Paying a little bit over to build up a credit is great advice.
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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That's actually terrible advice. If your bill (all numbers examples) was $125 and you spend $150 to build up a credit with the company, you are essentially giving the company a free loan of $25 per month, and telling them "here, invest this for me, and keep the profits." You can put the same amount in a high interest savings account, only use it to pay for electrical emergencies, and just pocket the interest as profit. Functionally identical but you get the profit instead of the electric company.
I averaged my own bills together and paid 110% of that amount January-November. Doing this gave me extra Christmas money as I often owed little or no bill for December.
The trick is to arrange it so that you're never under $0 in your balance, which worked for electric because my electric bills were higher in the summer than in the winter.