My Property Taxes Have Climbed $8,000 in 14 Years. Here’s How I’ve Coped

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Property taxes can rise over time, and mine have downright soared. Read on to see how I’ve handled those persistent increases. 

Buying a home is hardly an inexpensive prospect — especially in New Jersey, where I live. Not only do property values tend to be high, but property taxes are downright exorbitant.

And I’m not just saying that based on my personal experience. The Tax Foundation reports that New Jersey does, indeed, have the highest property taxes in the nation.

Not only did the property tax bill for my current home start out high, but it’s increased exponentially over the past 14 years that I’ve been in my house. In fact, my taxes have gone up about $8,000 during that time. That’s pretty astounding given that many of the people I know in other states don’t even pay $8,000 a year in property taxes, or anywhere close.

Thankfully, I’ve taken a few key steps to deal with those horrendous property tax increases. And because of these key moves, I’ve never fallen behind.

1. I’ve padded my budget to allow for property tax increases

My budget contains line items you might expect an ordinary budget to have — things like food, utilities, and healthcare expenses. But I also have what I call an “oops” line item in my budget, and it’s meant to give me wiggle room in the face of sudden home repairs or climbing bills, whether it’s my property taxes or something else.

What I do is allocate a few hundred dollars a month to this “oops” category, and when that money doesn’t need to be spent, it just stays in my checking account. That way, I have a little cushion for things like property tax hikes.

2. I’ve kept my mortgage payments affordable

When my husband and I purchased our home 14 years ago, it was not at the top of our budget. Meanwhile, thankfully, as we’ve progressed in our careers, our income has easily doubled from where it was back then. But we intentionally opted not to upsize our home because we wanted to keep our mortgage payments affordable. That, in turn, makes it easier to cope with higher property tax bills.

3. I’ve maintained an emergency fund

Not only did my property tax bill rise a boatload between my first year in my home and my second year, but my tax assessor came after us for back taxes because it had underbilled us the year prior. Back then, money was tighter, and our paychecks couldn’t absorb that hit. But thankfully, we had an emergency fund to tap to cover that massive increase of several thousand dollars.

All told, I’m really not happy about the fact that my property taxes have risen so much since buying my home. But I’m also not looking to move anytime soon. We live in New Jersey because it gives us access to certain amenities we want, and for my husband’s career in particular, being adjacent to New York City is important.

As such, I’ve come to terms with the fact that my property taxes are just plain going to be high. My hope, however, is that they won’t rise as much in the next 14 years as they did over the past 14.

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