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. :)
I'm in Dallas Texas. No state income tax, but property tax is about 2% of home value, so even if it's paid off your looking at ~$500/mo on a $300k house, which is about the minimum in the city here right now. If you're over a certain age that's reduced a bit. If you had decent insulation here on a smaller house and you're cautious with your AC use, you could probably get away with electricity of $100/mo most of the year and $200 in the summer. I think my water/sewer/trash is about $60 a month and my gas is about $60 a month. Our home and auto insurance is high in Texas. I'm cheap, so we use 5g internet for $30/mo. Gas is $2.70/gal here today. I threw a few things in an online grocery cart and screenshotted so you can see our food prices.