Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
To funny,marilyn and i feel as if we dont want to own a house and deal with it anymore ,we had it. We want a nice condo in a high rise building with amenities with a man to fix everything lol....
We lived in high rise condos. Two major problems. First - all the bickering about everything. There tend to be a lot of people who want to spend lots of money on everything - and a lot of people who don't want to spend any money on anything. And they fight all the time. We left our first condo in 1985 - because we thought the people who didn't want to spend money on anything were winning. The maintenance we thought should be done didn't get done until 1992 - because the insurance company paid a large claim due to Hurricane Andrew damage (this was a "luxury" waterfront building). Note that the older people are - the less they want to spend money on things.
Second is the majority of unit owners do nothing - and treat the unit owners who do work on Boards and Committees like hired help. We had this problem in Miami because about half the unit owners were part time residents (mostly from south America) - but it is also a big problem when you have seasonal residents. Then of course there are the people on the Board of Directors who act like dictators (I personally found this to be less of a problem than the people who did nothing).
Note that there are some very serious issues in high rise condos - especially when it comes to insurance (and especially when you live in Florida). I used to be on condo insurance committees - but quit when I realized my personal exposure was too great.
Anyway - I would definitely rent in a condo for a while before buying if you've never lived in one before. Get the hang of things. Robyn
Mama mia. That's well over what most American households make working full time.
We're kind of upper middle class and have an upper middle class lifestyle. We've pretty much been like that for most of our adult lives. I suspect there are people in our community (of 1100 houses) who spend 2-10 times as much as we do - maybe more. Most have bigger houses (ours is 2800 sf under A/C but there are houses here that 8000-10000+ sf. Many have kids - who may be in private schools and/or college. They have more cars and other toys (like boats). They have live-in help. We're on the older side in terms of where we live. Most people here are in their 30's-50's. They tend to be professionals (lawyers - doctors - etc.) and corporate management types. We have some professional athletes too (golfers - football players). Most are upper middle class - but some are rich (although most really rich people tend to live in other parts of Florida).
Note that we built our house as an "age in place" house (my husband was about 50 when we built it). We have a guest wing on one side of the house should we ever need live-in help (or we can build a "granny unit" over our garage or at the rear of the lot if we want to). Robyn
We lived in high rise condos. Two major problems. First - all the bickering about everything. There tend to be a lot of people who want to spend lots of money on everything - and a lot of people who don't want to spend any money on anything. And they fight all the time. We left our first condo in 1985 - because we thought the people who didn't want to spend money on anything were winning. The maintenance we thought should be done didn't get done until 1992 - because the insurance company paid a large claim due to Hurricane Andrew damage (this was a "luxury" waterfront building). Note that the older people are - the less they want to spend money on things.
Second is the majority of unit owners do nothing - and treat the unit owners who do work on Boards and Committees like hired help. We had this problem in Miami because about half the unit owners were part time residents (mostly from south America) - but it is also a big problem when you have seasonal residents. Then of course there are the people on the Board of Directors who act like dictators (I personally found this to be less of a problem than the people who did nothing).
Note that there are some very serious issues in high rise condos - especially when it comes to insurance (and especially when you live in Florida). I used to be on condo insurance committees - but quit when I realized my personal exposure was too great.
Anyway - I would definitely rent in a condo for a while before buying if you've never lived in one before. Get the hang of things. Robyn
those are all the issues we have in our development in pa . the bickering,the arguing about funds. i lived in co-ops for alot of my life so im used to all this.
My fiddling has come up with lower numbers than most of you
even including what I gig myself for the money tied up in a house.
I suspect that time will bump some of these up maybe even soon
and I know I'll be spending more on travel next year, but fwiw....
