How much are utilities in Adelaide?

[adelaidenow]

Ours is an 80's double brick house with gaps around the windows. We do have some roof insulation though lol.

 

Whoops, scooterdan is in the townhouse.

[Blossom]

Mine are for two people.

 

Electric about $340 per quarter

Gas about $85 per quarter (gas cooking only)

Water $125 per quarter (just supply and water)

Landline and Internet $38pm

Fully comp car insurance for imported car with lots of modifications $89 pm

Cleaner $50 for two hours a fortnight. (Just thought I'd add that in, it's quite affordable and worth every cent).

[Guest Kel87]

Can you pay your gas and electricity monthly or does it have to be quarterly?

I know here in the UK we have the option, I originally did have quarterly bills when I first moved in but hated it as I couldn't get to grips with saving each month for the quarterly bill so some months I had no 'bills' then hit with a big quarterly bill to pay from one months wage. I swapped to a monthly direct debit and prefer it much more! I'm £83 a month for gas and electricity and they review it quarterly to see if it needs increased but it hasn't so far as I pay the same all year despite using less in the summer so that makes up for the winter usage.

[Blossom]

You can't with my company, and both gas and electric come at about the same time.

[Guest BurgessFamily]

Can you pay your gas and electricity monthly or does it have to be quarterly?

 

I'm with AGL and when I asked, they told me it would cost more (even though my bills are paperless). I've already signed up for a contract too, so they said it would be a fresh contract (which means more admin fees added on).

 

I guess it's worth asking at the start.

[adelaidenow]

Can you pay your gas and electricity monthly or does it have to be quarterly?

I know here in the UK we have the option, I originally did have quarterly bills when I first moved in but hated it as I couldn't get to grips with saving each month for the quarterly bill so some months I had no 'bills' then hit with a big quarterly bill to pay from one months wage. I swapped to a monthly direct debit and prefer it much more! I'm £83 a month for gas and electricity and they review it quarterly to see if it needs increased but it hasn't so far as I pay the same all year despite using less in the summer so that makes up for the winter usage.

 

With Origin, we pay fortnightly by direct debit, exactly as you describe, and by using direct debit we get a 2% discount. In total we get 16% discount for various things, such as having gas and electricity with same company, paying on time, direct debit, we are nice people...........

[soo_the_panda]

Our average bills for two people in a two bedroom apartment (120 square metres):

 

Electricity: about $400 per quarter

Gas: about $160 per quarter

Strata fees: (fees you pay to body corporate management if you own in a shared block of apartments/units to cover communal costs): $350/quarter

Emergency services levy (this one really puzzled me - paid by all home owners!) about $90 per year

Council rates (Glenelg) $256 per quarter

Water: $160 per quarter

Mobile phone: $55 is per month - Amaysim is def the best I have used in nearly 6 years here. $40 per month for unlimited calls, texts and picture messages in Australia plus 4gb data. Calls to UK landlines are only 6 cents per minutes and texts are 25cents for the few people I can't text using iMessage, What's App or Viber

Broadband: $60 month for 200GB

Landline: what's a landline?!

Household insurance: $20 ish a month

[Northern Mick]

Can you pay your gas and electricity monthly or does it have to be quarterly?

I know here in the UK we have the option, I originally did have quarterly bills when I first moved in but hated it as I couldn't get to grips with saving each month for the quarterly bill so some months I had no 'bills' then hit with a big quarterly bill to pay from one months wage. I swapped to a monthly direct debit and prefer it much more! I'm £83 a month for gas and electricity and they review it quarterly to see if it needs increased but it hasn't so far as I pay the same all year despite using less in the summer so that makes up for the winter usage.

 

From my experience yes you can. I try and pay everything weekly as thats how I get paid my salary. As long as the company offer BPAY as a payment method then this can easily be set up through your bank. I do it online. The only bills that I'm not able to do this with are my car insurance, home insurance and car registration. I was even able to change my private medical care to weekly payments but had to phone and ask for BPAY details. I even spoke to EZY REG and they're looking at offering car rego with this payment method in future but they have to pass legislation before this happens.

 

Getting quarterly bills has always done my head in especially when they're all usually on similar cycles

[Jessica Berry]

$1000 on electric?! OMG - do you run the air con all the time, have a massive house and loads of kids?! OMG I am panicking now about our first bill.

 

We were chatting about this yesterday at work and a colleagues electricity bill is usually around $1,000 a quarter. Another colleague had just opened their latest bill and it is $1,000, so she is moving to a more energy efficient house! Where she is renting has a swimming pool and the pump has to be on 6 hours a day. Another colleague said their bill was usually around $700-$800.

[milly]

For our electric here in Perth, WA it's 22.624200 cents per kWT & no service charge. And there is only one supplier here. Stays the same winter & Summer.

[milly]

Just realized that electric increased to 25.9052 cents per kWt on the 1st July, here in Perth, WA.

[Guest BurgessFamily]

Just realized that electric increased to 25.9052 cents per kWt on the 1st July, here in Perth, WA.

 

Obviously Perth is keeping too much GST... hand it over

 

(hmmm.... I wonder how long you can run an extension cord??)

[Guest shella_n]

With Origin, we pay fortnightly by direct debit, exactly as you describe, and by using direct debit we get a 2% discount. In total we get 16% discount for various things, such as having gas and electricity with same company, paying on time, direct debit, we are nice people...........

