Holiday tipping and giving?

[rosarugosa]

Catherine: So living in VT is saving you money on the holiday tips! Is it less expensive overall for you to live in VT compared to NJ?

[catherine]

Catherine: So living in VT is saving you money on the holiday tips! Is it less expensive overall for you to live in VT compared to NJ?

Hmm... let's see.

Housing, definitely!
My mortgage is half of my NJ mortgage--and the VT mortgage is a 15-year vs a 30 year so that makes it even cheaper.
My taxes in VT are less than half of my NJ taxes ( 4k vs 9k+)
Utilities are roughly the same. Heating the house is expensive (even considering we have an efficient heat pump and use wood as well) but that's partly because DH is cold a lot and he uses a space heater in his "workshop" which is an uninsulated shack. He's in there a lot because he smokes and obviously the house is off-limits for his smoking.

Shopping:
If we don't go into Burlington a couple of times a month to take advantage of the supermarkets, food can be more expensive.. it's hard to figure out, though, because inflation is a factor in food prices now.
All other shopping seems to be roughly the same

Home services like plumbers and electricians
VT is more expensive if the tradespeople know we're from NJ. Otherwise, VT is cheaper.

[iris lilies]

I think $4000 a year for taxes for your small house is a lot. But I’m glad you came from New Jersey where taxes are untenable, so Vermont seems to you like a better deal.

Our taxes for our renovated Hermann house are about $2000 a year. When we bought the house it was closer to $1000 a year and had we not renovated it would’ve remained that way.

Our taxes on our St. Louis house for similar square footage were approaching $5000 a year.

Here is a miracle: we got a snow yesterday of about 3 to 4 inches and the city’s snowplow came by at least twice that I saw. In the city of St. Louis our street was never plowed, ever. I remember when we moved to St. Louis from Iowa we naïvely asked neighbors “When will they plow our street?” The neighbors just said “ha ha ha… Ha ha ha ha ha. “

[rosarugosa]

Our taxes are closing in on $5000/yr for a 900 SF house on a 6400 SF lot. We have a couple of those little electric faux woodstoves, but we use them judiciously because they are indeed expensive to run. I think I should schedule another one of those energy audits offered by National Grid to address our heat loss issues. When we had one conducted in 2018, we were really just focused on getting the substantial rebate and zero-interest loan for replacing our furnace.