The Upcoming Winter of Discontent

How much heat does a gallon of heating oil give? For how long? I just try to keep the main downstairs room heated for us to play in during the day in winter (but only up to about 62, 65 if I'm feeling splurgy for an hour), and at night I keep it in the 50's. So, my bill stays pretty low (more than summer time, but still). But, I have no idea what it means to use a gallon of heating oil. I am worried though, that the prices are going to be enough higher that my kids and I will be wearing a lot of layers indoors this winter. Sigh.

Never used heating oil either. We have natural gas. But I'm sure the price will be going up on it, too. I imagine we will try to use our fireplace as much as possible, so we will need to buy some more wood (but we have a deal with a guy: trade him a couple of tons of hay for a cord).

What shocked me was the gas pump yesterday: 3.39 for diesel. It's not like we can say, oh, we can just stay home more. We have 1,000 tons of hay to haul this winter to a dairy 50 miles away. We have fields to plow. We don't have carpools or public transportation. I just thank God we had a successful year and will be able to pay for it. But still, that money could go for something better...

We also heat with oil. In the past, we were able to lock in at a certain rate. Last year, I paid up front for 500 gallons in order to receive the best rate.

This year, my oil supplier is telling its customers not to lock in right now - they seem to feel that the rates will stabilize. I'm not so certain.

We have enough wiggle room in our budget to allow for these fluctuations, and I can always pick up more hours at the hospital .. but I would guess that the majority of my neighbours here in upstate NY are going to be feeling very strained this winter.

we heat with oil too, natural gas isn't available where I live. I am trying not to think about what heating oil is going to cost us this winter. We also use our wood stove and have to supplement with space heaters in 2 of the bedrooms. My son is not turning on the heat in his apartment because of the cost, fortunately he lives in a building between other apartments and mostly it isn't that cold and he isn't home very often when he isn't sleeping.

Well, I just reconciled my checkbook and found a note in my bank statement from the president of the bank. It says that Excel Energy is raising the electric rate by 47.4%. I'm not sure how my furnace works exactly, but I know it does both electricty and natural gas. I also don't think I use Excel Energy, I think that's for the folks in town, we are on our county's electric coop. But I'm sure it's going to effect us, too.

Cost of everything is going up, up, UP. But why does the price of hay not go up? Our pay stays the same.

I realize that November is usually a very cold month here, but so far, we're still in the 60's. With rain. I've got the windows open, enjoying the cool air. It should stay this way all week (plus some according to the weather man), so my heating bill has yet to go up. Usually starts to climb in November. Here's hoping!!

Jenny, I work for a hay processing plant and in our area (Eastern Oregon) hay prices jumped $20-30 per ton this last summer.

Here's short term way to get lower heating bills: have a broken boiler!

Brrr! It's a cold morning in my house.

Shaun
www.redseahomeschool.wordpress.com

The temps are staying around 50ish, colder at night, of course, but we have been lucky. We heat with wood, so heating is not as much of an issue for us, but others around here are really going to be in trouble. This combined with gas for the car, combined with groceries going up so much, somthing's gotta give, and unfortunately, it won't be big business.

A group of people just opened a food shelf in town, several of the churches set up poor baskets, but I'm really worried that all that wll be a drop in the bucket come February unless prices go down some. Scary.

We live in Ireland and just paid nearly 800 euros for a filled tank; it should last half the year if we're lucky. (We also have medical bills and care full-time at home) What do governments expect people to do, give their children a choice between being warm in winter or having any Christmas? It's sad that for many families, that's the choice that needs to be faced. After reading your post, I think I may write to my local representative just to say, "I'm cold." And we'll see. Thanks for posting, and good luck staying warm this winter!