Paying your Orange & Rockland bill? More than likely, you’re spending hundreds or thousands of dollars more than you need to. Reclaim that money, and the time you spent paying it, in 3 easy steps.
We all need energy in our homes to function, so paying energy bills should be simple and worry-free.
Unfortunately, for many of us, it isn’t. It’s an expensive, repetitive process that rears its ugly head month after month.
Look no further than the numbers: Orange & Rockland customers paid the utility $891 million for their energy in 2018. If you’re an average New Yorker, your contribution to that sum amounted to about $2,000.
If you follow these simple-to-implement guidelines, you’ll reduce both the amount of time you spend paying your Orange & Rockland bills and the amount you spend on them–money that you can put toward the people and things that matter most in your life.
Let’s get started:
Table of Contents
Tip #1: Use the Easiest Way To Pay
There are plenty of ways to pay your Orange & Rockland bill. You can pay online, over the phone, through the mail, or even in person.
Options are great. There is one option, however, that saves you the most time.
The way to spend as little time as possible paying your energy bills is to set up autopay through your bank account.
The advantage of autopay is you don’t need to sign in to payment portals every month, travel anywhere, call anyone, or stuff anything in the mail. Instead, the funds you owe will automatically be drawn from your account, so you can go about your life.
You pay the same amount. You just spend less time doing it.
Sounds good…but is this safe?
Yes, it is. It’s illegal for Orange & Rockland to withdraw more funds from your account than you owe, and payments are closely monitored by New York State. In fact, by most accounts, autopay is actually more secure than sending money through the mail or speaking to someone over the phone–especially because some energy companies posing as utilities have attempted to scam honest customers through these other methods.
What if Orange & Rockland makes a mistake and overdraws from my account?
Mistakes do happen, and although they’re no more likely to occur with autopay than with any other bill pay method, it’s worth monitoring your invoices to make sure nothing is out of order. If you’re ever concerned, get in touch with Orange & Rockland to sort things out.
Tip #2: Sign Up For Free Bill Credits From a Solar Farm
Did you know that Orange & Rockland offers free ways to reduce your bills?
I don’t mean costly, time-intensive ways like insulating your home or replacing all your windows. I’m talking about free options that give you access to less expensive energy.
The easiest option open to Orange & Rockland customers is to sign up for free solar bill credits. It’s called community solar, and Orange & Rockland customers are eligible to enroll at no cost. These bill credits can bring utility bills down to practically zero–and then you pay for them at a discount. That means there’s no way you can’t save money.
No long contracts or installations on your home. Yeah–it’s that easy.
Supporting solar energy helps New York meet its nation-leading clean energy standards–and as part of New York’s statewide goals, O&R must add more renewables to its grid. That’s why they’re supporting this way for customers to take advantage of solar.
Only a few hundred O&R customers get to benefit from a given farm in their area. You don’t have to pay to enroll.
You’re not changing how your energy is delivered. You’re just agreeing to support more clean energy in the grid, and in exchange, you get a discount on the power you’re using anyway. You can find out more about this option here.
Tip #3: Get Actual Readings Instead of Estimated Bills
Do you ever get estimated bills? Utilities issue estimated bills when they don’t actually read your meter for the month. That could be for a few reasons: maybe your meter was blocked, or maybe Orange & Rockland simply didn’t have time to get to every one of their customers’ meters.
Many utilities send estimated bills half the time.
Estimated bills mean you’re getting charged based on your utility’s best guess of how much energy you used, not the energy you actually used.
Orange & Rockland makes up for any discrepancies from estimates the next time it actually reads your meter, but still, that means you’ll either deal with a big estimated bill or an extra big actual bill down the road to make up for a small estimated bill. Either one can throw an unwelcome wrench in your monthly budget.
You can find a full explanation of actual vs. estimated readings here.
The solution? For one, make sure your meter is always accessible. Second, you can submit meter readings to avoid estimates. This is super easy to do if you use Orange & Rockland’s guide to meter reading, and will save you from inaccurate charges.
Next Steps
Feeling better about paying your bills? We hope so!
If you’ve found any other helpful tips along the way, let us know about them in the comments so we can share them with more people.
And if paying unnecessary amounts for your energy bugs you, fill out an interest form in community solar below!
