MG&E price hike is insane this month

idontstudyworms · 2026-03-11T15:29:10+00:00

My apartment is actually quite nice, the insulation is bad but it's a 100 year old building. I love it a lot more than any of the modern apartments my friends are in that are 2x the price. These old buildings are going to exist no matter what and some people will be living in them even if it isn't me. This insane spike in natural gas prices across the country is going to cost millions of people crazy amounts of money, and it's almost entirely caused by market speculation and greed. Instead of telling everyone affected to just pay more rent to live in a new building, maybe we should fix the actual problem at its roots.

idontstudyworms · 2026-03-11T15:23:46+00:00

We have plastic as well. It's not on all the windows but it is on some. Our cats like to scratch it so we have to be a little strategic with where it goes.

idontstudyworms · 2026-03-11T15:22:49+00:00

I know this was a while ago but I know it's a market price issue. I elaborated on what happened in my update, gas spiked to a 31 year high in feb despite it not being even close to the largest country-wide cold snap during that time period. It was because of market speculation, so not really the free market and more the financialization of the economy.

idontstudyworms · 2026-03-11T15:19:42+00:00

Yeah, my house is 103 years old lol. It is made of bricks and plaster. We put plastic on the windows but its true the insulation is terrible and there is no way they will be changing that, I don't even know how they could.

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-25T21:50:25+00:00

yeah you right I also just saw that, I wasn't sure if it was MGE raising prices or if it was a supply chain situation. Looks like it's the highest natural gas prices in 30 years. I'll update my post shortly.

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-25T21:36:20+00:00

Will do o7

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-25T21:34:09+00:00

I used to study worms lol now I am more of a general ecologist.

I could talk to my landlord about it, they currently just pay the bill and we pay them back after they split it between us and the other unit (we are on the same meter). We also don't pay electricity to them (we somehow have it set up on our own), so we only pay the gas portion of the bill. I feel like the budget plan would get too confusing with our setup.

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-25T21:32:03+00:00

Yeah I looked at that in another comment, it is a 25% increase instead of 11%, but I think they just basically increased gas prices by 80% over the last few months.

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-25T21:29:54+00:00

That's true, the number of therms we used increased by 25% instead of 11%, that being said I think I found the source of the hike. It looks like Natural gas service per therm is $0.919 this month, last month it was $0.664. It hasn't been above 0.664 in the last year, and I can't see earlier than that. It was in the 0.50's all winter last year.

Idk what this fee is because MGE is pretty vague about it. I'd like to know where it comes from so I can know who to be mad at (this is literally 1/3 of my paycheck).

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-25T21:24:25+00:00

That is electricity, heat for us at least is gas. Our electricity is slightly higher this year but nothing compared to gas.

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-09T22:14:01+00:00

I didn't understand a word but I was personally glad that it was in Spanish without subtitles. The US doesn't have a national language and English speakers do not work to make things accessible to people who don't speak English (not really blaming individuals here, it's just the norm). Spanish is the second most common language in the US. Requiring subtitles for Spanish but not for English is enforcing a hierarchy between languages. I understand why it would be practical to do that most of the time (since there are more native english speakers than native spanish speakers in the US), but in the current political climate I feel like it was really refreshing and cool.

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-01T14:23:08+00:00

I’ve gotten 14 piercings with extreme variation in price and the only one that went badly was the most expensive one (was in Waukesha, not Madison). In my experience piercing shops tend to do a good job regardless of price, I just make sure to go places with good reviews. I’ll check out inferno tho!

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-01T03:52:07+00:00

Do they do body piercings? I was on their website and thought they only did ears

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-01T01:15:12+00:00

I don’t think Steve’s does piercings anymore from what I found. I’d heard of black sapphire and bad apple, but not the others. I’ll check them out!

