CA-NY

Can anyone point us in the direction of a suggested list of all the various monthly outgoings we can expect once in the US. Just trying to crunch the numbers and at the moment we're just going by our list of UK outgoings but don't want to miss anything obvious on the US side that we'll have to account for.

Thanks in advance.

Bob

All going to depend on location, what type of place you're staying in and what you drive...

You can find cost of living calculators easy enough that will give you a rough idea.

Big expenses, apart from initial deposits on most things would be -

Rent
Medical Insurance
Car Insurance

Then depending on where you live and what you live in -

Heating/Cooling- Gas/Oil/Other
Electric
Rubbish collection
Water
Rental/owners insurance
Possibly parking
Cable/phone/internet $100-150 for basic, pretty much across the board
Mobile phone $50 to skies the limit a month


If you've got kids, school crap, because schools are always asking for donations or for you to provide school supplies and all those after school programs etc.

Rete

What are your expenditures in the UK? I would imagine they would be the type of expenses as here, i.e. utilities, gas, mortgage and/or rent.

CA-NY

Thanks, that's a good start. I'm not looking for actual $ amounts just anything unexpected that we might have overlooked and not taken in to account. Childfree so no school costs to factor in.

ChocolateBabz

For us here in Houston, TX

Mortgage
Property Tax
Home Owner Association Fees
Lawn Care
Pest Control (quarterly)
Electric
Gas
Utilities (Water/Sewage/Trash)
Home Phone / Cell Phone / Internet
Satellite TV / Netflix / Hulu
Home Insurance
Life Insurance
Medical / Dental (deducted from Salary)
Pension Contribution
Voluntary N.I. contribution to UK (annually)
Car Insurance (plus annual inspection/registration/services)
Groceries
Fuel

I think that's everything phew...

Bink

You'd need to provide more info for costs to be worthwhile...
Area, type of place you'll be living in etc as costs here vary massively. Down South electric bills can be very high due to AC and you can spend a lot more on water to keep the grass green than you might expect.

Also, don't let the price of gas fool you. In most places you'll drive more than you would in the UK so you'll still end up spending a lot on fuel.

Bink

That's pretty much it for us too. Couple of additions:

Alarm
Student loan fees
Car payments

Mr Weeze

Don't forget the pool boy!

Nutmegger

And snow ploughing and tick spraying!

celticgrid

If you are owning a home, I'd add a sum for home maintenance. Clearly it will depend on the type of property, but for instance we've just had a new roof put on and now start saving for the replacement in [far less years than it is supposed to be waranteed for].

Either budget a monthly allowance or budget for potentially large ad-hoc bills.

md95065

... and once you own an home you may, depending on where you live, be looking at flood and/or earthquake insurance in addition to your "normal" home insurance ...

Ozzidoc

$110 a month here in San Diego

Sally Redux

Yes, our property taxes and home maintenance have been more expensive than I expected.