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Jeffery posted an article about the 12 Hidden Costs of Home Ownership a few weeks ago. 12 Hidden Costs of Homeownership - US News and World Report
Just wanted to add to that since I am learning about that first hand in my new home.
We purchased our new home last November 2009 and have basically only been living there on weekends until our children finish up their school year. We will spend more time there over the summer but will not be actually living there full time until they start school in September.
It's been really tough and tiring going between 2 households and working full time. Our weekends are jammed packed with lists a mile long to do at the house. Laundry and cleaning still has to be done at both places.
It's also been good because we didn't have to move in a day or week or even month. We are taking our time going through our personal belongings and purging before packing and moving stuff.
Some of our original requirements were a big lot and either a pool or space to build one. Thank goodness, our house has one already because I can't even imagine having to go through the stress and money needed to put one in. Those requirements are adding to the budget.
There were a lot of things we DID account for before the home purchase. But there were also a lot we either didn't or underestimated.
Snowing Plowing: $45 each time (over the course of the winter we had it done 4 times)
We had intended to do all this ourselves and DH did do shoveling almost every weekend it seemed this winter.
But since we aren't there during the week, we are living a hour away, and it snows on days other than the weekend, we had someone do it during the week days when needed. We did so on the recommendation of a neighbor that also is away a lot because otherwise, anyone driving by the house would know that it was not occupied - not even footprints to the front door. Everyone on the street knows we are not there during the week but strangers driving by shouldn't be able to tell so easily, kwim?
Utilities: So far, around $370/mth.
Electricity is averaging $70/mth - less than the $190 budgeted and the $178 estimated as per the previous home owners but keep in mind that we are only there on the weekends and haven't gone through the summer season when the a/c is in use yet. Oil averaged almost $300/mth over the winter which was a lot higher than expected even though we were away during the week and kept the temperature around 55 degrees. We budgeted $135/mth ($1620/yr) based on the previous HO estimate of $118/mth. Of course, oil prices were $$$$ this year. And we should see it go down tremendously now that the weather is warm and may not need other fill up until the fall. Internet/phone/TV = $0 Not getting any for as long as possible. May only wind out getting Internet when we move in full time or the beginning of the summer when we are at the house more than just the weekends. I had budgeted $125/mth for the 3. Private garbage pick-up would have cost around $40/mth but we take ours "home" at the end of every weekend. I will probably continue doing this after we move in. Take the garbage to work with me. Lol. Btw, I manage apartment buildings so adding my household garbage to the garbage in the building is no biggie.
Pellet stove: We budgeted $25/mth for this but have yet to start using it. Tried using it twice this past winter and smoked up the entire house both times! LOL. Will have to get someone to come check it this fall, clean the chimney, and teach us how to use it. Have no idea how much that will cost but am thinking somewhere between $200-$350? Once we can get it working properly, it will help with the oil costs.
Windows: $10-$20K
We have decided to go ahead and change our windows this year. The previous HO did comment that that would have been their next home improvement project planned. The windows still look great but they are very inefficient. Lets the cold in during the winter and the house heated up quickly this past weekend when it was almost 90 degrees outside. We have lots of big windows. Not sure how much they will cost but I'm guessing, anywhere between $10-$20K. Might have to separate all the windows and the 2 patio doors into 2 separate projects and do the doors another year. We have 2 window guys coming this weekend to give us estimates. Might as well get the $1500 tax credit while it is available. We had a home improvement and furnishing reserve of about $35K when we closed on the house. We have been using it a lot faster than we anticipated.
Paint & Supplies: Spent about $300 with another $200-$600 to go. Even though the house was in move in condition and the walls were painted within the last 4 years and is in relatively good condition with left over paint in the basement to touch up areas that got scuffed during the move out (we haven't gotten to that yet)and we are keeping those colors, we are painting each of the kids' room and the garage that was dry-walled but unpainted. So far, we have spent about $200 in primer, paint and supplies to prime and paint one of the bedrooms and the entire garage. We had to use a LOT of primer, we had to cover a DARK green in the bedroom and the dry wall in the garage absorbed a lot of prime & paint. They look GREAT!
