I just moved into this apartment on August 1st, so I don't really know what an average on electric would be quite yet, and I don't want to sign up for budget billing until it's been a year so I know I'm not going to get shafted, since I rarely run the A/C (the electric bill for August was $28, but last month's was $115).

But there's this new thing my friend just told me about that's a "rolling" budget billing, and I'm wondering if anybody's done this?

Basically, instead of being on a fixed budget through the whole year and then settling up with either getting a check or paying the overage at the end of that year, it's always a rolling 12 month period, so the budget fluctuates a bit each month. So, when February is over, they take LAST February's bill out of the equation and put in THIS February's bill when determining the budget amount for that month. My friend said that her budget this way has been anywhere from $60-90 each month, instead of being, say $75, and having to settle up with a couple of hundred bucks one month at the end of the year.

I'm not quite sure if I get this completely. Would you do this? I like the idea of having the exact same bill every month so I can just have an automatic draft come from my checking account and not even think about it, but then again, having a $300 bill at the end of the year that I have to scramble to pay isn't such a cool thing.

Yours must do it differently than mine. Here (gas and electric are separate companies) they average the last six months and bill that amount, and update or reassess every six months. My electric tends to be pretty stable (albeit constantly rising), but my gas bill is a pain in the butt. As it is now I pay for winter gas in the summer and summer gas in the winter... my summer gas bill is always 40-50% higher each month in the summer because I'm paying the previous winter's bill. If they averaged a whole year it'd even out more and make the budgeting easier.

This is an all electric apartment, BTW.

Every utility company does it differently

Mine just sets the month you started the EQUALIZER ( aka "Level Billing" ) plan, which must always be in the Fall or Winter here..
and you get billed the same amount (12 month average) for an entire year. For example my total energy costs for a year run 1632, so they bill me $136 a month for 12 months.

When the year is up.. they either adjust your rate up or down... and you pay that amount for the next year. Basically all you're doing is building up a "credit" during the winter months, to use during the summer months.

A majority of our energy consumption is May - Sept (the hot months).

I've been doing level-billing for years and have never owed a lump sum at the end of the year, I think any deficit I have at the end of the year, is just averaged into next year and the monthly payment goes up.
Of course, maybe that's because my deficits have not been enough to trigger a lump sum payment at the end of the year to cover the shortage.

If they are doing a decent job of figuring your average, you shouldn't have a surprise at the end of the year and if you think that might happen, just add a little to your bill every month to build up more of a credit?

To me, having to pay a lump sum at the end of the year partly defeats the purpose of budget billing.

Call the utility provider and ask if they will provide you with an average of the bills across a particular period of time. The only time I had a prospective problem arise was when the City of Austin tried to claim privacy privileges for a house I was acquiring...I let them know that I was not looking for specific numbers or even any information about the prior occupant, just an average kW usage or dollar amount across the span of time. They eventually capitulated when I pointed out that I *could* always make them request a letter opinion from the AG and that it was less labor-intensive for them to give me a simple number...

I've actually tried that of this company in every place I've lived in the last 4 years, and it's a no-go. They refuse, on the basis that "every person's usage is different even though it's the same apartment". Which is true...I rarely run the A/C unless it's damn near close to 90 outside, and until the temperature reaches 70 outside, my heat is on, and on at 75! LOL I'm very abnormal where usage is concerned.

I plan on doing the budget billing after my 1 year mark, I just didn't know if it made more sense to do the set amount or the rolling amount.

Our budget billing works this way, and it's great for us. At most, its fluctuated about $9 from the month before. Much better than a couple hundred $$ payout once a year. We've been doing it for nearly 3 years now with no problems.

Where I worked, we gave the option to have the amount of the budget billing evaluated every 3, 6 or 12 months. Is doing it on a quarterly basis an option for you? If you are not getting actual reads on the meter, see if you can do it yourself and call it in to make sure the usage billed is accurate. Also, the utility co I worked at- if the budget billing amount was say, $100, the customer could request it be set at $110 to avoid running a deficit in the budget billing amount.

That's like giving the utility company an interest-free loan. To me the whole point behind budget billing is to average the cost of real usage, and both I and the company knows that may include a deficit or a surplus at any given time. I'd rather just let it run its course.