Well, I think I got all the bills paid for the month (or set up to pay anyway) except for the gardener who hasn't billed us yet.

I got the gas bill which was a whopping $16 & also the water/garbage bill which is flat but went up 29 cents per month with the new budget I guess. I think we'll be okay.

Now that I think about it, I didn't get the electric bill yet. Soon enough. Won't be pretty for June...

Anyway, back to the water bill, I have probably said this 10 times already but they bill a flat rate. So for the year I lived here alone I was certainly overcharged. For the year dh and I lived here alone we were certainly overcharged. It figures they are switching to metered water now that we have 4 people here and use a lot more water.

But the good news is I just got a notice they are switching to metered water 2010 but we can switch NOW if we like. They have been adding to our bill what the water portion would be with meter readings every 2 months and 90% of the time it seems the meter charge is less. PLUS knowing we can control our costs I am sure we can work on getting it down. So I think we will switch. I will look back and double check. On our current bill they would have billed us $40 for 2 MONTHS of water. As is they billed us $30 for 1 month at the flat rate. The savings looks like it will be on average $10/month. Not bad!!!!!

I'll double check our prior bills. I am not sure I noticed they were only doing the metered water in 2-month increments so it could save a lot more money than I realized. The 2 months is usually less than our 1-month bill. I am most definitely switching over ASAP.

The downside here is the ridiculous requirement for green lawns in the 100-degree summers. I think we will change the backyard to more dessert landscaping one of these days which will help. All of our appliances are really water saving (low-flow toilets, water conservative washers, etc.) so we have quite an advantage. I question how they have billed these newer houses all along. Of course there are a bunch of retirees living on our street in 2800-sf homes so no doubt their bills will lower considerably as they probably don't use near as much water as families like ours. We still wash diaper covers every day. Moving past diapers will save us a lot of money! But even beyond that we don't bathe every day or shower every single day. I think all of this stuff is to our advantage. Though if they find they aren't getting the revenues they will certainly raise rates. I guess it could be a gamble. But overall I am not surprised the meter will cost less. We grew up in drought country. It's just natural for us to be on the conservative side with water. We grew up not being able to shower every day. It isn't as bad as it sounds - I swear - LOL.

ETA: I did check and we would be saving on average $15/month (50% decrease) 8 months of the year. Save $10/month in May & June (gets hotter) and save $0 in July & August (no doubt all the lawn watering). So all in all we should save around $140/year on water!

The best is once we get the baby out of diapers we should be able to bring it down (& give the clothes washer a break!). Between that and the diapers and diaper service, well I hope it is sooner rather than later. We really haven't had the motivation to keep our water use down so maybe we can find more ways with extra motivation. Man I have been griping about how expensive water is here. No wonder. We still pay like $50/month for sewer or whatever. Geez. But I am very happy to no longer be penalzied on water just because we have a bigger house. Coming from drought country I was just shocked they did not meter water here. Just foreign to me.

Hey, in other news dh's car just rolled to 70k miles. The baby is about 7 years old so has averaged 10k miles per year. We've had it 5 years and got it with 15k miles. The first 6 months he was commuting to San Jose for work with it so probably put on some decent miles. Since then it hasn't got much daily driving but we tend to use it for road trips since it can get 35 mpg. The thing is still one of our newest cars ever at this point. It's a baby. I am not sure if it has ever really had much in repairs. We've gone years without spending a dime on it outside of oil changes.

The van is going to hit 50k by the end of the year. We've only had it a year (put 15k on it). It will be ironic if dh's car lasts longer. IT costs 1/2 as much as the van and so far I would say it is more reliable to boot. The van stands a chance though because dh is better about letting me use his car with gas prices lately. His car has been getting used a lot more lately...