Utility Bill Tracker

A higher utility bill has two possible causes, and they call for different responses. A rate increase is a shopping or budgeting problem; a usage increase may be a running toilet or a failing water heater. This workbook tells you which one you are looking at.

What This Workbook Does

• Electricity, natural gas and water, month by month, with usage and cost for two years side by side.
• A unit-rate column calculated from each bill.
• Every change in the bill split exactly into a rate effect and a usage effect, with a check column that confirms they add up.
• Year totals for each utility — the figures to trust when billing periods do not line up with calendar months.

Because cost equals usage times rate, the change in cost splits exactly into the change in rate times the new usage, plus the change in usage times the old rate.

How to Use It

1. Set the two year cells at the top; every header on the sheet follows from them.
2. Enter usage and cost for each month from the bill itself, not from the amount that left your account.
3. Watch the unit-rate column. A rising rate with flat usage is a different problem from flat rates with rising usage.
4. Read the rate-effect and usage-effect columns; together they always equal the change in the bill.
5. Investigate any large usage increase you cannot explain.
6. Keep the sheet going by moving the later year into the earlier columns each year.

What It Will Not Do

Utility billing periods rarely match calendar months, so a single month can mislead. Rely on the year totals, and use the monthly rows to find where a change happened rather than to judge it.