If you are a lifelong renter, you might forget that your landlord takes care of some monthly bills for you. Garbage collection and water are two costs that are usually taken care of by the landlord, and not the tenant. Similarly, landscaping (e.g., fees to maintain the lawn and garden) is often provided by the landlord. Keep in mind that when you buy your own home, you will need to incorporate line items for landscaping maintenance and garbage collection into your monthly budget, unless you are buying a property in an HOA or PUD that handles these things. If you are buying a new home, you may actually need to pay to have landscaping installed – most new homes come with a dirt lot for front and back yards unless and until you hire a landscaper.

Also, you should understand that when the sink leaks or the roof leaks or the water heater breaks, as the homeowner, you are responsible to fix it, usually at some expense. If you can set a few bucks aside for a home improvement fund, you certainly should! To mitigate the potential cost of unexpected repairs, make sure that you have a home warranty in place before close of escrow; for a few hundred bucks a year, these folks will come out and fix many of the major malfunctions that can happen in your home. New home builders often place their own warranties on their homes for as many as 10 years, to protect buyers from defects in the construction or materials used in their new homes.