Financial implications of prepaid meters
Well... time will tell how this works out for us but our Landlord has recently installed prepaid meters for BOTH electricity and for water!
How it worked before was that we had an electricity bill that would be given to us monthly by the landlord. They would get their bill from Eskom - the electricity company and then we would need to pay it.
However, how it usually worked is that for 3 months they would give us an estimation of cost and we would need to pay this arbitrary amount.
Then on the 4th month they would give us an actual. The previous bills would all be credited to my account and then they would bill the real amount. Sometimes I won, sometimes I won.
I tended to try overpay in the 3 months and then come out with credit at the end.
Then we need to consider the implications of the Water Meter!
I never paid for water... now we are paying for every liter. You pay a certain amount per kL, kilolitres and thus a thousand litres right?
What will the implication be for me financially?
Well, it will mean that I will probably pay something similar in electricity USE, but this PEC meter takes 15% of what I pay! So effectively, my bill will rise by 15%. For water, I am tracking our usage so I can get to an average and determine how much it will cost us. Once I have a week or two's data this should be easier to guess.
The problem is that this is the WORST time for this change. I have a guest staying here till the 6th of January and for another 10 days there will be second guest. Holiday season.
Also the kids are at home on school holidays. And its Christmas so the cost of the holiday expenses (and the looming new school year) is really going punch me in the financial gut...
I will need to work hard on Hive so I can build up a reserve if I am to survive all this financially...
Thank you for reading this post. I will update regarding this matter soon...
Cheers!
@zakludick
Well if you didn't pay for water then ofcourse you'll have that extra expense but I don't think it'll cost you a arm or a leg... infact it would encourage you to reuse water....such as bathing water for plants and such.
Goodluck!
Yeah, we will see... I am still going to need to work out averages... otherwise it's going to be "Blogging for drinking water" lol
When they arrived with roadside water meters I stopped them refusing these new ones, how happy I am that I did they leak everywhere of late!
Pre-paid nothing I take photo evidence monthly on 25th of my meters, don't submit them. When they do reading I check to my own that mistakes don't go through, these guys are so crooked they want everything spoon fed to them, sorry I'm old school!
Have a wonderful week gearing up for Christmas!
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Great idea, always important to keep track of this stuff! Don't put it past them to slip some extra in there.
Keep evidence on everything, everyone has technology, easy capture and store monthly.
Thanks!
I will be keeping a close eye on things!
That’s a bunch of crap man! I hate when those changes happen, but you will make accommodations for it. Hopefully it’s not too much and you’ll get by without too much fuss. As Joan said, make sure to take pictures of the values! Even if they are consistently correct, it’s always good practice to keep them honest and put a piece of paper with the date of the picture in it or something! Never trust a company!
For sure. I shall do that! Thanks!
wow that sucks big time ... good luck buddy @zakludick
Yeah... thanks man...