Bills can get pricey in a small town
This article originally appeared on The Advocate & Democrat
Do you keep track of your bills or do you just hope you can scrape enough dollar bills together whenever one comes due?
Bills can vary from person to person, but most of us have most of the same ones. Housing, transportation, electricity, food. But have you ever wondered what everybody around you is paying? Well, if you have, you’re in for a treat. If you haven’t, read on anyway. This is actually rather interesting.
Some website called doxo.com did some research recently and put out the monthly bill numbers for Sweetwater and Madisonville. No Tellico or Vonore. I guess their populations are too small.
Anyway, it costs $1,709 a month in bills to live in Sweetwater and $1,594 to keep a roof over your head and various other things on a monthly basis in Madisonville. A difference of $115.
How do those numbers look broken down? Glad you asked. When it comes to a mortgage, the average in Sweetwater is $755 and in Madisonville, it’s $661 a month. All of these costs are monthly.
These numbers may be skewed a bit due to some of the fancier neighborhoods. Our mortgage is nowhere near either of those numbers and I know of a few others whose mortgage payments aren’t anywhere being that high. Granted, we got our mortgage 25 years ago and it was a different world then. I see places that are almost identical to ours and they’re now asking more than twice the price we paid.
On the rental front, it’s $692 in Sweetwater and $628 in Madisonville. This is way below the national average of $1,129, so we’ve got that going for us. It’s been a very long time since I paid rent of any kind, but rent prices do seem a little out of hand. I’ve seen places that were a busted floorboard away from being condemned wanting $800 a month.
When I was a kid in the 70s, our rent was $75 a month. That was indeed a very different world.
Car payments, on the other hand, would seem to indicate that Madisonville and Sweetwater residents like driving very fancy cars.
In Sweetwater, the average monthly car payment is $660. In Madisonville it’s $622. The national average of $433 seems much more reasonable.
I can hear the adults of my childhood upon being presented a car payment of $660: “Have you lost your ever loving mind?!?”
But I guess the new generation is used to high car prices. I see people wanting to sell 1998 models for $8,000. I wasn’t even aware cars that old still existed.
Next, we have the bill you never think about when you’re getting that new car. Auto insurance. In both Madisonville and Sweetwater, and nationwide, the average is $196 a month. Sadly, that seems about the right price to pay for a product that, if you dare to use it, immediately cancels your policy.
Utilities, water, heat, electricity, cost $388 in Sweetwater and $292 in Madisonville. That difference may be due to the fact Sweetwater’s utilities all come on one bill and Madisonville’s is split up. But both seem to indicate we like to stay warm or cool, depending on what the weather is.
When it comes to health insurance, both towns average $98 a month, which means either I’ve got great health insurance or I’m being completely ripped off.
Life insurance is $24 in Madisonville and $73 in Sweetwater. Madisonville’s would seem to indicate they want just enough to pay for a funeral. The people of Sweetwater must want a Fancy tombstone.
Now, we have the bills that some say you don’t have to pay if you’ll just realize the services aren’t necessary. Cable/satellite is $79 in Madisonville and $140 in Sweetwater. Must be more cord cutters in Madisonville.
Mobile phones services are $144 in Sweetwater and $63 in Madisonville. Seems like a lot of people are single in Madisonville and use pay-as-you-go plans.
And we close with alarm and security services, for which both towns pay $90 a month. We have cameras all over the house, but they’re the kind that upload to a cloud and there aren’t monthly charges. Not sure what everybody else is using.
For the record, you pay an average of $50 over the course of a winter to fight off a cold. Also for the record, there isn’t a single over-the-counter cough syrup that works. Not a one.
And there you go. Now you know something you might not have already known. And you can either be thankful your bills aren’t that high or wonder why what you pay is so much higher.