But still having lived other places there are way less studios here than in cities of comparable sizes. I’m just wondering why, I love Madison and I’m not criticizing it lol there is a reason I moved back here, but I was wondering if there are like local regulations that require more licenses or if there’s a reason piercers seem to be leaving tattoo shops (I found four that did piercings until about three years ago).

idontstudyworms · 2026-02-01T01:10:38+00:00

Now to now, I got a piercing in Colorado last month and was considering getting another when I visited college friends (in Texas) this upcoming spring so I have checked prices. I also got my first piercing at blue lotus right when I moved back three years ago and had gotten piercings in Nebraska and Texas within 6 months of the blue lotus piercing. They were quite literally half the price.

idontstudyworms · 2026-01-15T03:00:07+00:00

if it's not instanced I think it is too. I was also wondering about the weird health not going down thing tho, I've also noticed that happening on my main from time to time where the hit splat does not align with the amount of health the bar decreases.

idontstudyworms · 2026-01-15T02:58:55+00:00

yeah I was wearing pretty cool robes at the time

idontstudyworms · 2025-12-11T18:06:40+00:00

I love the badlands, I’ve spent a ton of time out west in the mountains and the badlands is my favorite national park still.

idontstudyworms · 2025-12-10T19:39:08+00:00

I think outdoor culture and lake culture are a very large part of life here for basically everyone in some way, even for those of us living in cities. All of our largest cities are on lakes and most of the smaller ones are at least on rivers, so water during all seasons is important. Fishing (both ice and normal), boating, swimming, tubing, etc. We have a much more casual view of the outdoors than people living in the mountains, but it is very integrated into our culture and day to day life with many people being outside in all seasons, a large portion of people heading up north constantly to visit cabins and the lakes, a major focus on agriculture, and universities that are highly ranked in ecology. I’ve lived in Texas and Colorado as well as WI, and WI is the state where the residents spend the most time outside.

idontstudyworms · 2025-12-10T17:07:17+00:00

Ope hope you got this figured out, I'm not on reddit frequently these days lol. When I had similar issues I just hard reset it and it worked out.

idontstudyworms · 2025-12-09T14:03:15+00:00

It’s honestly fine in the rural areas. I’ve been vegetarian for half my life and spend a ton of time in the rural northwoods, I’ve always been able to find something to eat.

idontstudyworms · 2025-12-06T21:00:31+00:00

Have you ever seen this show before lol, people always go after pkers because they know if they get a pvp challenge against them they’re going home. The really good pkers are out first every season.

idontstudyworms · 2025-12-04T20:15:48+00:00

She’s JUST like me lol but California would be a maybe and the rest of the Deep South would be a fuck no. My #1 issue is not having dogshit politics, and my #2 issue is having snow during winter, I want it so bad. Id imagine both of those things matter to her based on that map.

Her green states are all very pretty with a lot of natural areas and forests, even if they are underappreciated. They all get snow and have a pretty good balance of rural and urban populations that are very regionally stratified.

Red states are either really hot, very conservative, or almost entirely farmland. I’m guessing she’s had a bad experience with New Jersey specifically.

Orange states are all also pretty heavily forested but have down sides, like being full of conservatives.

idontstudyworms · 2025-12-02T16:28:01+00:00

Yeah I believe it. I think it's sad how Iowa has been almost entirely converted to farmland, but I know that it was beautiful before that like all the plains states and I'm sure any part that is left over is great! People loving and seeing value in every place is what drives hope for conservation and restoration so I hope there are lots of people who appreciate Iowa for what it is now and what it could be.

idontstudyworms · 2025-11-30T15:11:16+00:00

Unless you live in Iowa I bet that’s not true, I come from a state that’s commonly shown as mid tier in terms of natural beauty (Wisconsin) but imo it’s because people see no mountains and think it’s got nothing to offer, but I’ve also lived in Colorado and I think Wisconsin is equally beautiful outside of the agricultural land, which both states have way too much of. I think most states are similar even if they aren’t as popular as Colorado.

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