What is property tax?
Property tax is a levy based on the assessed value of property.
If you own a property you have to pay it. In other countries it is called different things. To cut a long and boring/annoying story short, we finally got the bill (s) this week, and so they now have to be paid, by January 29th. The bills are only up to the end of 2015, not sure what is happening yet for 2016, when I go into the Township office this morning I will no doubt find out what's going on. There is a lot more to this story about why it has taken so long to get the bill and why it has to be paid by the end of the month, but various government departments at Federal, Provincial and local levels will all come out looking bad if I go into detail. Suffice to say, there are a number of people who are incompetent and should not be in the jobs that they are in! But trying to get anyone to take ownership of their mistakes is like trying to get blood out of stone.
Our bill is well over $5,000 which is actually less than I thought, as we were not assessed as high as I thought we would have been. It's still a lot of money, but I was prepared for this. The day we moved in I put away money each week specifically for the property taxes, as I knew sooner or later we would get a bill. Mind you even I didn't imagine it would take this long. Some people had been in their homes 2 + years without a bill, so their tax bill would have been a lot higher. I only hope everyone had enough common sense to put money away like I did?
However not everyone does that do they; think ahead? I am one of the strange people out there that do not like owing money. It has been really bothering me that the taxes were due, but it was out of my control as I had no bill.
I have mentioned this time and time again on my blog, but as part of planning ahead I put money away each week for various things in my "boxes."
I put $20 in my birthday box.
I put $20 in my Christmas box.
I put $50 in my other box. My other box has been covering wedding's recently, and yes we have another coming up in March.
These boxes are a life saver to me, as Christmas is taken care of more or less with that box. I always have money in the birthday box, for birthdays, and when you are forking out $300 + for a money envelope for every wedding that too is a life saver.
If that amount of money is too much for you to save each week, how about coming up with even $2 or $5 a week in a box to cover Christmas. Even then you will have over $100 saved by the end of the year, which will cover all the cost's of extra food and drink at Christmas?
I am going to talk more about Christmas over the next few days as it's never too early to start!
12 comments:
That is very smart planning. A little bit each week certainly adds up!
Great minds think alike. That's exactly what I do put money away each month, for Christmas etc. I don't like the sound of the huge bill, thank goodness you were prepared for it.
You are so organized Gill! Great way to be. We follow a similar system.
Have a good weekend!
I have tucked away for Christmas and birthday for years! Way before I started blogging. We have always put money back for bills we know are coming.
I am with you on bills, too...I am waiting on a bill and insurance statement about a biopsy that was done on Roger in November. I have tried calling their billing place and they could not find anything. All they could go by was name since I have not received anything with an account number. Not even an insurance statement. It is frustrating.
We do the same thing. My husband and I both have a great aversion to owing money. I haven't done the Christmas envelope lately because our Christmas gift list has been cut down significantly, but now the grandchildren are arriving I think I need to start that up again too. Sorry about the huge bill you received but glad you were prepared.
Blessings, Betsy
Very smart thinking!
That's terrible Gill. Our council certainly didn't hang about getting our Council Tax bills to us. Think they would probably go under if they let that much money slip out of their hands. It certainly is incompetence. Sounds like they need a bit of bad publicity!
I never keep much money in the house just in case we are burgled. I just have a separate bank account that I put money into for things like that. I don't put it in weekly just when I do a tour all the money goes into that pot & I pay my Income Tax out of it & other things I need to pay.
Wow, we got our property tax bill right away when we moved into this house 25+ years ago.
Are they charging you interest on what was owed from previous years?
God bless.
Paycheck to paycheck, that's me.
ouch that was one big bill glad you were prepared. I really like your box idea that's smart saving. thanks for sharing.
I don't like owing money either.It's very wise to think ahead!
I still use your idea of putting away what I call "a dollar a day" into my money box and it provides holiday treats once a year. Thank you
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