 

That sounds good - don't suppose you have a bill lying around So you can tell us how much Origin charge per kw ( or whatever it is). I will look up my bill when I get home and tell you all how much Energy Australia charge. This would be really useful info as its hard to compare on-line

[adelaidenow]

That sounds good - don't suppose you have a bill lying around So you can tell us how much Origin charge per kw ( or whatever it is). I will look up my bill when I get home and tell you all how much Energy Australia charge. This would be really useful info as its hard to compare on-line

 

Electricity

summer rate

31.98c/kWh first 145kWh then 34.85c/kWh

non summer (kicked in 1Apr)

30.33c/kWh first 145kW then 30.91c/kWh to 493kW then 35.36c/kWh

quarterly service fee

$60.00

then all reduced by 16%, so our 3mth $370 bill was reduced by $105 (reduction are 12% base usage, 1% dir deb, 1% duel fuel, 2% pay on time). Our average daily usage was 10.77kWh and has been steady around this for last 3 bills.

 

Gas

3.018c/MU

Quarterly Service charge

$65

then all reduced by 9% (as before but 5% basic usage)

Our last 2 3mth bills were $177 and $157 (we only have gas hot water and hob).

[Guest Bonnydoon7]

Our electricity is usually around $320 quarter, gas around $250 quarter, house and contents insurance $55 mth, car comprehensive $44 mth, internet $35 mth, landline $40 mth, mobile $30 mth, council rates $1500.

The killer has been our water - since we installed a computerised drip irrigation system last summer designed to water evenly and economically it's gone from $300 mth to $720 mth! Serious investigation to be done on that for the next watering season!

I watch our usage for all energy and shop around for best deals on these, insurance, internet etc. Some people don't seem to worry about expenses and pay $70 plus for mobile phones - the min price for an iphone I think, whereas I have a Samsung Galaxy and pay $30. Some also use squillions of gigs on their internet plans. There are some good deals to be had for internet depending on your usage and habits, there is an unlimited adsl plan for $39.90 and another for $59, but we are in a 'black hole' and can't use these or a lot of providers. I am on the internet for some hours every day but don't download movies or songs so only have a 300g plan and have never exceeded my quota, I'm with Adam and am really happy with them and they are one of the few that can provide a good service in our area. My mobile is with Virgin/Optus and I'm really happy with them too. Vodaphone doesn't have good coverage here, and I think they have problems in quite a few areas. I used to be with 3 and was happy with their service, but when Vodaphone took over they had poor coverage, line drop-outs galore, etc so I changed over.

Another issue is private health insurance, premiums goes up all the time and I don't know whether to drop out or stay on the treadmill. We just have minimum private health cover, pay an excess for hospital admittance and perhaps don't get as much back at the chiropractor, dentist, etc, but then don't pay as much as some do per month. We joined some years ago when the Howard govt. brought in some policy that if you don't join then you will pay a premium for every year over a certain age, so we thought it wise to join then. I have since had a serious injury with recurring operations and have been very pleased to have been covered, though now I'm not sure.

I revisited our budget last week after some years and our annual expenses have gone up $11,000 since then, and it's just the 2 of us! The GFC changed the face of everything, all the natural disasters we have had in Australia have seen insurance premiums increase, and our dollar reaching parity with the US dollar and exceeding it has made things more difficult.

All that being said, we live in a beautiful and peaceful country and feel very blessed to have a lovely house, a good car, a warm comfortable bed, plentiful food on the table and freedom to help others. Hard work and financial intelligence pay dividends in this wonderful country.

[Blossom]

Holy poo, that's a hell of a water bill! How often is your new irrigation set up watering, and for how long? Lots of landscapers seem to set these up using far more water than the plants need.

[xzibit]

Lol at spending $720 a month on water. Jealous.

 

You could buy a new lawn for that every month.

Edited July 9, 2013 by xzibit

[Guest Bonnydoon7]

Lol at spending $720 a month on water. Jealous.

 

You could buy a new lawn for that every month.

 

I don't want to spend that much! We have been investigating using it for different cycles, checked for leaks, read the meter at night and again in the morning, checked the programs, we can't go on like this. We want to have the automated system but don't want to have that sort of usage. The bonus is the garden is looking good.

[Guest Bonnydoon7]

Holy poo, that's a hell of a water bill! How often is your new irrigation set up watering, and for how long? Lots of landscapers seem to set these up using far more water than the plants need.

 

Hi Blossom, you're telling me! It's set up to run 2 lines, 1 for garden and 1 for pots, for 30 mins and 10 mins respectively per day, all turned off during the winter. There are trees on the garden line so I don't know how short a time they can be cut down to bearing in mind that's it's a drip system.

[adelaidenow]

i can sympathise with your water bill. My football club's went up a ridiculous amount after the council put in a computerised system to save us money. Our story is well documented in the press.

 

As for watering, doing it daily is not recommended, one deep soak a week (with extra in very hot spells), but never needed daily. Pot plants do need water daily. in hot weather.

[Blossom]

Your pots will need doing daily, but only five minutes in the morning in spring and autumn, and two lots of ten minutes in summer and extra hot days.

As Adelaidemow says, your garden shouldn't be watered every day (except 40c days etc) generally twice a week for 20 minutes should be fine (depending on how much water your system kicks out).