High Utility Bills On The Way

If you haven't already received a sky high utility bill, brace yourself, one may be on the way. Both Alabama Power and Mobile Gas say customers are now paying for the extreme cold we've had this Winter. Mobile Gas says customers bills could be as much as 40 percent higher than a year ago and Alabama Power says expect about the same from them, "when we've had as many cold days as we did below freezing, probably 2 weeks, and, then we had an unseasonably cold December on top of that, yeah, customers can expect their bills to be higher this year. As I said, we've done everything we can to keep our cost down, we've lowered our prices, but, it's just the weather that's catching up with people right now and customers could see bills maybe 40 to 50 percent higher than what they did last year in the same billing period," said Alabama Power spokesman, Bernie Fogarty. If you can't pay your gas bill, Mobile Gas says don't wait until your service is disconnected to give them a call. They may be able to spread your payments out or refer you to some agencies that can help. Alabama Power says they offer budget billing, that's where you pay an average usage rate each month.