Every year on a gray Sunday in January, I clear off the kitchen table, make a pot of coffee, and spread out twelve months of household bills. Ben calls it my annual tea-leaf reading. Lila thinks it is a game and wants to stamp things. This year she sat beside me with a highlighter and colored in every number she could reach, which made the electric bills look like a very cheerful crime scene.
I worked as a library assistant for eight years and now do part-time bookkeeping for two small businesses, so I am not intimidated by a spreadsheet. But I don't do this review for the math. I do it because bills sneak up quietly. A few dollars here, an automatic price increase there, and by December the house costs noticeably more to run than it did in January without anyone ever deciding that it should.
How I do it
- Download a year of statements for every recurring bill. Most of ours are online; a few are still paper in a folder above the fridge.
- Write each bill as a row, each month as a column, in a simple spreadsheet.
- Add a yearly total and compare it to last year's.
- Mark anything that rose more than about 10%, anything we forgot we were paying for, and anything with a contract or renewal date coming up.
- Pick no more than three things to work on. More than three and I don't do any of them.
The big ones from 2025
Electricity
This was the year our power bill finally scared me into action. Last August's bill came in at $312, the worst we have ever had. Our utility offered a free home energy audit, which we did in May, and it found leaky ductwork in the attic and thin insulation up there too. We had the ducts sealed in July for $380 and the attic insulation topped up in November for $1,450, which we hired out. We also hung blackout curtains in the bedrooms over the summer.
Because the insulation went in so late, 2025 doesn't show the full effect yet. What I can see is that December's bill was lower than the December before, even though it was a slightly colder month. I'll know more after this summer.
Homeowners insurance
Our renewal in October jumped from $1,840 to $2,390 for the year, with no claims and no changes on our end. I spent a couple of weeks getting quotes and reading policies line by line, and we switched to another company at $2,010. That one change saved more than all our other small fixes put together. It still went up compared to last year, which is a reminder that some costs are just going up everywhere.
Water
Our water bill crept up over the fall, a few dollars a month at a time. I suspect the hall toilet, which runs now and then in the night, and the kitchen faucet, which has developed a slow drip. Both are on the list for February.
The small ones
| Bill | What I found | What we did |
|---|---|---|
| Internet | The promotional rate had ended in spring; we'd been paying $20 more a month since | Called and asked for a current plan; got $15 of it back |
| Phones | Paying for more data than either of us uses | Moved down one tier |
| Streaming | Three services; we watched one regularly | Kept one, will rotate the others a month at a time |
| Trash pickup | Small increase, nothing to be done | Noted it |
| Holiday spending | Stayed close to our $350 plan for gifts and decor | Same plan for this year |
None of these were dramatic. Together they add up to roughly $45 a month, which is a week of groceries every couple of months.
What I'm watching in 2026
- The summer electric bills. This is the real test of the duct sealing and insulation. I want August to come in well under $312.
- The heat pump. It's from 2016 and has never had a proper service visit while we've owned it. I'd rather pay for a spring check-up than an August emergency.
- A smart thermostat. Our utility runs a rebate on them sometimes. If it comes back, we'll consider it.
- The water fixes, then a few months of bills to see if they made a difference.
By the time I gathered up the papers, the coffee was cold and the light outside had gone flat and early, the way it does in January. Lila had highlighted her own name on a doctor's bill and was very pleased. I put the folder back above the fridge, and I felt lighter, not because everything was cheaper, but because I knew where it all stood.
