What are your monthly costs?

[saltymuffin]

The thread on how everything seems to have become so expensive got me wondering about how these fixed costs we can''t do anything about vary from state to state and country to country.

What are your monthly FIXED expenses? The things you HAVE to pay each month, don''t include food or other things that you can vary. For the sake of keeping things somewhat comparable, don''t include your mortgage costs, but do include your other bills - heat, electricity, insurance, water, property taxes etc. I would guess that at this time of year, those of you further south are doing better than those in colder climates - but lets see!

 

[Cleopatra]

FI and I purchased a 2nd floor 1400 square foot condo (2 bedrooms, 2 baths) - We live in the South...

- We pay $153/month to our Homeowners Association (includes exterior insurance, maintenance, water, sewer, trash)
- Electricity - This last bill was $45!!!! Can you believe it?! It''s not cold, nor is it hot here....keeping those utilities down!
- Cable - We pay $70/month for standard cable and internet
- $20/month for a standard phone line (to operate our gate to the community)
- Condo Insurance is super cheap - like maybe $20 a month for $50,000 in interior assets
- Property Taxes are about $300/year - so I guess around $25/month (condo taxes are very different from the other types of property taxes here)

I''m not too sure of the specifics for the insurance part - FI usually handles that - He''s so good at paying the bills, so I put money into our joint and he pays it

Living in the South has it''s perks with the price of living (where I am at least) - and I''m so glad we chose a condo over a house for our first home - plenty of space, and much more financially smart on our part!

 

[somethingshiny]

This will be interesting...

gas and electric- $400-$600/mo (for 2-3 winter months, all other months run about $150.)
water (which our landlady pays, but for info sake)- $60/mo
insurance (car, renter''s, and jewelry)- $90/mo
internet, cable and phone (one service)- $120/mo
cell phones- $60/mo
union dues- $40

Those winter gas and electric bill suck for us. We have a two story house with a heated basement on a wide open space with no windbreakers.

 

[monarch64]

Date: 12/12/2007 3:35:59 PM
Author:saltymuffin
The thread on how everything seems to have become so expensive got me wondering about how these fixed costs we can''t do anything about vary from state to state and country to country.

What are your monthly FIXED expenses? The things you HAVE to pay each month, don''t include food or other things that you can vary. For the sake of keeping things somewhat comparable, don''t include your mortgage costs, but do include your other bills - heat, electricity, insurance, water, property taxes etc. I would guess that at this time of year, those of you further south are doing better than those in colder climates - but lets see!

We live 13 miles west of Chicago proper...here''s an approximation of our monthly expenses:

heat (electric + gas): ~$150-200
insurance (auto, personal property, home, health/dental): ~$600
water/sewer/trash: $60
prop. tax: ~$400
phone/internet/cable: ~$200
cell phones: ~$200
car payment: $600 (for one car, DH''s is company-owned)
ortho payment (I''m in braces, lol) $160

We won''t see an increase in our electric or gas bill until next month, and then it will probably go up by ~$100 total. I guess the one thing that is really high for us is property tax, but ours are low in perspective to other suburbs in Cook county.

 

[pennquaker09]

We live outside of Philadelphia.

Cell Phones: Cingular $160
Cable/Internet/Phone: Comcast $200
Car Insurance: $1200 for 6 months, Allstate
Utilities (Trash, Gas, etc): $260
Homeowners Insurance: $420
Homeowners Association: around $500

I don''t deal with the property taxes and some of the other things such as health insurance. We have Blue Cross/Blue Shield, but there are some things that Nate takes care of. Also, we don''t have car payments.

 

[eks6426]

I have a 1400 sq ft house in northern Indiana. 2 kids...10 and 19 plus hubbie:

Home insurance: 50
Property Taxes: 145
Water/trash/sewer: 75
Gas--budget plan with all payments equal: 115
Electric--also budget plan: 80
Auto insurance: 125
Dish TV: 48
Landline phone (for emergancies): 20
Internet (DSL): 25
Cell phones (3--1 of them is on unlimited plan): 325
2 car payments (almost done 11 months to go!): 800
Life insurance for all 4 of us: 180
Health/dental insurance (through my work--comes out of paycheck): 200

 

[saltymuffin]

I guess I should add my own numbers!!

We have a very small (1000sq ft) rowhouse, in the centre of Ottawa, Canada.

Electricity - $30/mo
Gas - $60/mo (gas heat, on equal billing, so it doesn''t skyrocket in winter, and we are a middle unit, so less exterior walls)
Water - $12/mo
property tax - $185/mo
home insurance - $50/mo
phone/internet/TV - $125/mo
No car, but we have transit passes - $140/mo for both of us

Our utility costs are low right now, but other provences have undergone "deregulation", and seen the costs skyrocket. Hopefully it won''t happen here!

