Originally Posted by JustinH
We lived in a 20 year old apartment in San Antonio, about 640 sq feet. Electric heat and old AC unit.
Routinely would pay $150/month for electric.
Had a new house built about 1440 sq feet, about $70 for Gas and Electric on one combined bill.
We sure saved a TON of money living in the apartment, I would probably still be living there but it was too cramped for the wife and I, and two cats.
I will never forget how cold it was during the winter in that little apartment. I had to put insulating blinds on the bedroom windows to keep breeze from blowing in my ear. All this while the electric heat was blowing on the other side of the room.
I can see how many want to live in apartments. No responsibility, pool taken care of. Valet garbage pickup. Ours even had HOT BREAKFAST every saturday morning, on the patio by the pool. Rent was half the cost of my mortgage.
But the big bottom line, is the big nest egg of equity we are building every month. We walked away with good money with every house we sold.
The way the taxes are, there is no write off for mortgage in most cases. People used to tout the ability to write off mortgage interest, but it never really helped us out much, and now its nothing due to hefty exemptions.
