* Notes:  2018 – We joined the national health plan and dropped our USA health insurance. We purchased mutuelle insurance (shown above as “Health ins. France”) that covers some of the out of pocket expenses. This is a personal choice as to how much coverage you feel you need.

2020 – Fiber optic cable was installed in Carcassonne and we opted for the highest speed possible. Lower prices are available. Our boiler (that provides instant hot water and heat) required service and for insurance purposes it must be recertified each year so we purchased a contract. Due to changes in the way our US income is treated for tax purposes (mostly government pensions – IRAs, SS, state pensions) we no longer pay the habitation or TV tax.

2021 – We have our 10 year residency cards so will not need this fee for a while. Not travelling due to Covid-19 meant we were home to use more water, etc. so our budget had to increase for some items.

2022 – Our Internet provider upgraded the speed supported on the local fiber optic network so we decided to pay an additional 5 euros to double our speed and add WiFi 6E support (not that any of our devices support that yet). There are other options included also so not a large amount but not an essential upgrade.

2023 – We changed Internet providers to take advantage of a new subscriber discount since we didn’t see a real change in the actual connection speed we paid for and the old provider would not let us return to the lower speed without a change fee of 100 euros. We had a major water leak that continued for a month so our bill will be higher for this year.