[Hifred]

My biggest shock when I came here to live from downtown Chicago was the price of food and water. The cost of groceries here is crazy to me. I was at Walmart today and the cost of a watermelon is $6.79. I spend about 1.75 times more in groceries than I spent in Chicago.

I bought my homeowners insurance from State Farm because it covers sink holes at the standard deductible. All the other homeowner policies we looked at came with catastrophic ground collapse but had very large deductibles such as 10% of the policy. So if you had a problem you would pay $30,000 before the insurance would kick in. Our State Farm policy is $1200 a year on a $380,000 house.

The cost of water here is very expensive compared to Chicago. You get two water charges. One for portable water that you can drink and bathe with and the other which comes from the ponds which is for your yard. Every month I pay about $250 dollars for both types of water, sewer, amenity fee and trash collection.

The bond is based on the CDD you live in. We have paid off our bond. When we bought our home in 2019 the house was 12 years old and the bond was reduced to $17,000 because those who owned the home before us had paid the bond fee. In addition to the bond we pay a maintenance fee for our area which is 196 that is in The Village of Charlotte. The additional maintenance fee is $703.82. We also pay a fee for the fire department which is on our tax bill in the amount of $124. If we wouldn't have paid the bond off our fee would have been $1626.68. In total with the bond paid off our property taxes were $4,635.49. The year prior before we paid the bond they were $6074. If you find a home with a bond paid you will save quite a bit on your property taxes each year. In the new areas the bonds are $45,000 and are amortized over 30 years. The thing is that you pay interest and they stack all the interest upfront so the actual amount of the bond doesn't decrease sizably the first few years.

Internet for a mid range speed through spectrum is $50 a month when bought in conjunction with cable TV. So my whole bill is $150 for a silver package that does not include HBO or Showtime but gives us a lot of channels. We get our electricity from SECO and it runs from a high of $390 a month in the summer to a low of $130 a month in the winter. Our home is all electric. With Covid we eat at home but it was less last year before Covid because we would go to restaurants and wouldn't use the electric stove.

Other costs to consider are lawn care services. We bought a battery powered mower and cut our own grass. But we spend a lot of money on palm fertilizer and plant food.