Money Spent = Money Saved?

Although it’s still cold and windy outside this week with unseasonably low temperatures, the warm weather is almost here and that means the end of the heating season. Last fall we replaced our 1987 oil burning furnace with a new 92%+ efficient gas burning furnace. Of course at the time I started collecting bids heating oil as nearing $5 a gallon and I was understandably concerned about the cost to run that oil burner al winter. Then the prices dropped. Well, oil prices fluctuate – or, they do now at least. I gave myself a conservative estimate on the return on the investment or 6 years back in September and well, we’re a little behind on that. The price of heating oil dropped back to $2.29 in February and that put a damper on my speedy ROI.

However, just because we’re not “saving” as much as I planned/hoped doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good investment. We are saving money. In fact, our heating bill for the ‘08-’09 winter is around 50% of the estimated oil cost. And the price for natural gas is actually supposed to go down for next winter so maybe we’ll make up some of that momentum.

Estimated ’08-’09 cost of heating the house with oil: $896.35

Estimated ’08-‘09 final natural gas bill: $470.43

Dollars saved: $425.92!