Sunday, July 07, 2019

my suspiciously low electric bill

As you know, I don't pay rent for my apartment: I pay an "admin fee" that varies according to how much electricity I use. (My company pays the actual rent.) During the spring and fall, when I don't use either A/C or heat, my bill is at its lowest, which is around W160,000. In the winter, when I'm using the ondol (heated floor) function, my bill can shoot up to over W300,000, which is still cheaper than the regular cost of rent in Seoul.

I've been blasting my air conditioner for at least a month, and since electricity is normally expensive where I live, I was sure that last month's bill (i.e, the one due in June) was going to hurt. That bill turned out to be a very low W170,000-something. So, I thought, if not last month, then THIS month's bill is when the reckoning will happen.

This month's bill arrived, and... only W189,000.

While this came as a relief, I'm still suspicious that I'm somehow racking up a tab that's going to come due sometime this summer. Maybe financial karma will catch up with me, and my August bill will top W200,000. Who knows? We'll see.



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