This will not be a frugal month. Property taxes are going up 20% though by state law they should be capped at a 2.5% increase. The City plays various games to get around the law.
This will not be a frugal month. Property taxes are going up 20% though by state law they should be capped at a 2.5% increase. The City plays various games to get around the law.
Well I'm sure they won't go up more than 2.5%, but wow, your house is now worth a million dollars!
They get around the cap by saying valuations are higher, even though they're currently declining, and by shifting taxes from one class (commercial) to another (residential) as the commercial developers pour money into the politicians' campaigns through a PAC run by developer Greg Liscotti and affiliated with Charlie Baker. They buy both R's and D's.
I am trying to only go for groceries every 2 weeks. Do have to keep my caffeinated beverages on hand as I have not re-kicked the habit, but I got a Dunkin Donuts gift card for Christmas and used it for a box of joe which kept me out of the supermarket.
Chez Decay was briefly guesstimated at over a million by Zillow; it's to laugh. And our taxes just took a huge jump; I forget their flimsy rationale.Originally Posted by rosarugosa
The street-sweeping truck has just gone by for the second time this morning (how lovely for late sleepers), down the middle of our pristine street for the second time in as many months. I guess that's what my tax dollars are going for.
We tried doing groceries every two weeks briefly during Covid, and we really struggled to make that work. What we are trying to do now is limit the extra runs during the week. For example, I thought we needed to pick up a few things we were low on yesterday, but when I really thought about it, I realized we would be fine without the extra trip. We have plenty of food in the house, and not making an extra trip saves us $15 - $20 extra spent on groceries.
By the way, our whiteboard on the fridge is definitely helpful.
My tiny town got a street sweeper last year, and now it makes its weekly run. I did not notice much organic debris on the streets around here and there is no trash. Germans, ya know.
In the city where people throw their human generated trash out, it was necessary. My neighborhood was relatively clean because several neighbors made trash pick up rounds in public areas, and then others made efforts to keep their blocks clean.
Our street sweepers changed schedule from 2x monthly to 1x monthly to save city money.
Home heating oil dropped 20 cents per gallon so I had the tank filled. It's still expensive and talking to some guys I know in the HVAC field i am finally convinced that an electric heat pump system is not too pricey to operate compared to fossil fuels, depending on your utility company, so that opens up future housing options with a caveat. They told me mini splits do not work well in very cold weather and I would need a backup system. Based on the houses I've looked at I think this would be wood. They said electric hot water is another story and avoid it like the plague. They said without a fossil fuel source try for solar hot water.
An electric co-op (parts of NH and VT have) or municipal utility (parts of MA have) would be ideal.
I was very angry at grocery prices and bought a bag of potatoes that I baked and a bag of lentils that I'm boiling today as staples of the week plus a few other things.
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