Avoiding Bill Shock

Avoid potential bill shock by listening to our recent Power for Your Life podcast episode. Sean Vanslyke and Angie Byford, from SEMO Electric Cooperative, discuss strategies to help members take control of their energy usage and share some low-cost energy savings tips.

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Sean Vanslyke 0:03

I think it's an opportunity for all of us to educate and help each other.

Harrison Waters 0:06

I'd have a lot of little shock on some of those meals. Oh man. Hey, and welcome to another awesome episode for The Power For Your Life podcast. I'm your host Harrison Waters and I have two of SMO Electric co-ops Finest. They're here to tell us a little bit about low cost energy savings in your house, but really about bill shock and how to avoid that as a member. Take a listen. I am so happy that you are both in here with us today. Can you both , uh, Sean and Angie kick it off and just introduce yourself and your role at the cooperative?

Angie Byford 0:42

Yes, thank you Harrison. Um, I'm Angie Byford and I work for S Electric Cooperative in southeast Missouri. I have had many hats that I've wore inside and outside at the cooperative over the past , um, little over 10 years. And I do take care of the front of the house right now and I just enjoy working with our team there and just making everybody's lives better inside and out of the cooperative.

Sean Vanslyke 1:10

Yeah. Sean Van , like I'm blessed to be the head coach and chief custodian of SMO Electric and uh , have the opportunity to serve on a lot of state and national boards and , and be involved. But, you know, the greatest thing that we do is change people's lives. As Angie said, I'm probably focused more internally than I used to be , uh, where Angie's focused externally, but just trying to make people's lives different internally that carries over to the external to our members and to the, our subscribers on the broadband side, it makes a difference.

Harrison Waters 1:38

So we're here to talk about low cost energy savings. I am slowly becoming a fan of finding little ways to , I know it's probably driving my wife and my kids crazy as I'm like guarding the , uh, thermostat every night and all those. So I'm already become the , uh, that control dad that's saying we're not changing that. So if I could put a lock on it, but no , what are the easiest ones to do? What are the easiest things that every home should do that we're telling members to pay attention to?

Angie Byford 2:07

So let me just ask you this, Harrison, have you ever read your meter yourself?

Harrison Waters 2:12

No , no, no. I'm ashamed to tell people that I have never, I mean, I've gone outside, looked at it, seen, you know, some moving parts on it, but no, I wouldn't know where I start, where I end every month for sure. Okay.

Angie Byford 2:23

Well, I mean, that's an honest answer. We hear that a lot from a lot of our members. Um, but we do ask them, you know, sometimes the first question is, There's no way I could be using that much electricity. Um, and we'll just ask them, Could you do this for me? Could you go out and read your meter every day and just kind of think of what the weather's doing, what you were doing at your home? Did you have a gathering there, you know, kids home, just something else going on abnormal that could maybe raise that electric up during those days. But if you start taking a reading every day , you start kind of paying attention to what's going on within your household and when you're using that electricity. But also we have prepaid metering at the cooperative now. So we have members almost , um, probably 900 to a thousand that are on prepaid and they pay every day kinda like a pay as you go phone. So they will keep up with their usage every day . They get something like a text or an email to let them know if they've gone over and they're in the hole and how much money they need to bring into the cooperative. So it's kind of a little budget thing for 'em. It kind of helps them , um, be more aware of what they're using daily or weekly. But it's just, it's a good little tool that we've started using so far.

