Ok, our neighbors, who seem like pretty good folks, recently paid $1.35 million to buy their house. It has 5 bedrooms and five bathrooms. They both work for the government and own only one car, which they rarely use as both use the public transport, so far, so good.
But they spend so much money! They put down sod in the yard, then gophers ate it so they put artificial turf! Then $3500 on lawn furniture, plus landscaping and a grill to up the cost. The worst part of it is, they barely ever use the yard because they are at WORK! I think it has gotten use twice this summer.
Besides the expensive yard habits, they run the AC day and night in the summer.
Before you all complain about why we are living in the expensive neighborhood, we are already at FI and Mr. Piano had always wanted to live in Toronto. Raccoons ate our yard, too, but we didn’t worry about it. We have a table in the backyard, which came free with the house, and 4 chairs, which I bought for $2 each at a yard sale. Landscaping is being done gradually by friends in exchange for my tutoring their son (I am a licensed teacher). When the weather was warm enough, I actually tutored the kid in the yard. We shake our heads about the couple next door.