This Retiree Got a $700 Utility Bill. She Sold Her Family Home to Cut Costs

AARP is fighting to keep bills affordable, as unexpected fees and rising rates increase charges

Molly Snow,

AARP

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Published March 05, 2026

Diane Sylvia at her home in Dartmouth, Mass., after the great blizzard of 2026, where temperatures were freezing for weeks

Tony Luong

For years, Diane Sylvia paid her utility bill on time and rarely worried about the cost of keeping the lights on in the 1,100‑square‑foot home she shared with her late husband.

“We didn’t struggle,” the 62-year-old Dartmouth, Massachusetts, resident. “We never once thought about turning the heat down.”

But last year, her January gas and electric bills came in at nearly $700, almost double the usual amount. By the time February’s bills arrived, she was facing roughly $1,400 in costs over two months.

Then came the shutoff notice, threatening to cut her service if she didn’t pay. She was able to get financial assistance to help offset part of the cost but worried another big bill could hit in the future. Other expenses were rising, too, so Sylvia sold her house and moved to an apartment to reduce costs.

“That was my home, and that was the only house we ever had,” she says. “[But] everything was starting to eat at my pension. You can’t have any quality of life if all you’re doing is paying the bills.”

Diane Sylvia downsized to save money on utility bills.

Tony Loung

Many adults 50 and older are facing rising costs for residential gas and electricity, driven in part by hefty fees and utility companies that strike deals to accommodate large energy users, like data centers.

Everyday expenses are already squeezing budgets for those on fixed incomes. And 2025 was a standout year for utility rate hikes.

Investor-owned electric and gas companies requested nearly $31 billion in increases last year from regulators, more than twice the amount in 2024, affecting nearly 81 million Americans nationwide, according to a recent analysis by PowerLines, a nonprofit focused on utility affordability.

AARP has been fighting back against rate increases, supporting laws that call for price transparency and protecting bill-pay assistance programs at risk of budget cuts. Our lobbying work across the country has resulted in guardrails around what charges companies pass on to consumers and has helped negotiate savings for ratepayers.

AARP state offices have also kept discussions going with local leaders on the importance of keeping heating and cooling bills affordable.

Mary West poses for a portrait in her backyard. Behind her, on the roof of her home, can be seen one of the two banks of solar panels that Mrs. West has added to reduce the costs of her electric bill.

Kristian Thacker

Price hikes endanger health, financial security

Since 2021, electricity prices have increased nearly 40 percent, according to PowerLines. Combined with gas, energy prices are driving inflation faster than groceries, gasoline, cars and medicine.

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Prices are up, and so are service shutoffs; about 1 in 6 U.S. households are in utility debt, and the number of service disconnections rose 15 percent in 2025, according to estimates by the National Energy Assistance Directors Association.

At least 1 in 4 people age 50-plus say their most recent utility bill was unaffordable, and well over half reported their monthly costs for service increased over the past year, according to a 2025 survey by AARP Research.

Mary West, 69, a U.S. Army veteran from Beckley, West Virginia, saw her monthly bill go up — and then up some more.

“It's ridiculous how much people are paying in electrical bills,” says West, who worked in the coal mines but felt she couldn’t afford the very energy she helped provide.

To reduce her reliance on coal-based power, she installed solar panels on the roof of her home. But even with those savings, she’s still making sacrifices. Her hot‑water heater went out just before Thanksgiving, and she hasn’t fixed it yet in order to save up the money.

From the front of Mrs. Mary West's home can be seen the first array of solar panels that she had installed.

Kristian Thacker

David Lapp, who leads Maryland’s People’s Counsel, an independent state agency that advocates for consumers, sees these trade-offs made regularly by those facing significant utility bills.

“Customers are having to choose between their prescriptions and groceries and paying rent or paying their bills, which sometimes are close to $1,000,” he says. “It’s really disheartening."

Across age and income groups, at least three-quarters of Americans age 50 and older are concerned about the cost of each utility — electricity, water and sewer, fuel oil, gas — going up, with 1 in 3 saying they are “very concerned” about increasing costs for each, according to the AARP survey.

The issue isn’t just about comfort when it comes to keeping the heat low or forgoing air conditioning in the summer.

Adults recovering from surgery, taking certain medications or simply facing a reduced ability to regulate body heat due to age become more susceptible to health complications arising from the cold or extreme heat.

Even homes with temperatures ranging from 60 to 65 degrees can pose the risk of hypothermia to older adults, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Some end up taking risky measures to stay warm.

Lynne Ferlisi says that during a visit to her mother in Marlborough, Massachusetts, she discovered the thermostat was set at 58 degrees and the oven was on, with the door open for warmth. After receiving an $800 heating bill for her apartment, Ferlisi’s mother was looking for ways to stretch her Social Security check.

Ferlisi began helping pay her mother’s bills, but eventually, she couldn’t afford them either.

“We were pulling out of our savings,” she says. “Finally, after a year of saying, ‘Mom, we can’t afford this,’ I said, ‘We have to sell your house.’ ”

Data centers, tech investments drive costs

Attempts to conserve energy don’t always translate into meaningful savings, says Jason Tomcsi, communications director for AARP Indiana, which has been working to combat a rate hike proposed by an electricity company serving Indianapolis.

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“The utility companies are getting these built-in increases that have nothing to do with how much you use,” he says. “It doesn’t matter how low you turn your thermostat down in the winter if there’s these fixed charges that keep on increasing.”

Utility bills include not just usage rates but sometimes also “rider” fees influenced by storm recovery, grid repairs, fuel costs, investments in new technologies or agreements to supply energy to data centers.

Spending on new infrastructure projects rose more than 14 percent from 2024 to 2025, up from about 4 percent in the period between 2023 and 2024, according to PowerLines.

In states like California, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Georgia, AARP has been fighting to increase oversight of fixed charges and protect the role of consumer advocate offices.

Ensuring ratepayers aren’t footing the bill for data centers is another priority for AARP. We've urged utility companies in states like Florida and Oregon to set distinct rate classes for new large-energy users up front, to prevent their costs from shifting to consumers.

More than three-quarters of adults 50-plus across the political spectrum believe large data centers should bear those costs, and most agree that state policymakers should protect consumers, according to a report from AARP Research.

“A fundamental principle of utility regulation is that those who are driving the costs are supposed to bear the cost,” Lapp says. “That’s what a just and reasonable rate is.”

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Molly Snow is a writer for AARP covering advocacy issues and state news. She also writes AARP's Today's Tips podcast. She previously worked at other news outlets, including Federal Times, McClatchy and Gannett.