This is a guest post.
Having a home of your own can be immensely satisfying, even if you haven’t come close to paying off your mortgage, but it’s not without its problems. Although it’s not quite as costly as renting somewhere to live, it can be expensive to run even the smallest home, especially with the cost of living rising ever higher, as new figures calculated by a variety of insurer. They estimate that it costs on average around £10,000 to run the average home, with anywhere between 50-60% of that amount going on mortgage payments.
Mortgage payments can be hard to keep up with, especially if money’s tight, so getting helpful tips from emortgagecalculator.co.uk might prove to be useful. However, the total payments made on mortgages have fallen, which is sure to be welcome news for hard-pressed homeowners looking at keeping a tight grip on their finances. While the cost of mortgages has generally fallen, any discounts have been effectively wiped out by a rise in the cost of essentials such as energy and council tax.
The cost of gas, electricity and water has skyrocketed in the past couple of years by around 15%, which has resulted in the average household paying an extra £200 per year on utilities. This has hit many households hard, as is the case with the rise in the cost of home insurance, which has gone up by several percentage points, although savings can be made simply by shopping around for the best deal. However, many people have looked at cutting out some form of insurance such as buildings cover or content cover to ease the strain on their finances.
One of the largest expenses involved in owning any home is home improvement and maintenance. The average home in 2012 is expected to spend £1,100 on this, which can be attributed to a rise in VAT, with the cost going up by 8.2% compared to 2011. This includes painting and decorating, electrical and plumbing work and flooring. The fact that running a home can be so costly has given homeowners an excuse to cut costs wherever they can, which, providing it doesn’t come at a price, is well worth doing.
It’s interesting to see the differences in costs between the UK and the US. Here, our natural gas costs for home heating have actually been down over the past year or so, and I’m seeing a great return in my wallet. Electricity though, is going up, but that’s really because the utility in my area is being greedy (in my opinion, at least!).