 

[Mara]

kinda interesting to see everyone''s responses!

we live in sf bayarea, california. not sure if i got everything but our fixed expenses don''t seem as bad as a lot of other areas, considering we are so expensive in our mortgage and other things, it''s amazing we don''t pay more for everything!! i know our mortgages are insane though hehe.

gas and electric: $70-130 depending on month
insurance (auto, personal property, home, health/dental): $300
water: $30
trash: $20
prop. tax: $600
phone/internet/cable: ~$150
cell phones: ~$150
car payment: $550 (just one new car)
HOA: $240

 

[poshpepper]

We live in Southern California (outside of Los Angeles):
Gas/Electric: ~$100 a month (not including summer months when the heat gets brutal.. then it about doubles)
Water: ~$30
Trash: ~$20
Property Tax: $550
Cable/Internet/Phone (all in one bill): $150
Cell Phones (2): $200
Car Payments(2): $700
Insurance (Medical): $100
Insurance (3 Cars): $490
Homeowners Insurance: ~$100

 

[Libster]

We are in a suburb of Atlanta, GA

Gas/Electric - Average $195 and upwards of $400 during the summer months
Water - $25
Trash $20
Property Tax - $500 per month
Phone - $25
Internet/Cable - $150
Cell Phones - $120
Car pmt (1 car) - $615
Car Insurance ( 2 cars) - $116 per month
Homeowners Ins - $110 per month
Health Ins. (major med/vision) (after employeer contrib.) - $90

 

[nebe]

$785 a month. I don't pay utilities or health insurance.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

southeast US (house is 2700 sq. ft.):


electric and gas $320 per mo. (equal payment yr. round)

phone $50

cable tv and internet $105

water $50

cell phones (3) $90


property tax about $2400 per year

car insurance is about $1200 per year

homeowners insurance is about $ 1000 per year

 

[fisherofmengirly]

Our bills break down like this:

electricity tends to be around $60 a month (we''re in an apt. right now)

cell phones (both of ours) $100 a month

Our auto insurance together is about $120 a month

Cable/internet is $95 a month (too much, in my opinion; Paul pays this bill)

water/sewer bill is about $15-20 a month

most of our expenses go to GAS for our vehicles. Yuck!!

Our insurance comes out of our paychecks, but it''s about $65 a month, total for us combined

***

Are you serious that some of you are paying hundreds of dollars a MONTH on HOA fees? The highest we have seen during our home search has been $210 a year. WOWZERS.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

fisher, homeowners association fees are usually much higher for a condo because it covers exterior maintenance, lawn care, parking areas, insurance on the buildings, etc. We were recently looking at condos for our daughter and the HOA fees on most 2 br condos were about $150/mo. She ended up buying a house with no HOA fees, though.

 

[fisherofmengirly]

OH!!

Thanks for that information, DiamondSeeker. I was thinking, "what kind of pools do THEY have??" Haha. We''ve not looked at any condos, so that would explain why we''ve not run across that, I suppose.

 

[CaliCushion]

This recipe sounds really yummy and easy! I''m assuming you use regular salted peanut butter, but what about the butter? Thanks, I''d love to make this!

 

[CaliCushion]

I replied to the wrong post, SO sorry. Ignore my last post!

 

[pennquaker09]

Date: 12/13/2007 9:24:38 PM
Author: fisherofmengirly
Are you serious that some of you are paying hundreds of dollars a MONTH on HOA fees? The highest we have seen during our home search has been $210 a year. WOWZERS.

My dad lives in the south and he pays like $2000 for HOA fees. The south is kind of notorious for gated communities. Some places are more than that. It''s quite ridiculous.

 

[Lisa Loves Shiny]

Cars $450
Inurance (house, cars, life, health, ect) $390
Gas $240
Electric/water sewer $150
Gasoline $150
Groceries $400
cable/papers/magazines $150

Plus tuition, rent, books for the kid and of course the house payment.

This is starting to depress me. lol

 

[Sparkster]

For us it''s (Australian dollars)

- health insurance: $240 (top cover including ancillary)
- council rates: $133 (but we pay quarterly which makes it $400 approx)
- insurance for both cars: $150
- mobile phone: $49 (mine only, work pays for FI''s phone)
- land line phone: $60
- house and contents insurance, gas, water, electricity (FI looks after that so I don''t know the amount)
- child support: $2,200
- house cleaner: $140
- car repayments: $300 (FI''s car only, paid cash for mine)

I know you did say not to mention mortgage but it''s a large chunk for us $2,090.

Also, a lot of you mention ''property tax''. What is this? We don''t pay property tax here (unless we it''s an investment property and it''s value is over a certain amount - and it''s known as land tax). Here we pay council rates instead (which covers for rubbish collection - so we don''t pay that separately)

 

[Elmorton]

Newlyweds in IA-

Grad school payment $250
Undergrad payment $200
Car payments $550
Rent $690
Utilities $120
Car insurance $60? Insanely cheaper than when I was paying for my own
Renters/jewelry insurance - $20? it's low
Cable/internet -$90
Cell phones - $70

I'm sure there's something else I'm forgetting.