My local electric provider offers a power plan called flatbill where they will give you the same price for a whole year. Seems great right? Not so much. They offered me a monthly rate of $154 which i knew right away was way overpriced as i almost always pay more than what i owe to build up a credit in case something comes up and i cant pay it. So i keep a very sharp eye on my usage. I did the math and found out that my average power bill over the last year was $113 per month. I always pay $130 to build the credit and they wanted to charge me $154. Na, im good. I will handle it myself.
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.