REGINA – The New Year marks new beginnings and that includes new fees for Regina residents.
Property taxes, utilities and transit fares are on the rise, but with the right planning you can avoid a major blow to your finances.
Riding the bus now costs $2.75 and will increase $0.25 ever year for the next three years, topping out at $3.25 per ride by 2017.
Many transit riders said Friday they are more concerned about the quality of the service.
“I don’t know, for the bus service we’re receiving I don’t think it’s quite proper,” said one rider.
Transit fares aren’t the only thing on the rise.
City council’s 2015 budget includes a 3.9 per cent tax increase with one per cent dedicated to city roads; a moderate increase compared to 2014’s 5.9 per cent hike.
On top of that, you can expect to pay around $126 more per year for water and sewer services.
In addition, around $3.00 will be added to your monthly power bill, following a three per cent rate increase.
Collectively the numbers may seem overwhelming, but Sunlife financial planner Bill Allen says with proper budgeting they don’t have to be.
“Any increases we see tend to be modest, inflationary numbers,” he explained. “With our financial planning we want to make sure we’re keeping an eye on things each year, so three to five years from now they haven’t gotten away from us.”
Some expenses can be offset by the drop in other prices, including oil.
However, Allen doesn’t recommend relying on those dips, but rather maintain a savings cushion for any new expenses.
“If we don’t increase our savings gradually all of a sudden five years from now we didn’t save up as much as we intended to. So, we do need to keep up with our savings and monitoring that as well as the expenses,” he added.
Just one more thing to add to your list of resolutions, to prepare for the inevitable price hikes come 2016.
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