It’s that time of year again - the plates on the car expire pretty soon. We’re on the monthly plan, where they charge you money every month in addition to the cost of the insurance, supposedly as an interest charge, or some crap like that.

I understand the concept of earning interest on money lent, or credit offered. I went to school for that stuff. I took countless classes in Finance and Economics, because it’s a grouping of topics that I have an interest in. I know the basis for it, and I agree with it.

With that out of the way, I find it offensive that they charge interest when you don’t pay for your year’s insurance all at once. I’m being insured for a year, but I don’t get insured in February until February - why should I have to pay for it in January? I don’t remember getting charged interest on my monthly rent cheques because I didn’t pay a full year’s rent all at once, so why should I get charged interest on my insurance if I decide to pay it when it’s actually being used? Give me a discount if I pay it all at once, by all means - it amounts to the same thing, and is far less distasteful to me. In essence, you’re charging me money to do you the favour of evening out your cash flow. Gimme a break.

Ok, so that was a mild rant.

They can’t touch what the gas company did last year. We’re on “equalized payments” for them too. They take your average yearly consumption, and divide it by 12, to give you supposedly even bills all year long. In theory it works great. What it worked out to be last year was that they charged us more than what our maximum monthly usage ever was each month - for example, say in January (highest usage,) we used $100 in gas (lowest usage,) while in July we used $25 in gas. We got a bill for $120 each month. As our bill got into the credit range higher and higher, it became somewhat of a joke.

So, then, we were a day late paying the bill one month. Say our credit was at $500 at this point, and we were a day late paying the monthly $120 bill. We got charged late charges on it. Seriously. So, then, the end of the equalized payments period was up, and we had several months credit (I think it was something like 4) where we didn’t have to pay any gas bill at all.

You’d think that their estimate might have gone down some between last year and this (to accomodate the obviousness of the fact that we bought a new furnace that’s higher efficiency.) You’d be wrong on that count too. Yes, gas prices went up quite a bit, but from looking at bills, it doesn’t look like they’ve changed our predicted consumption at all, which means that we’ll probably have 6 months of no gas bills at the end of our next equalized period. One of these days, I’ve gotta remember to get them to take us off of that “oh so beneficial” program. Oh, and in case you were wondering - no, they don’t pay interest on your credit amount.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Oh God, can’t this town go one day without a riot. Gadzooks, where are my bodyguards?” - Mayor Quimby