Pellet heads!! What's up today?

It's all good JT - Keep on Truckin! I mean !

 

That sir, is impressive. For context: that's about what we paid / yr. when we moved into this hacienda .. back in 1993. 28 yrs. later, about triple that amount.

 

x2

About $1200 in 94, almost 4K now. No utilities (water/sewer), haul your own trash, volunteer fire dept etc. Have no kids but almost 2/3 of it goes to the school system

 

That (school operating tax) has always irked me. Our kids are grown so we don't use the school system at all but a large percentage of the RE tax is for the school operations. Far as I'm concerned, only property owners that have kids enrolled should be saddled with that expense and... if you rent you pay NO RE taxes at all but most renters have school age kids. Of course the landlord (me in this case) gets to pay the tax on the rentals anyway. The other thing that grates on me is the fact that teachers (at least here in Michigan) are all unionized and make damm sure their union contracts are loaded with perks that I have to pay for with no choice. You don't pay your property taxes, the local government entity forecloses on you and sells you property at auction and if the auction don't bring enough proceeds to cover the arrearages, you are sill on the hook for the balance.

 

My good friend lives in Maine near Bar Harbor so I'm pretty aware of RE taxes out east. It seems to me that the closer you get to the eastern seaboard, the higher the property taxes are.

In reality, you never own your abode outright, even if it's paid off because you don't pay your property taxes, you loose it.

It's always been said that home ownership is one of the best investments you can make. I differ with that presumption. The best real estate investment you can make is vacant but land that can be used to grow crops.

There are no taxable dwellings on it so the RE tax is always lower and here in Michigan at least, you can put the land in PA116 which is a tax deferment for crop or vacant land. The RE taxes for the ground we own is about 30% of the normal rate of taxiation for ground with dwellings and barns on it.

The exception to that (there is always an exception) is vacant land that is forested. In my case I own outright, 143 acres of forested land in northern Michigan and it's taxed full rate. The only way I could get a PA116 exemption on it would be to clear it and sell off the hardwood and fit the ground for crops and I'm not about to do that because it's hunting and camping ground for us. When I purchased it years ago I did go in front of the township tax tribunal (where the property is located and petitioned them for a rate reduction which they granted but the taxable value is still quite high, thusly the RE tax burden is quite high as well.

You cannot win no matter what you do. Every tax entity has to get their 'pound of flesh' no matter what.

 

Not to pick, but....I believe it's called " for the common good". If I don't have a car do I pay for the streets to be repaired, plowed...? If I do have a car, do I pay for tax funded public transportation? If I never have a fire, do I pay for the fire dept? For the common good. We all pay our share.

 

That was around the time the ground shook here in Maine.

 

You're gonna need a bigger muffler, JT.

 

I never had any kids. Although it does irk me to an extent, I get the need for it. However, I draw the line when they talk about free college and or savings accounts for kids (tax payer funded).

OTOH, my income taxes are $0.00. If I still lived in KS (which I haven't since '87), my income tax alone would be about what my property tax is here. If I were retired, they would tax my retirement income. And, they have sales tax too. So, I'm actually not as unhappy with my tax situation as I could be.

 

Since Lori & I got together in '07 ours has gone from about $4K to $5.7K. No water/sewer, town does contract with Waste Management for trash/recycle home pickup. sanborn regional school district does mean our school tax is a bit higher.
I was looking at the last property tax bill from Dec and our 2 acres are valued at $98k but the house is only $164K. If we put it on the market we could probably get $400K.

As Bogieb said having no state income or sales tax does offset the property taxes some.

sam

 

No point in initiating a new thread but... Supposed to bust 50 here today and it's already 43 and muddy. I'm not worried. It will assuredly get crummy again, it is still winter after all.

 

Doing a HOT CLEAN.
Low tonight in the teens to low 20's F
Big stove needed the firebox cleaned...BADLY
I shut off the feed and waited for the stove to shut down.

Little stove started up to help hold the house temp reasonable.
I waited about 20 minutes and decided to clean it anyway.

Grabbed a pair of pliers and snaked the fire tray out and dumped the clinker out.....
Scrapped the ashes down into the ash pan with a little paint brush.....Gave the windows a quicky with the bush (BUILT IN VAC catching the looses ashes that came off the windows) Stuffed things back together and lit it off.

Good for about 4 days or so.....Then it will need to get a full clean including the ash baffles and an LBT
Shells do make a bit more ashes than pellets.

All ready now for the several cold nights still ahead.

 

Got up to -10 today,full sun. Wind was bad, but not so bad now.

 

This is the general conversation thread anyway, so no reason to start a new one.

It was in the 30's when I went to bed and at 1:30 am it was up to 53*. Went outside a couple of minutes ago (~2:30 am) and it feels like the wind has shifted so it is from the north again - supposed to be down in the teens tonight. Snow expected Friday 6-12" in my area.

 

I haven't experienced many time where the hi temp was negative numbers, but it has happened, and I know I didn't like it.

 

Alton Bay ice runway closed today due to high temps near 60. Scheduled to re open tomorrow.

Friday looks to be a good ole fashioned NH sn*w storm. It will be nice to be cleaning up just 6-12" sn*w and not inches of packed sleet and ice of the past month.

60 degrees today, 6-12" sn*w day after tomorrow. Yup, it's New England

 

I'll be taking our grandson out to meet the school bus in about 20 min, it's 58*. Tomorrow at this time it's forecasted to be 20* .

We were supposed to go meet up with his mom after school on Fri so he can spend part of his school vacation with her (she's in Milford) and Lori was supposed to drive to Fall River, MA for a get together with friends (first time she'll be seeing them in 2 years) which is a 2 hr drive in good weather. She'll probably drive down tomorrow instead. Hopefully if Sanborn cancels school they do it Thurs early enough I can get Graham to his mom that night instead of waiting til later Sat when I get the snow cleared.

sam