Sean Vanslyke 3:42

Yeah, and I would say, you know, when Angie talks about reading your meter, you can do it on the smartphone, the smart app that we have. And there's so many ways to do that. But if people really wanna save money, they're gonna do something , uh, to , to be proactive, to do something. Most people, unfortunately our business model was set up wrong a hundred years ago. You get to use it, then we send you a bill. If we had it set up like a gas, like if you go buy gas for your car, you pay for it or the gas station moves the responsibility of that bill to a credit card. But Mr. Gas owner, Mr. And Mrs . Gas station owner , uh, they're not back in the day they did because you had local credit, but today you go buy gas, you use it if you can't drive 40 miles cuz you can't afford the gas, you don't drive. Unfortunately in our business, if you don't have prepaid metering, you use it, then we send you a bill and the biggest thing that we wanna do is avoid bill shock . We just don't want people to get this huge bill at the end of the , at the end of the month and realize that, wow, I didn't know I used that much. So we're always trying to get people to pay attention to what they're using, but we want them to be happy. But we also have to realize that , that they don't have a choice on the electric side. And I've been in Illinois where you could have choice and that didn't seem to fix it either because people use it then pay for it and we don't always know. Imagine going into a restaurant and just eating what you want without ever looking at the menu price and you're there for a couple hours and you just eat and eat and eat and then pretty soon they bring you a bill and you go, Well I can't pay for that now <laugh> . And that's why they give you a menu. So I think it's an opportunity for all of us to educate and help each other.

Harrison Waters 5:11

I'd have a lot of bill shock on some of those meals. <laugh> , Oh man. So tell me if, if they're not, if they number one step pay attention, try and get ahead of it versus get that bill shock if they're not willing to just turn it off or anything like that. Cuz I know everyone's got 12 tablets and four computers and three smart TVs and all that. What are some of the simple ones? Cuz I know that you can spend a little bit of money and it can go a long way.

Angie Byford 5:39

It can , um, you know, you've just got a bunch of little tips like making sure that you've got l e d light bulbs, stuff that are energy efficient, checking your seals on your windows, making sure things are closed off, closing off rooms that you're not using. Closing your shades and drapes during the day. Making sure number one, that you've got the right , um, size of a central unit. We've had members call in before that we can see on the screen that like their voltage has gone up quite a bit than what it normally was in the past. And we can say, you know, we can see something's happened. Um, is there something that you've changed within your home or if you've had anything else going on. And um, we had somebody once say, Well we did get a central unit from somebody, they gave it to us from an apartment building and it's a little bit bigger when than what the other one was. So we thought it was more energy efficient . So it really wasn't energy efficient for their home. Not the size, but it was running their bill up quite a bit. So just being aware of some of that stuff and making sure that you take your time researching whenever you're buying appliances and things of that nature to make sure that they do fit, fit your home.

Sean Vanslyke 6:51

So we have to, we have this real balance in the distribution level and that's people who realize that we come out and talk to 'em or we , we said they've got a bad water heater or they have something going to ground, meaning that the wiring was done wrong. So you have electricity just going into the ground somewhere and there's this moment of of self-reflection that they realize that, oh, it's not the big bad utility company, it's something in my house. And we have to deal with that with handle that with humility. Uh , we're just there to help and , and sometimes it gets real personal, it , it gets real emotional. Uh , we might see the same person month after month for three or four or five months coming in and talking to us and trying to understand why their bills are so big. And a lot of cases it's just a , it's a trip to their home to say, you know, why do you have three or four freezers , uh, plugged in? Or why do you have this? They don't always know what they don't know. Same way with me, I don't always know what I don't know, but until it becomes an issue, we just don't stop long enough to really pay attention to it. And that's why if people really have an issue, we encourage 'em to read their meter every day and realize a lot of the meters may not, may have dials, but more, more often than not, they have numbers on 'em today and you just read the number at six o'clock or eight o'clock or some standard time and go out there every 24 hours and just write that down and subtract the difference. And at least you'll know. And a lot of the utilities now have smart meters and they have a device now an app and you have your phone and if you wanna see it every day you can. But until it becomes an issue, it's usually not an issue. Right . And unfortunately that's what we try to avoid from and, and paying attention. I think we're all guilty of just going home and living how we wanna live and then we pay for it later.

Harrison Waters 8:30

Yeah, I've gotten good at reading like wattage of appliances and all that. Like for me, like looking at space heater and the 1500 watts, it's like you don't have to know a lot about it to know that if that thing is running at 1500 watts, it's not gonna take long to rack up that expense. Um , space heater's probably the easiest one just because, you know, it's such a high, I mean hair dryer's one thing, but I'll never tell my wife she can't use her hair hair dryer and that's for five, 10 minutes and that's, I can, you know, <laugh> , but space heater, you know, fall asleep, let that thing go through the night and, and you know, you pay for it later like you said. So certainly great feedback on that. Have ,

Sean Vanslyke 9:09

Have you ever looked at the wattage on your wife's uh , hair dryer?

