....But We Found One

After we bought the house, our first step was to get it insured. Fortunately that was pretty easy, and not too terribly expensive. (The replacement value is rather low at the moment, for various reasons; once we get some work done and other things figured out, we'll see about raising it.) The entire bill for a year was $459, plus a $25 membership fee. For budgeting we'll just figure $500 a year for now, and probably $750 in the future. Next step was to get an alarm system installed -- even though Walnut Grove is a pretty safe area, and several people are watching the house (the neighbor across the street is the grandson of the original owner/builder of the house, and the neighbor on the side is kin of some sort), we've moved some of our things down there and would rather be safe than sorry. Fortunately the house was already wired for ADT, so installation (they had to upgrade the unit and add some sensors) was only $49.99. Monthly service is around $46 -- higher than I expected, but every other place was as much or more. *sigh* So, another $500 a year for that expense. Of course, before they could install the alarm system, we had to get the electrical service started. Fortunately that will be fairly low cost, since we aren't there all that often, but it is $22.55 per month just to have electricity, even if we don't use any. (It's a co-op, and of course the only game in town. The rates seem extremely low, however, once we do start using it.) Estimate for a normal year (until we establish a true normal) is $350/year.

We Weren't Looking For A House....

My husband and I are working on paying off various credit card, student loan, personal, and real estate debts that have added up over the years to quite a significant amount. We're in the middle of a five-year payoff plan for most of the non-real-estate debt, and looking forward to having a little more flex in our monthly income-to-expense ratio. (We do have a longer plan to pay extra on the rest of the debt and get it cleared sooner rather than later, but on a slightly less aggressive scale than we're currently pursuing.)