Cost of living in Atlanta - bills (apartment, how much)

[coming2america]

Hi, Just curious to see how much the average water,electricity,and gas bills are in Atlanta. Comparing a lot of things to what I am paying in Australia seems to be cheaper such as cost of clothes, groceries, housing. So I am curious what is the average cost of living in Atlanta. thanks

[Mattie]

I can tell you what I just paid, with approx 3200 sq. ft house, 5 people, although 3 boys are away at school most of this billing period:

water: 168.00
trash: 87.00 (quarterly)
electricity: 97.00 ( triple that in summer with the air on non-stop)
gas: 58.00
cable & internet: !35.00

[tonygeorgia]

apartment

water:$32
Electricity: $90 (Summer) $40 (Winter)
Cable/Internet: $100

[roxyrn]

The biggest shocker was my water bill- $250/month in the summer.

[RainyRainyDay]

Honestly, it varies so much depending on your housing stock and lifestyle that the notion of "average" doesn't seem very helpful. I have a three person family and about 1,800 square foot house - so just over half the family size and half the house that Mattie has, yet we spend more on energy. Our home is probably not well insulated and we have a home-based worker, so we run heating or air conditioning all day on weekdays. Our electricity costs are around $300 per month in the peak of summer (with the thermostat set at 78F) and gas costs around half that in the winter.

[flyonpa]

Water/Sewer 688/yr
Trash $160/yr
Elect 1900/yr (AC @ 76)
Gas (Heat, HW, Stove) 1500/yr (Heat @72)
Internet $40/month
Cell $120/month (Voice,Txt,data plan) No Landline
Cable/Sat 40/month

3 bed room 2200sf 2 people.
Clothing cost are about the same in US as in AU for normal Clothing
Housing cost for house can vary by where you are, how much of a house you want.

[jematl]

Also, if you have a pool, it eats up tons of electricity. Our house is 3000 sq. ft. but our electric bill is over $700 a month in the summer due to the pool. If you have a heated pool, it will drive your gas prices way up too.

[iowantribal]

electric: $88
trash: $45 (quarterly)
gas: $124/month
water/sewer: $73/month
cable/internet/phone: $133/month
cell: $75 (mine)/$130 (hubby's)/month
5 bedroom & 3,584 sq. feet
3 people (2 adults & 1 child)

[coming2america]

thanks for your replies thus far. I notice that you pay for your trash approz 45 bucks per qtr. So if you own your own home do you pay rates to your council/county? and is that included in your rates or is that seperate? (here is australia we pay our rates which include garbage collection infact we have 3 garbage collections - general rubbish, recycling and greens (such as lwan clippings, branches leaves etc) which means 3 different bins.

[BobKovacs]

Some towns have municipal trash collection, in which case you'd pay for it as part of your taxes, but most towns have found it's more cost effective to have private industry handle the trash- hence the $15/month or so that you see in some of the listings above.