Harrison Waters 9:12

I figure it's probably the same as a space heater. It is 2000 watts or

Sean Vanslyke 9:16

Something. Just go home tonight and look at that and imagine turning that thing on and just letting it run.

Harrison Waters 9:21

No , I could never, I could

Sean Vanslyke 9:22

You wouldn't wanna hear it for one thing, right? No. Right, right, right . But that's, that's essentially the same thing. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . So when people come to us, that's something we talk about. Imagine plugging your hair dryer in today and just letting it run. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But the space heater, I don't hear it. So if the space heater made a lot of noise, maybe people would turn 'em off. It is just a constant educational type thing that we try to work , work with.

Harrison Waters 9:42

Tell me what, other than maybe like refrigerators or freezers in their garage, what else is a another one that sticks out? Um ,

Angie Byford 9:51

There is , um, sometimes they have something trying to keep their pumps from freezing out in their shed. A lot of times they'll turn on some kind of heat lamp or something in the wintertime and they may not realize that it's drawn as much amp as what it is. But , um, swimming pools, you know, those in the summertime I just put in an in-ground swimming pool last summer and it really, the pump ran all the time because I wanted that water to go all the time because I love that sound. But it's costing money every time that's turned on. Just anything that's plugged in is drawn amage. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , it can, it can build up. So we, we really try to go through any kind of scenario we can with our members and just ask them, what do you have plugged in? You know, if you could go around and walk around from room to room and just see everything that's in there and then just start unplugging stuff. If you looked at your meter the day before and you had everything turned on that was plugged in in your home, but then you turned around and turned it off the next day and read it again, you know, what kind of difference are you gonna see? Like Sean said, we just try to educate people and just ask 'em questions about their habits, how they're using their electric, what time of the day they come home. How big is your home? Is it full of furniture? Sometimes people don't have their house full of furniture. Well furniture acts is like an insulation whenever your heat, it kind of absorbs all that stuff. Or when you have a lot of people in your home. I know at Thanksgiving and Christmas we've had to open our windows before because it's gotten so warm while we're cooking and all those people are in there and then, you know, the next day you've got your windows closed back because you don't have as much stuff going on. So it's just kind of knowing what everybody is.

Harrison Waters 11:34

I think it's nice on a cool summer night, if you leave for vacation for three or four days, I think that smart app is nice to come back and look and say, Okay, this is my base. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , if you're gone and you know that you can check maybe your heat or your AC didn't kick on while you were out. So it needs to be in those 60, 70 degree days, you could come back and say, okay, how many, Yeah, how many cell phone charges do I have plugged in? How many little lights are, you know, going on on these appliances and everything?

Angie Byford 11:59

We have a lot of people that will call in and say, Well I turned it off, I turned the system completely off. And we're like, Did you really? Because your pipes would freeze if it was really cool , but you know, you don't wanna turn it way down because then you've gotta get everything heated right back

Harrison Waters 12:14

Up. Well that was a lesson learned for myself. I, you know, getting into this and being an early adopter of a nest smart thermostat, I , um, I would optimize for my house. I would leave and it would turn it down to a ridiculously low. So then when I came back it would, you know, heat things up or cool things off. And what I found was all the furniture, my walls, everything in the house would be freezing. Yeah . And I'd have to heat up again and the system would take forever. So I was actually far better just to lower it four or five degrees, whatever and have it kick back on versus like it, you know, making my house unbearable for a little bit to catch back up. I thought I was doing best for myself and it was, it was hard to be comfortable by the time you went to bed cuz my system was playing ketchup . So,

Angie Byford 12:56

But like we said, you don't know what you don't know. So if you don't call and talk to your electric company, then we can't help educate you and just ask you some of those questions. Sometimes, sometimes not to, we don't wanna make people feel bad for what they're doing or for calling and asking. We just wanna try to help them understand, you know, that there's a little bit more to just the bill itself.

