help for low income households.
Do your best to reduce your utility bills on a daily basis to avoid a high utility bill that you will struggle with to pay, have to borrow to pay, or risk having your utilities turned off because you are unable to pay a high utility bill. Be cautious with loans, advances, and credit card use so you don’t start a financial snowball effect.
Thanks for the kind words. I’m editor in chief over at CreditCards.com, and that poll you mentioned was an eye opener.
It’s not that I was shocked at the number of people who would have to turn to credit cards to pay their winter heating bills.
I was surprised by the number of nasty e-mails from the “those people deserve what they get” crowd, who are convinced that anyone having trouble with their bills must be blowing their money on booze or big-screen TVs.
There was also a second group of angry writers, anti-environmentalists who mockingly said, “Don’t worry, global warming will save them!”
Our editorial department at www.creditcards.com publishes a scientific poll every month, btw.
Again, thanks for the kind words.
Comment by Dan Ray — February 12, 2008 @ 12:14 pm