I recently switched to Myway! It’s a pre-pay version of JEA (Jacksonville Electric Company). I was immediately skeptical when they pitched it to me as I visualized random disconnections because I was a dollar short in the account or running to my account every day to pay the piper. Oh, please don’t Turn off my lights! But, they explained that you get text messages when you are running low and you have time to replenish the account. They also said you could monitor your daily usage.
Hmm, that seemed moderately interesting. Brian deferred to me and since I could switch back to standard if I wanted to, I decided to go for it. I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen? I pay through the month instead of one big chunk? That might actually coincide with my super lousy budgeting skills!
After going through most of the process, I was told that I didn’t have the right kind of Meter. Meter discrimination! You see, our meter would not record daily usage, only by the month. She put in an order to have it changed sometime in the next few weeks and I abandoned the Myway idea and just went back to my life.
Only a few days later, the dogs alerted me to JEA’s presence. They were in the front yard changing my meter! I took that as a sign and called to switch over. After making a $50 payment which is the required deposit, we were official Myway customers and I was just hoping that I didn’t just do something stupid.
Ok, so what I didn’t expect was that I, a firm believer in lots of lights would actually start to turn them off when I could see how much we were spending on a daily basis. I mean, I really like lights and will come into a room and turn every light on. Then leave. I’ve always been this way. The dark triggers some kind of an emotional effect in me. Sitting in a dark or dark-ish room just depresses me. And I don’t like being depressed.
But, after looking at the daily usage and seeing that our average was 7.65, I took it as a challenge. I showed my daughter the data and told her that it was like a game. Lizzie likes the dark so she thought this was a great idea. We proceeded to stand in a dark kitchen while I cooked for as long as I could stand it. Eventually, I did turn the light on but my husband still came home to a dark living and dining room. haha!
After dinner, I opened the site on my phone and told Brian all about the program. I pointed out a day where we were charged twice as much as other days and wondered out loud why. He was off that day and reminded me that he had done a lot of laundry. I continued obsessing about it. I saw some days were up to $10 and others were down to $7 but that was the lowest.
Me – “It’s really fascinating!”
I looked up from my phone and saw Brian’s face.
And my loving, supportive husband (who is also a bit of smart ass) said “You’ve lost your edge. If you told 22 year old Emily that you would be this excited about monitoring electricity…”
Well, he’s not totally wrong. Either way, I ignored him and kept looking at the charts and numbers.
This morning, after turning my bedroom light off when I left the room (My mom would be so proud!), I checked the site and saw yesterday’s total and excitedly sent this to Brian
He hasn’t yet but I expect a snarky response.
My priorities are different than when I was in my 20’s, for sure. Those were good days when I couldn’t care less about electricity bills because I lived at home. Even when I moved out, I didn’t care much because the bill didn’t feel connected to day to day life. But, it sure does now.
So far, I would definitely recommend Jea’s Myway to anyone who needs a little motivation to be thrifty or just thinks it’s cool to see how much electricity you use. (And lives in Jacksonville! )
And, before you go thinking that I have totally turned into my parents, I assure that any money I save will not go to anything grown up. (Hello, amazon!) Sigh, who am I kidding? I’ll spend it on the kids.