Sean Vanslyke 13:17

And , and I would point out too that there could be something wrong on our, our end. We're not perfect. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , uh, sometimes we do have a meter that goes bad or perhaps we under overestimated your bill one month because for whatever reason we're unable to get out there, read it or in our case, and we have a lot of interference now coming in on our power lines, how we read our meters. And it's because of some of the industrial members that we have, they're putting more , uh, static or more electricity back, if you will. It's hard to explain in general terms, but they're just putting noise back on the system and sometimes we're forced to estimate the meter. We try not to do that, but there are times that the , that the utility's gonna be off , it's just not gonna be right. Um , but in my, my nearly 30 years of experience, it's usually, it's just, it's just how we live in our homes and , and my kids, you know, my oldest is 30 something years old now and , and , uh, uh, they grew up at 63 degrees in the winter and um , they know to wear clothes in the house and that's because we made a decision as a family. We'd rather go travel. We'd rather go to the river on weekends and not pay , uh, pay the utility company more money or in natural gas. And a lot of times when people call the first que we , we should start with questions instead of just trying to give solutions. For example, are you heating with gas? Are you heating with all electric? Are you using wood or are you using propane? Because if we have all electric combs, they're mad at us a couple times a year when it's really cold, when it's really hot. If they're electricity and natural gas, they're usually mad at us in the summer and they're mad at the gas company in the , in the winter because they're having to use natural gas. So a lot of times in order to understand who we're talking to, we gotta ask some questions before we just start solving, solving problems. And I think that's probably just something as an industry, we probably don't allow enough time sometimes just to ask questions and listen. Uh , cuz we just want to jump in there and solve things. And as a dad and as a husband for many years , uh, that's one of my great weaknesses is trying to solve problems before I ask the questions. So I think that applies to our business as well.

Harrison Waters 15:15

I like that. I like the , where all everything has to be immediate, you know, feedback, which I had to get some , uh, quotes on my, my HVAC unit and all that. That's always a , it's a stressful time because you get the feedback and it's like, yeah, replace the whole system. It'll be by $25,000 , you know, all . And your there is certainly your sticker shock, your , you know, bill shock for sure. Especially living in Missouri. You have to have , uh, the Midwest, you know, you gotta have a good, a good system cuz we do have every bit of the warmth and the cold and all that. So

Sean Vanslyke 15:48

Let me , let me turn the podcast around on you . I'm ready. Okay. So you just mentioned Missouri. I don't think people realize how blessed we are to be part of the Associated Family. And I realize that this podcast can be listened to around the world and, and throughout the United States, but Associated has such a great footprint. And when you've lived in other states, you realize that if you're paying for power at Missouri, you're getting a pretty good deal. Now, whether you're home's constructed to be in the area that it's at, whether it's cold or hot up north or south east or west in Arizona in the boot hill , some of the homes may have not been built to withstand some of the colder temperatures that we saw like we saw in February of 2021. But as a young dad with a one and four year old at home, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, how much do you pay attention to your electricity bill and when do you pay attention to it as a , as a young , younger, married couple? How important is that to you?

Harrison Waters 16:37

It's, I mean, it's very important. I I certainly, you know, when it comes to little kids, I think that's stressful because their comfort is everything. And knowing what that temperature is to make sure that they sleep well at night, that's really all I care about. And finding that solution and knowing, being able to sleep easy at night and knowing that it's not gonna cost an arm and leg, I , I feel absolutely blessed to do that. Um, you know, even during the winter storm Yuri last year, it was one of those times where you put practice into play when it comes to energy efficiency and going around the house and finding ways to keep the home warm because there's nothing scarier than, you know, not having power. So the reliability of our system is absolutely important. And the , and the longer that I've worked here, the more I've realized that and the more I feel blessed to be here and knowing that, you know, we are in control , um, of so many things. Right. You know, you fix a lot of the things we're talking about today, and you're, you're not only gonna have a lower electric bill, but it's gonna be more comfortable in your home. Home, you know, and I , I mean I do that for my spouse as well. I might not go as far as switching out my shower head for like a low flow one, but my wife has longer hair, so I , I I have to draw the line somewhere. But yeah, I take it, I take it very seriously. So I hope that our, our members and and our listeners, you know, realize that we're not always just trying to give them these tips or feedback to get this really low built . I take pride in being the energy efficiency dad, and I'm hopefully instilling that into my children. So

