Duke Budget Billing
 

Is Duke Budget billing good or bad? Thank you!

It is neither good nor bad. You still pay the same amount each year. But with budget billing, you pay the same cost each month for a quarter - which allows for consistent monthly bills.

So if you like a consistent monthly payment, it is great. If you like ups and downs (my bill is much higher in the summer with air conditioning) than in the winter, don't use it. It depends on your preference.

Please note that at the end of the quarter Duke re-evaluates the usage and will raise or lower the monthly cost.

Haven't tried Duke's plan but was unhappy with a budget billing plan up north. It's nice to have the same payment every month, but it really isn't *every* month. Once per year the electric company up north settled up the account with an actual, non-budget bill. If they had estimated too high and you used less electricity than you have been billed for then you get a credit. If they estimated too low then you got the unpleasant surprise of an extra-high bill. Then they recalculated the budget-billing amount for the next 11 months.

The company up north was very poor at estimating. One year we had an outrageous "catch up" bill. The next year they used that bill as part of their estimate and we had very high bills for 11 months followed by a month or two with no bills. In the end we decided that paying the exact amount monthly was better than the surprise at the end of the year.

We use Duke budget billing and it works fine for our house.

Periodically they’ll make an adjustment to reflect usage or rate changes but they give plenty of notice.

No surprises, no extra fees to use. Thumbs up!