This recent blast of cold weather has the heater laboring nonstop in our 90-something-year-old house simply to keep the temperature in the 60s. We’re wearing sweaters and our Smartwool socks; the baby is but a grinning pink face in the middle of a big fleece bundle. When I bake, I leave the oven door open afterward so the heat can dissipate out.

Still, there’s no getting around the ugly truth: Our PG&E bill is going to be brutal.

Actually, our PG&E bill has been brutal since November, as has our EBMUD bill and our electricity bill. Not coincidentally, these bills rose right after we brought home our daughter. What changed?

— Instead of the cat being the only occupant in the house for ten hours a day, we’ve had someone in the house every day since the last week of October. We’ve changed the thermostat programming; instead of the heat clicking on during the seven hours we’re home and awake on weekdays, we’ve programmed the thermostat to maintain a relatively warm (65 to 68 degrees F) temperature all the time.

— We’ve got an infant in the house. It’s one thing for adults to snooze in a house that drops down to 59 degrees at night, but that’s a no-go for babies. We’ve had to raise our nighttime temperature.

— Our laundry volume has tripled. Part of this is a byproduct of being home more (it’s amazing how quickly we go through our dish towels since we’ve got someone having breakfast and lunch — and their attendant dishes — at home). Part of this is that the baby is a laundry conversion system and quite possibly on Tide’s payroll. Her clothing may come in tiny sizes, but there’s a lot of it. Throw in the burp clothes, diaper-related laundry, receiving blankets, bibs, etc. and I’m now doing laundry three times more often.

Pre-baby, it was simple to conserve utilities and money. When the house is occupied by waking, active adults 62 hours a week (i.e. 37% of the time), it’s easy to save on heat and electricity. Now … well, I sigh and figure once the kid is older and nobody thinks we’re monsters for letting her sleep in sub-60 degree temperatures, bills will fall back into line.

Strangely, nothing I read prior to having children prepared me for rising utility costs. So let me pass this along to you now: If you enjoy low utility bills due to two resource-conscious adults who work outside the home, be warned: That situation is history. Budget for your bills accordingly.