Still Paying for 2021 Weather Event?

Back in February 2021 there was a winter storm that brought sub-zero temperatures across the United States. The extreme cold weather led to record-high winter electricity demand in Texas and a decrease in electricity supply due to limitations in gas availability and inadequate weatherization against the adverse conditions. People in Texas mainly use electricity to heat their homes and the power plants use natural gas to create the electricity. This brief weather event caused the price of natural gas to spike over 500%. People in cold weather states mainly use natural gas to heat their homes. Here in Minnesota, utility companies had to pay an extra $660 million during the week-long event. Months later, utility regulators in Minnesota got the figure reduced to $600 million. 

On Aug. 5, 2021, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) approved a plan to begin recovering the unusually high natural gas costs. The recovery period was initially supposed to last for 27 months. On December 2, 2021, the MPUC accepted a proposal to lower the monthly Feb 2021 Weather Event surcharge and extend the cost recovery period from 27 to 63 months. I was curious about how much longer we would continue to pay for something that happened 3 years ago. As of today, natural gas customers in Minnesota have been paying this extra fee for 31 months. This means that we are only halfway through the event recovery period. The extra fee won't go away until November 2026! 

As a follow-up to my last post about Medicare, my partner was recently approved for part A and B. We knew there would be a monthly fee of $174.70. What they didn't tell us was that they bill you quarterly if you haven't applied for social security. This means that we will have to come up with $524.10 every 3 months. Most people have this deducted from their monthly social security payment. My partner wants to wait until her full retirement age, which is in two years, before applying for social security. It will cost $4192.80 out of pocket to wait, and that doesn't include payments for additional coverage and deductibles. This affects both of us because now I will have to cover more of our monthly expenses. I now understand why many older American's are taking part time jobs... so they can cover the cost of "mediocre care" health insurance.