Spent another $100 for 2 sets of closet organizers for the 2 girls' bedroom. It was on clearance. Will need to spend more money on paint for the other bedroom. It is currently white, thank goodness. And we will be cleaning, etching, staining, and sealing the garage floor in the next few weeks. So, we will have to spend probably another $100-$200 in materials there. Want to get the garage DONE and organized BEFORE we start moving more stuff into it. Because once it's in, it's not coming out. As it is, we have a ton of stuff to move out of the garage to do the floor. If we like it and if we have time, we want to also do the unfinished basement floors the same way and probably paint the cinder block walls with a water resistant paint. Again, if we are ever going to do all this, it will have to be before we fill those rooms with stuff. Because once we do, it just won't ever get done.
Pool Contract: $2400/season
Again, this was something, DH had planned to do himself. He is pretty good at keeping the pH levels in his fish tanks at a optimal level. With research and trail and error, it is something he can definitely learn to do himself. Therein lies the problem. No TIME! We are dropping into bed exhausted from work all week and all weekend and he just hasn't had the time to do any research. I made the executive decision to go with the pool contract this year and can learn all about it seeing how it's actually done. The learning curve will be much easier this way. The contract will include opening the pool (which we have no clue about how to do), weekly maintenance, chemicals (which would have been $500 OOP anyway), and closing the pool (which we only watched the HO do last year). We had budgeted only $50/mth for this. So, waaaay off! In any case, I would have spent that and more on a vacation, and now the kids and our family can enjoy it all summer. We will just have to either add this expense into our budget, or learn to do it ourselves for future years, or a combo where we at least have them open the pool and we handle the weekly maintenance.
Lawn Care: $225 so far. $400 definitely in the fall.
Again, we budgeted $50/mth but a 1+ acre property with LOTS of trees and landscaping is more than we can handle when we are only at the house 36-48 hours a week and have a mile long laundry list of things to work on IN the house. Hired a landscaping company to do the spring clean-up this past weekend. BEST $225 we ever spent!! 6 man crew came with big heavy equipment and worked on our property for over an hour and hauled away a truckload of dead branches and debris. It would have taken our whole family of 4 at least 3 weekends if not more to accomplish what they did in an hour. And we would have had to unload the debris behind the property in the wooded area instead of having it hauled away. We are definitely going to have to add the Spring AND Fall clean-ups into the budget. The Fall clean-up will be $400 and they come out at least 3 times. We were lucky in that the previous HO hired someone to do it for us last year. Lots of trees means LOTS of leaves! Other things we were quoted that we are on the fence about right now. $900 to weed, edge and mulch all the landscaping on the property ($400 in mulch & $500 labor) and $44 for bi-weekly lawn maintenance. Those we don't intend to add to the budget for the future but wonder if we have the time or energy to handle all the extra week ourselves. We have a calendar and our weekends for the entire summer has been accounted for in household projects already. Lawn and landscaping time has not been accounted for...
I'm probably leaving a bunch of other stuff out but I would say we spent about another $2000 for home furnishings including new dishes and a new grill and a patio table and chairs and new bed linens and etc. All would be from the originally budgeted amount of $35K in reserve for home improvements and home furnishings.
BOTTOM line is that beyond the costs of the home purchase and the budget you ESTIMATE will be your monthly expenses, ADD a big generous miscellaneous as a reserve to make sure your are not skirting too close to the edge.
While we might not have spent as much in some areas as I thought, we are really going way above budget in other areas that in reality, I under budgeted for.
I would be freaking out much more if we didn't have a large reserve fund just for the house to fall back on and if DH didn't just get a small raise and bonus that helped off set these additional expenses. Also, since we haven't found a new church home yet, we haven't been tithing as we should. We are adding the amount we would have tithed to our mortgage payments.
We are currently still adding $1000 extra to our mortgage payments.
I am soooooo glad we didn't buy a more expensive house. House maintenance in a semi-rural area is much more expensive than city apartment living, that's for sure! But I have to say, I love our home, our neighbors, the area, and the work we are putting into the house. I just wish there were more hours in the day, week, and weekend.
