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Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Old Sep 2nd 2010, 3:11 pm
  #46  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Oh boy, I feel so depressed reading this thread....4000 sq.ft home with 3 A/C's and a 28,000 gallon pool, you know what's coming....

Electricity
Summer averages around $450, Winter around $200
However Summer in TX is from Feb - Nov!
Actual average across the whole year is $380 with the pool being at least $120 of that
Electricity is very expensive in TX, we are paying 11.4 per KWh, but going to be changing providers soon.

Water, sewage & garbage
$240 summer, $80 winter/no watering
We are on about .62 of an acre
No extra charge for extra garbage - good, no recycling program - bad!

Gas
$40 summer, $80 winter

Property tax
$800, Including homestead exemption

Cable TV/Internet/phone
$150

Car insurance
$120

Home insurance
$80

HOA Fees
$31

Pre Schooling
$900, 5 days a week, all day

State Tax
$0 (but see above)

Sales Tax
8.25%

Car title transfer
6.25% of value

Car Registration
Depends on car but typically $50 - $100 a year per car/truck

- Tim
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 3:14 pm
  #47  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by S Folinsky
Sally: Although you say you are in "Los Angeles" -- I assume you are not under DWP?
I am in LA county but Las Virgenes water district.

I used to put 'Calabasas' on my profile but made a few enemies since then LA is bigger.
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 3:46 pm
  #48  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

I'm not sure of the exact numbers for us here in Southern Louisiana but they are something like this for our 1450sq ft house:

Electricity = average of about $100 per month over the year.
Gas = no gas supply.
Water/Garbage = $30 a month combined payment including sewerage.
10Mb/s internet = $40 a month.
Property tax = $800 per YEAR.
Combined house/car insurance = about $150 a month for house and 2 cars (I think)
Flood insurance = $300 a year.
Cell phones = $100 per month for two lines with unlimited texting. (No landline).

I'm very glad I'm not paying $24k+ a year for property tax. I would move.
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 4:22 pm
  #49  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by Sally Redux
I am in LA county but Las Virgenes water district.

I used to put 'Calabasas' on my profile but made a few enemies since then LA is bigger.
You are one freeway exit outside the LA City limits if memory serves me correct -- going west on the northbound 101 I recall the last exit in Woodland Hills [part of LA City] is Valley Circle with the next exit being Calabasas Parkway, then Los Virgenes. Growing up in Sherman Oaks, we would take the N-101 to the Los Virgenes exit and then to Malibu. Would you believe that there were two gas stations at the 101/Los Virgenes exit. And then they built a Jack-N-The-Box. Of course, today it is a tad more developed.

I did take a ride to see "The Pink Lady" -- it did not last all that long. I think you can still the blotch of brown paint.
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 4:40 pm
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by S Folinsky
You are one freeway exit outside the LA City limits if memory serves me correct -- going west on the northbound 101 I recall the last exit in Woodland Hills [part of LA City] is Valley Circle with the next exit being Calabasas Parkway, then Los Virgenes. Growing up in Sherman Oaks, we would take the N-101 to the Los Virgenes exit and then to Malibu. Would you believe that there were two gas stations at the 101/Los Virgenes exit. And then they built a Jack-N-The-Box. Of course, today it is a tad more developed.

I did take a ride to see "The Pink Lady" -- it did not last all that long. I think you can still the blotch of brown paint.
That's right.

I'll have to look for the remains of the Pink Lady.

I suppose the equivalent of the fondly-remembered graffiti from childhood for me was "M. KHAN IS BENT' which was emblazoned across a bridge on the road into London for years.
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 6:05 pm
  #51  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

water/sewer/rubbish included in the rent, but we also have to pay a couple of bucks for town bags for rubbish to be collected, all rubbish needs to be in those bags and if they don't fit, it's $25 pick up charge plus whatever on top if they're bulky items.

Electric about $150-200 because we need to have AC 24/7 in the kitchen or the fridge shuts off and the landlord is an arsehole. During about $100

Oil, during winter about $300-350 a month, but during the summer it's about $200 a quarter.

No gas around here.

Family of 2 and a stump, 1350sq/ft apartment, ish, maybe a little more.

Edit: oh, car insurance is $1300 a year but we have a very low deductible and very high maximum coverage and we live near NH where they don't require car insurance so have a lot of cover for uninsured drivers.

Apartment rental is $150 a year and covers about $30K worth of goods

Last edited by Bob; Sep 2nd 2010 at 6:10 pm.
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 6:10 pm
  #52  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

SoCAL 2600 SQFT with pool. All USD/month

property tax 460
Home ins 133 inc earthquake coverage
Gas 20
Electric 125 ( 100-140 depending on season)
water 130( includes sewage and trash)
HOA 55
TV/internet 135 ( no home phone line )

We have solar to heat the pool and whole house fan so air con is rarely used
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 6:16 pm
  #53  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by Michael
Unless your income is fairly large and you live in a high income tax state (eg. California), it is usually difficult to exceed the standard deduction if you are renting to take advantage of itemized deductions on your federal tax return.
But you might have state deductions. In MA, you can around $4K to deduct if you've rented for 12 months, half that for 6 months and that's the bottom limit.

Doesn't take much to reach the deductible, it's barely a couple months rent
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 6:23 pm
  #54  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by TimFountain
Pre Schooling
$900, 5 days a week, all day
That's depressing, it's about $1500 a month for 3 half days a week down my way, and you've got to provide your own snacks.

