this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
34 points (90.5% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27036 readers
1633 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

So, I ABSOLUTELY know there's massive variation in this. Just want to get ahead of that.

What I'm looking for is...what do finances look like, casually, when you have a 100% paid off small (SMALL!) home. When a mortgage is out of the way, what's left to eat up your paycheck?

I suppose I'm looking for the sort of casual knowledge of expenses for this sort of life that your kids might pick up if they lived in your area with you in your home. En mass, pulled from multiple lemmy folks, so I can get an idea of general trends. I'm partial for info from the USA, but others reading this might appreciate statistics from other areas. :)

(People mistake how valuable this sort of "general idea" info is, I always see people going into the weeds on how every situation is different without bothering even giving a crappy signpost so I can see if I'm looking at a $5 expense or $500 or $5000. Knowing if something is going to be $5 or $5000 is very valuable, even if it's not some exact precise number. But I don't need to know if it's going to be exactly $392.29 if I wiggle my ears and tug my nose to get the right loophole, I just need to know that closer to $500 is correct, or whatever.)

I don't have family, so I missed out on "casual learning" opportunities, and don't have anyone to talk to IRL to get this info, so it's really hard to apply my city-living experience to try to extrapolate what life might be like if I make a goal to buy a small home in Nowheretown, USA to retire in 20 years down the line.

Anyway. So what do expenses look like if you have a small paid off house? What range do utilities run in for you (in your particular climate), what's home insurance like, what sort of unexpected expenses pop up when you own instead of rent?

What's utilities like for sewer and trash, especially? Those have always been rolled into my rent. Is rural internet still limited to DSL or satellite (or Starlink I guess these days), or has better infrastructure been rolled out in places over the past 20 years since I last looked for this info?

Edit: Also...talk to me about well water and well expenses, and septic tanks instead of sewer lines, and oil heating. I promise I'll listen!

Edit 2: Also talk to me about how propane works.

Thanks everyone. :)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] habitualTartare 1 points 2 months ago

It's definitely tedious to track everything. I do like the import feature and it covers maybe 80% of day to day transactions but yeah it's a pain to go and fix stuff. What your talking about with PayPal is what YNAB considers a transfer and payment and is usually part the 20% I have to fix. Bank to PayPal is a transfer transaction, PayPal to purchase is the payment. It can definitely get needlessly complicated and it sometimes automatically imports correctly, especially reoccurring payments or if the transfer is between two linked accounts.