Just wanted to add to that since I am learning about that first hand in my new home.
We purchased our new home last November 2009 and have basically only been living there on weekends until our children finish up their school year. We will spend more time there over the summer but will not be actually living there full time until they start school in September.
It's been really tough and tiring going between 2 households and working full time. Our weekends are jammed packed with lists a mile long to do at the house. Laundry and cleaning still has to be done at both places.
It's also been good because we didn't have to move in a day or week or even month. We are taking our time going through our personal belongings and purging before packing and moving stuff. Some of our original requirements were a big lot and either a pool or space to build one. Thank goodness, our house has one already because I can't even imagine having to go through the stress and money needed to put one in. Those requirements are adding to the budget.
There were a lot of things we DID account for before the home purchase. But there were also a lot we either didn't or underestimated.
Snowing Plowing: $45 each time (over the course of the winter we had it done 4 times)
We had intended to do all this ourselves and DH did do shoveling almost every weekend it seemed this winter.
But since we aren't there during the week, we are living a hour away, and it snows on days other than the weekend, we had someone do it during the week days when needed. We did so on the recommendation of a neighbor that also is away a lot because otherwise, anyone driving by the house would know that it was not occupied - not even footprints to the front door. Everyone on the street knows we are not there during the week but strangers driving by shouldn't be able to tell so easily, kwim?Utilities: So far, around $370/mth.
Electricity is averaging $70/mth - less than the $190 budgeted and the $178 estimated as per the previous home owners but keep in mind that we are only there on the weekends and haven't gone through the summer season when the a/c is in use yet. Oil averaged almost $300/mth over the winter which was a lot higher than expected even though we were away during the week and kept the temperature around 55 degrees. We budgeted $135/mth ($1620/yr) based on the previous HO estimate of $118/mth. Of course, oil prices were $$$$ this year. And we should see it go down tremendously now that the weather is warm and may not need other fill up until the fall. Internet/phone/TV = $0 Not getting any for as long as possible. May only wind out getting Internet when we move in full time or the beginning of the summer when we are at the house more than just the weekends. I had budgeted $125/mth for the 3. Private garbage pick-up would have cost around $40/mth but we take ours "home" at the end of every weekend. I will probably continue doing this after we move in. Take the garbage to work with me. Lol. Btw, I manage apartment buildings so adding my household garbage to the garbage in the building is no biggie.
Pellet stove: We budgeted $25/mth for this but have yet to start using it. Tried using it twice this past winter and smoked up the entire house both times! LOL. Will have to get someone to come check it this fall, clean the chimney, and teach us how to use it. Have no idea how much that will cost but am thinking somewhere between $200-$350? Once we can get it working properly, it will help with the oil costs.
Windows: $10-$20K
We have decided to go ahead and change our windows this year. The previous HO did comment that that would have been their next home improvement project planned. The windows still look great but they are very inefficient. Lets the cold in during the winter and the house heated up quickly this past weekend when it was almost 90 degrees outside. We have lots of big windows. Not sure how much they will cost but I'm guessing, anywhere between $10-$20K. Might have to separate all the windows and the 2 patio doors into 2 separate projects and do the doors another year. We have 2 window guys coming this weekend to give us estimates. Might as well get the $1500 tax credit while it is available. We had a home improvement and furnishing reserve of about $35K when we closed on the house. We have been using it a lot faster than we anticipated.
Paint & Supplies: Spent about $300 with another $200-$600 to go. Even though the house was in move in condition and the walls were painted within the last 4 years and is in relatively good condition with left over paint in the basement to touch up areas that got scuffed during the move out (we haven't gotten to that yet)and we are keeping those colors, we are painting each of the kids' room and the garage that was dry-walled but unpainted. So far, we have spent about $200 in primer, paint and supplies to prime and paint one of the bedrooms and the entire garage. We had to use a LOT of primer, we had to cover a DARK green in the bedroom and the dry wall in the garage absorbed a lot of prime & paint. They look GREAT!
