Photo by jamietre.

No one likes to pay the bills. Personally, I’ve always had a sore spot in said monthly chore for the electric bill. It’s just not a tangible thing. Sure, I understand the mechanism: the more power I use in my home, the more it will cost me at the end of the month. But what is often perplexing to my poor brain is the quantity of the usage. Will falling asleep with the lights for one night cost me an extra dollar — or ten? Every month I have the same inner monologue, lasting for a solid three or four minutes — but inevitably, there’s just the electronic transfer of funds from my checking account into Pepco’s coffers.

That said, when my last two months’ electric bills have been about 200% higher than last year, those few contemplative moments suddenly turned into a less-than-composed tirade in front of the laptop.

It turns out I’m not alone.

WTOP ran a quick report this afternoon chronicling some similarly nightmarish bills: monthly electric bills at $479 and $548. Yikes. Members of the Cleveland Park listserv have also been quite vociferous when it comes to their recent electric bills — with many complaints of bills over $600.

So what gives? Are we all just sucking down energy hand over fist?

This winter has seen more than its fair share of bitterly cold weather — January was one of the coldest months in recent memory. Is it possible that those of us with electric heating are simply just pushing the thermostat a bit too much? (Ahem, guilty as charged.) Another possibility: many customer’s billing periods are changing so that they are being charged for a 35-day period, instead of 28, according to the WTOP report. One week can seem like a short amount of time, but if that week was anything like our first Snowpocolypse of the year, well, your electric usage probably went up as you stayed indoors, out of the elements.

One surefire way to check to make sure your bill is accurate is to compare your usage from this year to the same month last year. If you’ve got an incredibly high bill, you just might be using a lot more electricity this year — this could be due a big holiday season purchase biting back. (Those new toys just don’t power themselves, you know.) Also, always check to make sure that your last few bills haven’t simply been estimated. If so, Pepco might have finally just caught up this month with an actual reading of your meter.

You tell us, D.C. Have you seen a noticeable spike in your electric bill in the last couple months? Are you planning on contesting it with the electric company?