A Rational Annual Budget for Modest (CHEAP!) Living Expenses
House Ownership:
Interest (130K x3.7%) ........... 4800 (a book number only)
Property Taxes .......................1500
Insurance .............................. 600
PITI Allowance...................... 6900 575 (a)
Other House:
Gas & Electric ........................ 1600 135
Phone/Cable/Internet .............. 1400 115
Water/Sewer ........................... 300 25
Maintenance & Repair ............... 450 50
Miscellaneous & Other .............. 350 29
Core Home Expenses ............... 4100 342 (b)
Personal:
HSA/HDHC Policy ..................... 2,500 208
Direct Health Expense .............. 2,500 208
Gas/Grocery/Goodies ............... 5,200 433
Clothing/Barber ......................... 800 67
Furniture/Household .................. xxx xx
Core Personal ......................... 11,000 917 (c)
Have a Life:
Get Out ...................................... 1,500 125
Get Some ................................... 1,500 125
Get Somewhere ........................... 2,500 208
The Extra’s ..................................5,500 542 (e)
Single Person $ 30,000 2500/mo (avg)
2nd person Multiplier? + 30-40%?
OK! Your budget most Americans could live with. Thanks for the input. I'm finding everyone's estimate on food to be low. Are you all survivng on mac and cheese?
I feel like we'll never be ready for retirement.... My husband and I would like to build a home in Vermont - but we don't have the 'cash' to pay for it all. We don't have stocks and bonds or mutual funds that people have. We have just over 100k in the bank, he has about 270k in his 401k, and will have a pension of about 36000k a year....plus we'll probably get after we sell our current house and realtor fees.....60 - 80k. This just isn't enough for me to feel comfortable building our house.
I don't mention myself because although I do have a 401k I will not be drawing on it until about 20 years after he is drawing on the one because I'm 20 years younger... And going through all of this planning - now the age difference is coming into play. I will continue working. The issue is moving up to Vermont.....we live in No. VA right now. The job issues up in Vermont is an entirely other story - so I can't even bank on a job until we're actually there and I actually have one.
I'm the one who handles the finances in the family....I'm a saver but not saavy with 'making money'. Unfortunately 10 years ago when we got married - he didn't save a dime...not even in his employer matching 401k. I changed that of course....but I feel like not soon enough. However - we've done the best we can with the time we've had.
Well thanks guys. I didn't put that to get kudos....but you are boosting my spirits about things. The real issue is that my husband had a heart attack a few months ago and quadruple bypass surgery. The stress of living in the No. VA area is a lot for him and we are not exactly sure if he'll be able to go back to work full time or if he should retire early or what.... So - he wants to go to Vermont where we have land, just not a house. What stops us from buying a pre-existing home (some of them are really nice and we could essentially almost buy one outright) are the energy issues. It can be very expensive to heat up there during the winter....we'd like to have a very energy efficient home and basically be hooked up to the grid but live off the grid and sell any excess back to the power company.... However - it will cost us more $$ to build energy efficient than to buy outright.... The last thing that I want is a mortgage.....even if it is small....
So, I guess I'm feeling rather unprepared about things because I'd like this to happen for him in the next one to two years.
Well thanks guys. I didn't put that to get kudos....but you are boosting my spirits about things. The real issue is that my husband had a heart attack a few months ago and quadruple bypass surgery. The stress of living in the No. VA area is a lot for him and we are not exactly sure if he'll be able to go back to work full time or if he should retire early or what.... So - he wants to go to Vermont where we have land, just not a house. What stops us from buying a pre-existing home (some of them are really nice and we could essentially almost buy one outright) are the energy issues. It can be very expensive to heat up there during the winter....
I understand that Vt is very different from Me.
We heat our 2400sq ft house using 3 to 4 cords of wood per year. Depending on where you get your firewood from a cord goes from $100 - $250 each.
Quote:
... we'd like to have a very energy efficient home and basically be hooked up to the grid but live off the grid and sell any excess back to the power company.... However - it will cost us more $$ to build energy efficient than to buy outright.... The last thing that I want is a mortgage.....even if it is small....
So, I guess I'm feeling rather unprepared about things because I'd like this to happen for him in the next one to two years.
We bought bare land in 2005, and began building....
So far our experience has been that building a house can be much lower priced than buying a house.
Hi Beekeeper - yeah, from what I gather here on the message boards....Vermonters (like some of my relatives - just HATE Vermont for some reason and try and discourage anyone from moving back....for whatever reason) LOL. I don't get that from the Maine folks!
At any rate - to get back on topic - did you build your home yourself? Do you have a central fireplace or woodstove? We really wanted a masonry heater or soapstone fireplace....it might wind up being something we can't have since it is $$ but.....it would be our main heat source for the main level living area and we would do radiant for the basement.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