Spent another $100 for 2 sets of closet organizers for the 2 girls' bedroom. It was on clearance. Will need to spend more money on paint for the other bedroom. It is currently white, thank goodness. And we will be cleaning, etching, staining, and sealing the garage floor in the next few weeks. So, we will have to spend probably another $100-$200 in materials there. Want to get the garage DONE and organized BEFORE we start moving more stuff into it. Because once it's in, it's not coming out. As it is, we have a ton of stuff to move out of the garage to do the floor. If we like it and if we have time, we want to also do the unfinished basement floors the same way and probably paint the cinder block walls with a water resistant paint. Again, if we are ever going to do all this, it will have to be before we fill those rooms with stuff. Because once we do, it just won't ever get done.Pool Contract: $2400/season
Again, this was something, DH had planned to do himself. He is pretty good at keeping the pH levels in his fish tanks at a optimal level. With research and trail and error, it is something he can definitely learn to do himself. Therein lies the problem. No TIME! We are dropping into bed exhausted from work all week and all weekend and he just hasn't had the time to do any research. I made the executive decision to go with the pool contract this year and can learn all about it seeing how it's actually done. The learning curve will be much easier this way. The contract will include opening the pool (which we have no clue about how to do), weekly maintenance, chemicals (which would have been $500 OOP anyway), and closing the pool (which we only watched the HO do last year). We had budgeted only $50/mth for this. So, waaaay off! In any case, I would have spent that and more on a vacation, and now the kids and our family can enjoy it all summer. We will just have to either add this expense into our budget, or learn to do it ourselves for future years, or a combo where we at least have them open the pool and we handle the weekly maintenance.
Lawn Care: $225 so far. $400 definitely in the fall.
Again, we budgeted $50/mth but a 1+ acre property with LOTS of trees and landscaping is more than we can handle when we are only at the house 36-48 hours a week and have a mile long laundry list of things to work on IN the house. Hired a landscaping company to do the spring clean-up this past weekend. BEST $225 we ever spent!! 6 man crew came with big heavy equipment and worked on our property for over an hour and hauled away a truckload of dead branches and debris.
It would have taken our whole family of 4 at least 3 weekends if not more to accomplish what they did in an hour. And we would have had to unload the debris behind the property in the wooded area instead of having it hauled away. We are definitely going to have to add the Spring AND Fall clean-ups into the budget. The Fall clean-up will be $400 and they come out at least 3 times. We were lucky in that the previous HO hired someone to do it for us last year. Lots of trees means LOTS of leaves! Other things we were quoted that we are on the fence about right now. $900 to weed, edge and mulch all the landscaping on the property ($400 in mulch & $500 labor) and $44 for bi-weekly lawn maintenance. Those we don't intend to add to the budget for the future but wonder if we have the time or energy to handle all the extra week ourselves. We have a calendar and our weekends for the entire summer has been accounted for in household projects already. Lawn and landscaping time has not been accounted for...I'm probably leaving a bunch of other stuff out but I would say we spent about another $2000 for home furnishings including new dishes and a new grill
and a patio table and chairs and new bed linens and etc. All would be from the originally budgeted amount of $35K in reserve for home improvements and home furnishings.BOTTOM line is that beyond the costs of the home purchase and the budget you ESTIMATE will be your monthly expenses, ADD a big generous miscellaneous as a reserve to make sure your are not skirting too close to the edge.
While we might not have spent as much in some areas as I thought, we are really going way above budget in other areas that in reality, I under budgeted for.
I would be freaking out much more if we didn't have a large reserve fund just for the house to fall back on and if DH didn't just get a small raise and bonus that helped off set these additional expenses. Also, since we haven't found a new church home yet, we haven't been tithing as we should. We are adding the amount we would have tithed to our mortgage payments.
We are currently still adding $1000 extra to our mortgage payments.I am soooooo glad we didn't buy a more expensive house. House maintenance in a semi-rural area is much more expensive than city apartment living, that's for sure! But I have to say, I love our home, our neighbors, the area, and the work we are putting into the house. I just wish there were more hours in the day, week, and weekend.
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