Moving into an apartment soon. Need a bit of advice. (St. Louis: to rent, appliances)

[OnMyOwn182]

Hello! I have recently been looking for an apartment. This will be my first time ever living on my own. Well I will not entirely be on my own, I am going to rent an apartment with my sibling. I found an apartment with 2 bedrooms for $530 a month. This is manageable between the two of us, but my question is about the utilities.

The water, sewer, and trash are included in the rent. We have to pay for gas and electric. My question is: How much would these utilities add on each month roughly? Mind you it will only be the two of us and we will be very conservative with our energy usage. Only using lights when we are in the room, turning them off as we leave, etc.

Thanks!

[Sundaydrive00]

Originally Posted by OnMyOwn182

Hello! I have recently been looking for an apartment. This will be my first time ever living on my own. Well I will not entirely be on my own, I am going to rent an apartment with my sibling. I found an apartment with 2 bedrooms for $530 a month. This is manageable between the two of us, but my question is about the utilities.

The water, sewer, and trash are included in the rent. We have to pay for gas and electric. My question is: How much would these utilities add on each month roughly? Mind you it will only be the two of us and we will be very conservative with our energy usage. Only using lights when we are in the room, turning them off as we leave, etc.

Thanks!

Depends on what is gas and what is electric. Also depends on how much you'll actually be cooking, running the air/heat, etc. We cook dinner at home just about every night. We don't have a microwave, so anything being cooked is cooked with the gas stove/oven. My gas bill is usually around $40 a month. We don't run the air a whole lot, usually just have the ceiling fans going. We also don't watch a lot of tv, don't have a washer/dryer, or a dishwasher. The electric averages out to about $30 a month.


The best advice is to try and really conserve on electric/gas for the first month. Once you see what the bill ends up being, you can decide from there how well it fits in your budget.

[OnMyOwn182]

Thanks for the advice! I will have to admit that I will do a lot of cooking. I try to save money that way and eat healthier and stuff. I would be using a george foreman. So I would use electricity, but not all that much. We have smart phones so instead of spending our time on the TV we would just use those. Thanks again!

[glamatomic]

Heya
When I had my apartment in St. Louis my electric averaged at about $60 (that included air conditioning, hot water, etc- the apartment was all electric).

To be on the safe side, I would put aside $100 a month for Electric (between both of you), and then whatever of that you *don't* use, you can just put into the monthly groceries or back into your savings account. I'm sorry I'm not sure what Gas bills run if it's gas heat & hot water, but I'd recommend putting at least $50 aside for that. Better to be safe than sorry right!

As for televisions- they really don't use that much electricity (I used to work for my state's department of energy back in Australia), but if you don't have/need one- that's fine too!

Your main sources of energy use will be:

-Air Conditioning
-Heating (if it's electric)
-Refrigerator
-Oven
-Washer & Dryer
-Dishwasher
-Lighting

Also, to save on energy, remember to Unplug any appliances not currently in use (your coffee maker, toaster, even your phone chargers) as even if something isn't 'on' with the U.S. form of outlets, they can still ever-so-slightly drain electricity while being plugged in, even if the appliance itself isn't on.

Speaking of which- never leave your TV (when you use it) in standby mode as this is an additional drain. If you have cable, also turn off the cable box and dvd player.

Finally, upgrade to energy saving bulbs when you get the opportunity for additional long term savings.

Best of luck to you! Getting your first apartment is always exciting stuff As long as you and your sibling are as diligent as you say you are, I'm sure you won't have a problem!

Good luck!

[aragx6]

Expect your electric bill to approach $100 in the summer and your gas bill to approach $100 in the winter. It's wildly dependent on the insulation, the condition of the windows and the general efficiency of your appliances and furnace, but that should be enough to give you an idea. You could go on budget billing (where they take the previous year's bill and divide it by 12 instead of billing you for each month's actual usage), but without knowing what the tenants before you used in the way of utilities, it's hard to say whether you'll get a refund at the end of the year or owe at the end of the year. It would, however, help to ensure you don't have too many surprises at least.

As a horror story I'll tell you that our terribly inefficient very vintage 1200 sq ft unit saw electric bills of more than $300 last year during the hottest months. We bought a portable a/c unit this year so at least we're only cooling the room we're in -- we're hopeful that will cut the bill down significantly. Our gas bill approached $200 our first winter until we bought some electric space heaters. It's hard to compare because this winter was way warmer than last, but our average bill was cut in more than half.