How Much Cost Of Electricity Into The Price Of Your Cakes?
Business By notjustcake Updated 15 May 2007 , 1:19am by JodieF
I started thinking about this yesterday when suddenly my air conditioner couldn't keep up with the 85 degree weather we had yesterday, and it's only early May... I am still having a hard time pricing my cakes, a lot of underpricing. How do I calculate the cost of electricity I do use my mixer a lot for icings and not as much as I use my oven some sheet cakes take a long time!!!
these numbers are WAY outdated..... but 20 years ago, first hubby was whining about my baking was effecting the elec bill (that wasn't the issue ... he just needed something ELSE to complain about . ... but that's a different thread!). So I called our elec company, told them how hubby was whining and was there anyway they could tell me about how much it cost to run an oven? he asked a few questions about oven size, etc (it was a built in). I never expected to hear back from him, but he called me about 3 days later and told me the estimated cost to run my oven......
About 3 cents an hour. So being the calm, considerate and wonderful wife that I was, I walked in and flipped a quarter to him and said, "Here.... I just paid my elec bill for this month's wedding cake baking!"
Even tho' these are very old numbers, I share the story because it may not be as bad as you think. Keep a spreadsheet of your heat/cooling bills and compare that to your baking schedule. You should be able to see some pattern in flucuation.
I love that story Indydebi. They really do need try hard to find something to complain about.
I was talking to hubby about this one (current hubby .... not the whiny one!). He reminded me that an oven is very heavily insulated. The only time the heat escapes into your house is when you open the oven door. (When you walk past your oven, do you really feel the heat coming thru the door? Probably not...... the heat is being held inside where you need it to be.) Once your oven gets to the temp you need, it can maintain the heat at low electricty generation (i.e. it uses a lot of elec to GET to 350 degrees, but once it's there, it only has to consume a little elec to maintain it at 350 degrees). He said, "You lose more energy standing at your front door, with the door open, talking to you neighbor than you do running a closed oven."
Sometimes he can be so smart! 
This is a great thread. My Dh and I talk back and forth about how I can't really tell him how much I am making...well I think I might jsut call the electric company myself. I think I will keep my DH and jsut make him a wiser one! 
Julia
If you search for "energy usage calculator" you'll find dozens of links from different utility companies. You can plug in what you pay per kilowatt hour and get the cost of the electricity your appliances use.
We just got a HUGE rate increase thrown at us here in Illinois. The DH and I have been researching ways to save electricity. We've replaced every light bulb in the house with high efficiency ones, added insulation, caulked, etc.....
We were going to get a new refrigerator, because ours is 15 years old and we figured it must cost a fortune to run, but then I found out it only cost about $45 a year to run! I couldn't justify spending $1200 on a new fridge with that kind of cost. It was WAY less than we thought it was! To get that estimate I went to energystar.gov
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