Being a homeowner has been an eye opening experience for us. Before, we used to share a 2 bedroom apartment with another couple in the city. The four of us worked, and shared the cost of rent and utilities. This left us with more money for spending and having fun in the wild city. However, when my partner and I began thinking about the future, we knew this was the best market to buy a house. There were so many available, and at a good price. Using our good credit scores, we secured a reasonable mortgage, and began living in our three bedroom house in a nice area. However, it was not all bliss as the reality of being homeowners began to sink in. First, we had to share the bills two ways, and not four ways like we would when living in the apartment. Then, there were the additional costs of running a house. We were not even aware of the HVAC maintenance which we had to do at least twice a year. It was a friend who gave us a full list of the costs that homeowners incur so we could start a money management strategy. She told us it was better to pay for a HVAC service plan than to contact the HVAC company each time we had an issue. The service plan would also include 24/7 emergency repair if we’d ever need it and that sounded okay. We also had to check out the cost of services such as ductwork cleaning. It costs an average of $35 to clean each ductwork air vent in a house. This, plus other HVAC costs made us sign up for the service plan fast.