First Year of Homeownership Costs: What We Actually Spent
Before we bought our house, I thought I had a pretty good handle on what to expect. I’d rented for years before that, and I’m a strong believer that everyone should rent at some point in their life — it gives you a real, practical understanding of how to manage bills before you’re the one holding a mortgage. So going in, I expected home ownership to look fairly similar to renting, just with a few extra layers on top: property tax, insurance, a bigger electric bill (our house is all-electric, so I knew that one was coming), and a general “maintenance” line for whatever inevitably needs fixing.
What I didn’t expect was just how much that “extra layer” would actually add up to.
The One-Time Costs That Caught Us Off Guard
The first thing we had to deal with was internet. The previous owner had been with a small private provider, and the speeds weren’t close to what we needed — between gaming, working from home, and two roommates moving in to help cover our bigger expenses, four people needed real bandwidth.
Then there were the smaller, stranger one-off costs: replacing light bulbs and plug covers that were missing throughout the house, a few pot lights that died almost immediately. The place was roughly 70% finished when we bought it, which is exactly why we got a good price on it — but that also meant a steady trickle of random odds and ends needing attention. All told, we probably spent around $500 on scattered bits and pieces just getting things properly livable.
The bigger project was the basement. It was largely unfinished when we moved in — walls, flooring, all of it needed doing. We got that done just after our first year, and it ran us somewhere in the $10,000-$12,000 range, which we covered gradually using our roommates’ rent. We were lucky to get deals when we could, and saved the labour costs by myself, friends, and family doing the work.
One cost we’ve been lucky to avoid so far: a lawn mower. Our lot is 2-3 cleared acres, so a push mower was never going to cut it (literally). We’ve been borrowing a ride-on from the previous owner, who moved down the road and doesn’t use his much anymore on his smaller property now. That luck is about to run out, though — heading into year 3, we’re finally about to buy our own. A base model John Deere ride-on starts around $4,000, just for context on what that “avoided” cost actually would have looked like.
The Recurring Monthly Reality
Here’s roughly what our actual monthly costs looked like that first year:
- Mortgage + property tax: ~$2,750
- Internet (Starlink): $160 + tax — this stung a bit, since most cities get gigabit fibre internet for under $70/month. In 2024, Starlink only had one plan available where we are, so we didn’t have much choice.
- Home insurance: ~$80
- Life insurance (for mortgage protection, for both of us): ~$110 — [worth reading if you’re wondering why we went this route instead of standard mortgage insurance]
- Random supplies/odds and ends: ~$100
Our electric bill ran higher than we’d budgeted for too. Part of that was the unfinished basement needing heat, but a bigger factor was that our roommates worked evening shifts and were home during the day, while Rachel and I were both out at work — so someone was almost always home running the power, more than we’d accounted for.
Where the Seasons Hit Hardest
PEI winters are no joke, and our heaviest month hit somewhere around $800-$900 for electricity alone. Our roommates weren’t the most careful with power — one of them got into working on cars and would run the garage heater with the door open in the middle of -30°C February, which didn’t help. Heating an unfinished basement on top of that made the whole thing worse.
One saving grace: we’re on a well, so water has always been free. But the electric bill stayed stubbornly high, and Rachel and I paid it out of pocket most months, since we were funnelling the roommates’ rent straight toward finishing the basement as fast as possible.
Budgeted vs. Actual
Going in, we’d budgeted around $2,100-$2,500 a month for the house. In reality, our run rate ended up closer to $3,000-$3,200 most months. We did have the roommates’ rent helping offset that — but they also used the washer and dryer multiple times a day between them and the other appliances, which pushed our regular utilities up more than the (fair, even generously discounted for their first six months) rent we charged them made up for.
We also chose accelerated biweekly mortgage payments, on the advice that it’s the fastest way to pay a mortgage down. It’s the right long-term move, but it meant we didn’t get the usual benefit of banking an extra pay-cheque once a quarter the way a lot of biweekly earners do. Good for the future, a bit painful in the moment.
What I’d Tell a Friend Buying Their First Place
Take whatever you calculate as your minimum monthly run rate for the house you’re buying, and add another 10-15% on top just for safety. That buffer is what saves you when reality turns out more expensive than the spreadsheet said it would.
We had one brutal month during a cold PEI winter where the electric bill spiked to a number that genuinely alarmed us. We were lucky to have the roommates’ rent available to cover that one bill — but that’s all it covered. Nothing extra.
My general rule for pretty much everything in life: prepare for the worst, hope for the best. That way, if the worst does happen, it’s not a disaster — and if it doesn’t, you’re just pleasantly ahead. Honestly, owning a home hasn’t felt all that different from renting from an absentee landlord — and I think most people have had at least one of those at some point. I certainly had a few, so managing the bills myself wasn’t as big a leap as people sometimes expect it to be.
One last thing worth mentioning: I’ve always been the one who manages our household bills, since Rachel finds tracking everything overwhelming. I walk her through the numbers every month so she’s never in the dark about where the money’s going. Having one person run point makes the logistics simpler, but it only works with real communication — she needs to trust that things are being handled fairly, and know exactly where her money’s being allocated, same as I do. If you want the fuller picture of how we actually manage money together month to month, that’s exactly what we cover in how we manage our household budget as a young couple in Canada.
As always, cheers for reading 🙂
Alex.
This post reflects our own household’s costs and isn’t financial advice — your numbers will vary based on home size, location, energy source, and household setup.
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