Sean Vanslyke 18:20

We're in this podcast right now and we're trying to educate , uh, members, Right? If you weren't in the business, how would I get your attention

Harrison Waters 18:28

Talking about it more, you know, utilizing social media platforms, realizing that, you know, if we're going to, if we're going to focus so much as a country on clean energy and all these different initiatives, I think it's what we say in our solar animation series is the first step is check to make sure that you have fixed all the energy efficiency things for your household first before going out to get solar. Because otherwise you're just gonna use, you're gonna pay a lot of money to let your energy go out the doors again, for lack of a better term. But I , you know, I , I told this to my dad the last time we were talking about the home energy audit was like, if you add up all the little inefficiencies and envision it as one large inefficiency, you essentially are having a window open in your home. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And if, if they could see that, if , if you could go to their house when it's snowing and open up a member's home and just say, window's open in your kitchen, and they're like, Whoa, whoa , whoa . That's terrible. Close it immediately. I'm like, there's probably another window open in your home and it's all the inefficiencies that are taking place. Yeah. I think it's gotta be social media. I think it has to be word of mouth. It has to be letting even the younger generations know the value of the co-op membership because I think the older generations, they've been around it, they understand that. But now you've got a new workforce going out there that probably doesn't care as much about this stuff as they should.

Sean Vanslyke 20:00

And I think when we try to reach out to people, it is so hard because we're trying to cut through so much clutter. And as long as the power is on, and I remember my career when I left the corporate world and came into the cooperative world, I had a 30 day gap there. I was amazed how easily I was able to disconnect from the utility world for just 30 days. I , I , I just disconnected from it and I felt somewhat like a normal , uh, consumer for just a few days. And , and I learned a lot by that meaning that, that we're living this, we're working it , uh, however many hours we work a week, we're focused on this. Our members and our subscribers or our consumers , uh, they're not focused on this every day . They're focused on life and this happens to be our life. And so we have an opportunity to bring that to them. Them, it's just how do we cut through the clutter?

Harrison Waters 20:50

And it's hard that when the times when they have an interaction with a cooperative is typically when there's an outage or something. And if the, if , if our power only worked, if electricity was 99%, that is not an a, this is not school. Like 99%, there's 1% of the time you'd be in the dark. That would be unacceptable. And so the few times we're in the dark is when they're thinking about us. And so we're, we're doing such a good job with reliability that it's hard to then send those messages because I know if I take for granted I flip a light switch, it's gonna work. Yeah . You know, and so that's the beauty of it. But also it , it's tough reaching members to say, be proactive, get out there, make a change, make a difference.

Angie Byford 21:36

Well, and we, we really do, we try to educate, educate, educate. Um, Ashley, she's got the members first page on Facebook and there's a lot of great tips out there. We have a lot of great tips on our Facebook also. Um, I've been blessed to serve on the member services committee for Touchstone Now and Right . They have like 700 plus cooperatives or utility places that they serve. And um, there's a great website with so many resources that people can take advantage of. And there's quick tips , integer State Energy savings guide, some great educational videos out there. So we just share whatever we can with Touchstone. You can go to touchstone energy.com, but I know there's so many other places that we can refer our members to just to make sure that they have the right information that they have. And I think even on Touchstone Energy, they can go through like a home audit themselves and kind of walk through there. So just a lot of good stuff.

Harrison Waters 22:36

Well, I think you said it before, it's get outside and check your meter, get comfortable doing that. Or if you wanna be a little bit more comfortable, stay inside and use the, the Smart Hub Meter app and get used to checking that to see kind of how much you're using. But I definitely , uh, wanna thank you both for coming in. It's been an absolute pleasure. So we really enjoyed this and um, thanks for coming in. Thanks.

Angie Byford 23:00

Thank you . It's been great. Welcome to

Sean Vanslyke 23:01

You .

Harrison Waters 23:03

Well that's our show. Thanks so much for tuning in. And if you have another great idea or a topic you'd like us to cover, just let us know@membersfirstaeci.org . Once again, I'm your host, Harrison Waters and thanks for listening.