All Steamed Over Oil Prices

I knew this was coming, but I just didn’t expect it so soon. What, you ask, has got me all hot and bothered? Why it’s my home heating oil bill, the first of which arrived in my mailbox yesterday, for the 2008-2009 heating season.

It’s August; oil deliveries don’t start until late October. Yet today I received a bill for $646.

I called the oil company, thinking this was a mistake and that they hadn’t received my payment for the final bill in May. No, the customer-service rep said. This is our new budget plan and that’s your monthly payment that’s due.

Um, why am I getting billed now for oil I won’t received until way later?

Well, for starters, as we all know, oil prices have doubled since last year’s heating season. Many local oil companies are struggling to extend “credit” to their customers with after-the-fact payments, so they’re asking people to pony up the cash sooner. Also, as a way of making oil payments “hurt” less, this year my oil company is offering a “budget” plan that is 10-month’s long, meaning that payments are spread over 10 months instead of the six from last year.

Payment frequency doesn’t really matter to me, because here’s the bottom line: with last year’s “budget” plan, which allowed me to lock in my per-gallon rate for oil, I paid about $3,600 for all of my oil. That breaks down to about $600 a month over six months. This year, I’m unable to lock in my per-gallon rate, so I can expect to pay at least $646 a month for 10 months. While that means that my so-called monthly payment has gone up only marginally, overall I’m going to be paying at least $3,860 more this year for oil.

So in reality, my oil costs more than doubled, and I’m thinking there’s got to be a better way. I mean, at these prices we would more than make back the $3,500 we might spend for a solar-water heating system–especially since we use our oil to heat our water only. That is, the oil heats the water that comes out of our faucets, and it heats the water that runs through our baseboard heating. Does that mean that if we went to a solar water heater we could break our dependency on oil forever?

Right about now I wish I could bid on oil company services, much like I use the Bidding for Travel website to make smart bidding decisions for hotel rooms on Priceline. Or like when I need a repair done, I put my repair needs “out there” via Service Magic, and then contractors come back to me to bid on jobs. Service Magic is how we’ve found affordable and reliable professional to fix problems with plumbing, the roof, and the gutters, and to clean out our chimneys each fall. What keeps the contractors that subscribe to Service Magic honest is a feedback system, similar to what you find on eBay.

Anyone know if this kind of bidding-for-an-affordable-oil-company option exists? If not, I guess I’ll start scrolling through Switchboard.com or paging through the hard copy Yellow Pages to see if I can find another company that can offer me a better deal. I hope it won’t be a waste of my time.

I have until August 20th to pay this latest oil bill or figure out my home heating Plan B. I wonder where I’ll end up.