I’m trying to decide whether to let ConEd average my bills or just build a bigger utilities buffer myself. I’m in a prewar in Astoria where the building covers steam heat and hot water, but my stove is gas and the electric covers the fridge, home office, and one window AC in the bedroom. Outside AC season my usage is pretty boring. Then July and August show up and the bill roughly doubles, not because I’m running an ice hotel but because the window unit cycles overnight to make sleep possible.

I have a few years of statements, so I can see the seasonal pattern. I’m still debating budget billing because the equal payment amount sounds easier to plan around, but I don’t trust the true-up month. For people in older apartments with similar setups: did budget billing actually track your real usage, or did the adjusted amount keep creeping up and then hit you with a catch-up? Do you base your budget on the total bill, or do you separate delivery from supply and just accept the delivery side as the floor?

I’m also trying to figure out if I should include a portable dehumidifier in the estimate or just treat that as a one-time purchase and a small July bump. I’d rather have a realistic utilities line that survives August than a smooth number that’s just an average of bad guesses.

I did budget billing in my last place and dropped it after the first true-up. It wasn’t that the math was broken, it’s that the recalculated amount changed after I’d already locked the lower number into my rent and grocery plan. The catch-up hit at the exact wrong moment.

Now I self-escrow. I take my last twelve actual bills, add them up, divide by twelve, and move the difference into a separate savings bucket when a cheap month comes in under that average. I don’t let ConEd hold the money. The delivery charges are the part you can’t change, but usage still matters: I run the AC on a timer, use a box fan until the room genuinely won’t sleep, and turn the unit up a couple degrees at night.

For anyone also trying to keep a no-car Saturday cheap, the older Hudson River day trip thread Cold Spring without Breakneck: is a no-car Saturday still worth it for an easy river walk? is worth reading—same kind of math problem: small upfront choices, one bigger cost later if you get it wrong.

Wait, budget billing isn’t actually cheaper? I thought the whole point was you got a little break for letting them average it out. We just moved and I was about to sign up because the first winter gas bill scared me.

If you don’t have a full year of old bills, how do you pick the number to put away? Our place is a small one-bedroom with a wall AC in the living room and no dishwasher, but I have no idea what July will look like. Also, does a dehumidifier actually reduce the AC load, or is that just another thing drawing power?

CypressHills_C is right that it’s smoothing, not a discount. Beth, ConEd isn’t giving you a lower rate for budget billing—it’s just taking the same annual total and spreading it out. If you underpay during the year, the true-up gets you later.

For a new place, ask ConEd for the usage history at that address. They can usually give you meter history or at least a range if you call and explain you’re comparing apartments. If you don’t want to call, take the highest of your first couple months and use that as the ceiling, then move the difference down when a lighter month comes under it.

On the dehumidifier question: don’t buy one just to make the AC more efficient. The window unit is already pulling moisture out of the air. A dehumidifier only makes sense if you have a dampness problem that the AC isn’t fixing, and it will add its own electric load. A better first move is a clean filter, a fan, and keeping the AC set a degree or two higher at night with the fan blowing on you.

I keep a separate online savings bucket named something obvious like ‘gas/electric true-up’ and transfer into it every month based on the trailing twelve-month total. It’s not elegant, but it survives summer without a surprise.