I was just going through the process of reconciling our bills this month and noticed that our quarterly water bill was up from last year, with about 25% more water used since October. I was little perplexed, because it is not lawn watering season (when our bills can and have varied considerably depending on how dry the summer is), nor has there been a rate increase. So I wondered whether we might have a leak.
It was the young wife who figured it out - since we're now home everyday, we flush the toilets a lot more than we did when we were both working last year. I expect that if I dig into the bill details, our electric and gas usage will also be higher, since we keep the house warmer when we are home (we have had set-back thermostats for years) and have more lights on during the day.
These are small bills, but I had not really thought about the fact that they would inevitably go up after we retired. For me, an interesting lesson in the limits of my abilities as a planner.
Have you found that some of your expenses changed in ways you did not expect?