I don't know if it's a thing where you are, but many years ago we adopted "levelized billing" or "averaged billing," it's called something like that. Basically the utility company takes a year of your usage and divides it by 12 and you pay a fixed rate every month. Every six months they review and either raise or lower your suggested payment. It has saved a lot of headaches for us. If you're renting that might not work but you could do your own sort of envelope accounting by setting aside a fixed amount so that you're covered for the ups and downs. To answer your question -- yeah, it's insane. Record number of heat days in a row and no end in sight, boo.