<prompt> Human: Ive seen a bunch of posts here asking if the OP is ready to buy a home. I love collecting data, so I thought Id share some of my own as additional info for all of you thinking about buying a home.For what its worth, IMO, renting is not throwing away money. If you dont have all your personal finances in order, dont look at your home as the key to starting your investment portfolio. Save and emergency fund, start saving for retirement, get rid of your high interest debt. If you can do those things while renting - then you are still investing and you are just paying for your shelter.So in addition to running the numbers on your mortgage, make sure you include taxes, insurance, and closing costs which can be anywhere from a few thousand to up to 10k.Then, if the size of your home is bigger than what you are renting, a conservative estimate I used was to double the utilities at my apartment. Then also dont forget maybe additional utilities you didnt have to pay when you rented, for us it was water.Now here is some data Ive been collecting and thought Id share. Weve owned our home three years now. Here is a breakdown of expenses by year for the home in three key categories -- Needs ex: fix the roof, Wants ex: paint the living room, and Furniture the silent killer when upgrading to a bigger place. Oh, and this is a home built in 1950 in the northeast.2011Needs: 11kWants: 5kFurniture: 6kTotal: 22k2012Needs: 8kWants: 500Furniture: 1500Total: 10k2013 6 months inNeeds: 1200Wants: 200Furniture: 0Total: 14003 year totalNeeds: 20kWants: 5,700Furniture: 7,500Total: 33,200You can see how expensive the first year was and even year two. But now year three has been a lot less expensive. We are more settled on furniture, painting, etc. But there are still a lot of maintenance projects and the needs find a way to pop up leak in the basement a few weeks ago. When we bought our home we knew there was work that needed to be done, some of it wants, some of it needs. There is plenty of room in this list of spending to cut wants and furniture for your own needs, Im just sharing what we did. And in the first year, most of the needs we knew about going in make sure if you know work needs to be done, get an estimate BEFORE you sign the PS, so you know what the needs are.I loved reading this type of real world stuff before I bought, so I hope this helps any of you who are planning.EDIT: One other general expense which I didnt include in the numbers above and easily found thanks to Mint, 59 trips to Home Depot for a total of 1,800. I dont have these broken out by wants and needs.  <response>: Termites going cost me 4k. I wish I was renting. 