This month sees the payment of our plates and insurance for 2 vehicles. I guess you could say for one vehicle, but we pay for Kris's plates as well. Both plates and insurance have gone down over the years and that is a good thing. Still $2200.00 is a lot to come out of the bank account. I do wish another insurance company would come into play here in our province, but SGI (Saskatchewan Government Insurance) seems to have a strangle hold on our provinces insurance rates both for homes and vehicles.
Hopefully in a couple of years Kris can take over the payment of his own plates but until then the car he drives is registered to me for a very good reason and he can pay us back as he can.
The other big spend we have is our property taxes. After years of small, affordable increases the past two years have seen large chunks of cash increases. In the last two years taxes have gone up a total of $800.00. That is a huge chunk of money, and something that now we are on a limited income is kind of scary!!!
There is no way to lower that cost so we just have to find ways of making up the difference. It's not like we live in a fantastic part of town, or like our house is a huge monstrosity. As our oldest says we live on what is considered the poorer section of the city or "the wrong side of the tracks" (kind of funny as the tracks do run down the middle of the town). We will need to make up the cash in other ways. That could mean I keep on subbing until I am ancient (which believe me after this week I do) or we move to a smaller center or even a place where the cost for property tax is equal to what we are paying now but closer to a variety of shopping opportunities. I could also spend more time looking for ways to save the extra cash. Something this big needs to be concentrated on, cut backs could be necessary so we will have to take another look at the budget.
How would all of you handle this?
Everybody have a wonderful evening.
God bless.
First, check your assessment .. sometimes the folks doing those make mistakes and add extra rooms, or improvements you didn't make ...
ReplyDeleteAre you entitled to any deductions (age, veteran's status, things like that?)
Do you have any means to appeal taxes? My co-worker's taxes went up a lot ... he did a comparison of similar homes in his area and found out he was paying a lot more .. he appealed and got a reduction.
I agree with DW. Also is it possible to cut back to one car or take one car off the road for part of the year? Can you earmark your sub salary to pay for 1/12 of the insurance each month so it won't be such a big chunk coming out of savings once a year? It sounds like you are very thrifty with cooking and sewing. It's too bad the government isn't as thrifty.
ReplyDeleteDW, yes we do have recourse to appealing our property taxes (no deductions...perhaps something when Harvey is 65 but what they say is very vague). The problem was this year the city sent out the assessments and taxes very late, beyond the date when you could appeal them. Hopefully next year they will be on the ball and get them out. This year they had to wait until city council gave themselves a 10% raise...wait isn't that how much our taxes rose again this year????
ReplyDeleteKaren, we could pay our plates and such each month but then it costs more overall. SGI charges a financing fee.
ReplyDeleteThis month my subbing covers the cost of the plates for my vehicle. No taking out of savings, thank heavens. Those extra days I picked up sure help in the long run.
God bless.