Oh and car, we've got a county tax of $25 per $1000 value on the car every year, and they haven't updated their blue book value in years, according them them, our car is worth about double of what it actually is

Registration renewal is cheap, that's only $50 per 2 years, but it's very expensive the first time you do it. Also with renewals, you have to have a clean drivers license and no tickets/fines due on the car to get a renewal sticker and if you haven't paid registration by last day of the previous month due, your drivers license automatically gets revoked and it's a $500 fine for driving without a license on top of what ever else the cop might have pulled you over for if you get caught, plus another $350 fine before you can register your car.
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 6:41 pm
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by Duncan Roberts
If there is no state/local tax then it might not as bad as it sounds overall. For us it varies wildly depending on the county and city. For us, $360 a month, if we moved 1/2 a mile down the road into a different county it would almost double, which is a prime reason why we didn't move there!

EDIT: Above house is in the "different county"
Yep, Shaker Heights has the highest property taxes in the state. There are houses within walking distance of mine for which the taxes are higher than my annual salary
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 7:31 pm
  #56  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by Bob
That's depressing, it's about $1500 a month for 3 half days a week down my way, and you've got to provide your own snacks.
Crikey ! We pay $260 for the same
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Old Sep 2nd 2010, 10:24 pm
  #57  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by AmerLisa
What's the sticker system?
You buy City garbage stickers and affix them to your trash bags- $1/each. We also have recycling pick-up every 2 weeks($30/year use it or not) and have managed to go from 2-3 bags of trash/week to just 1...and an assload of plastic/glass/etc recyclables. It really is a PITA, storing and sorting the sh*t

Originally Posted by TimberHut
People pay 2 grand a month property tax?

Here for a nice house in a nice neighborhood it is around $700 a YEAR.

Surely it can't be $24,000 a year?
About what we pay for PT for a 1500 sq' ranch on .85 acres....no 'McMansion" though it is nice.
I was thinking the same thing, but TX has no sales tax so those $$ must be recouped in other ways.
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Old Sep 3rd 2010, 12:27 am
  #58  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by ironporer
...and an assload of plastic/glass/etc recyclables. It really is a PITA, storing and sorting the sh*t
That's the one nice thing about where we live, they pick up recycling every fortnight but you don't have to sort it out, just stick it in a box or bag and it'll get picked up.

Also nice the town actually picks the rubbish up. A lot of the towns we've been checking out don't do rubbish collection, so it's either the town dump or have private collection at around $30-40 a month.
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Old Sep 3rd 2010, 4:46 pm
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by Bob
That's the one nice thing about where we live, they pick up recycling every fortnight but you don't have to sort it out, just stick it in a box or bag and it'll get picked up.

Also nice the town actually picks the rubbish up. A lot of the towns we've been checking out don't do rubbish collection, so it's either the town dump or have private collection at around $30-40 a month.
Our recycling gets picked up every two weeks as well. We have a wheelie bin (such as the regular trash is in.) The only problem is that we're not allowed to put glass in it. At our rental, further north, there were plastic boxes for glass and one for cardboard/paper, etc, all put out at the curb, weekly to be picked up. Unfortunately here you have to haul the glass to the recycle place yourself....
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Old Sep 3rd 2010, 6:35 pm
  #60  
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Default Re: Bills- Sewer/Water/Gas/Electric/Garbage...how much do you pay?

Originally Posted by helwardman
I'm very glad I'm not paying $24k+ a year for property tax. I would move.
Every state is different. Here in California, we have proposition 13 which was passed in 1978. Property tax is based upon assessed valuation which is market value. However, property tax is capped at 1% [plus bonded indebtedness] and assessed value cannot increase more than 2% per year. The Prop 13 rate will be the base for allowing reductions of tax when market value goes down. The baseline is reset upon sale

So, let say you have two houses in LA [3 bedroom, 2 bath, 3000 sq ft] in a nice neighborhood next to each other -- both are worth $2 million. House A was purchased in 1994 for $300K. So the property taxes started at $3000 per year and with the 2% annual increase are now at about $6000 per year. House B was purchased in 2009 for $2 million -- the tax will be about $20,000 per year.

Lets say House B was purchased before the recent market crash in 2006 for $2,750,000. House B can obtain temporary reductions in assessed valuation, but house A cannot. This is true even though both houses lost $750,000. So House A would have to decrease a lot [and I think there is a "recapture" of past Prop 13 benefits, but I'm not sure].

So, if the home owner has owned a house for 25 years, raised a family, and the kids have moved out, it can be an expensive proposition to move to a smaller house. [There are some situations based upon age and geography where one carry over the Prop 13 valuation to the new home].

On top of that -- the Federal personal residence basis carry over was eliminated a few years back. So let's say the owner of House A above purchased their first house for $46,000, sold it for $103,000, bought a house for $140,000 which sold for $200,000 and bought current house for $300,000, the taxable basis for current home will be $183,000. There will be a fairly hefty capital gains tax due upon sale of that house.

[If homeowner A dies before the end of 2010, the basis will adjust with no taxes, the prop 13 will carry over to a descendant who takes possession, and there will be no Federal Estate Tax. California has a "pick-up" tax for when there is a Federal Estate Tax -- not applicable this year].
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