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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory
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To: GST who wrote (56274)3/20/2006 4:41:28 PM
From: KyrosL  Read Replies (1) of 110194
 
OT

Home insurance: no change. I don't carry flood or windstorm insurance, just liability and fire that comes with it. I can do this since I have no mortgage, and can easily afford to rebuild the house in case of total loss. I have no desire to subsidise those that live on the water.

Electric bill: slight decrease until end of last year over the last few years. FPL rates have been pretty low -- they increased them seriously for the first time starting this year. As part of my home projects I have been improving insulation, installed fluorescent lighting, etc., so my energy consumption has been steadily trending down.

Transportation costs: slight increase. I don't use the car much. Less than 3K miles/year. I use my bicycle a lot: to the beach, the library, and for exercise. I haven't seen much of an increase on my few airplane trips -- I get pretty good deals on the internet, since I have a pretty flexible schedule.

Medical insurance: This is the one cost that has gone up.

Other costs such as communications, computing, investment management/brokerage (of which I have a lot) have gone dramatically down.

Finally, having the same Florida homestead for the last 25 or so years also helps. My real estate taxes, which is a relative large expense (four times my home insurance), have gone up around 80% over the last 25 years, while inflation (as reported by the government) has gone up 180%. The relative deflation of real estate taxes probably cancels out a lot of other inflation for Floridians that don't switch homes every few years.
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