This weekend, my fiance and I are going to marriage prep.

For anybody who doesn’t know, marriage preparation is essentially a pre-marital counselling session, which is structured in the format of a course, and is required to be married by many christian denominations. Our venue is Anglican so requires us to do this prior to approving our marriage in the venue.

This is part of the wedding planning process for us.

Last weekend my friends and I made the invitations, and worked on addressing the envelopes. We found some fun ideas on Pinterest for decorations and starting scouting photographers.

I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on the wedding now, but we anticipate being in full fledged wedding planning mode for awhile!

Even though I’ve been busy with that, I always make time for reading on my favorite blogs. Here are some of my favorite posts:

Jessica posts about personal finance books, which I’ve been reading a lot of lately.

I really enjoyed the post by Brick by Brick Investing about how a single person should live if they want to be rich. I’m not single, so I can’t really weigh in, but I think it’s a worthwhile read.

Poor Student posts about how it’s easier to be frugal when you’re a student, which I see as completely true. When I was in college I spent very little money. Now, I feel that I spend a ton!

Pauline asks discusses whether it’s worth it to re-locate for a career.

At Save Spend Splurge, there is discussion about index funds and which index fund to invest money in. The author prefers Questrade for her investments, which is great because I recently opened my account with Questrade.

The blogger over at Green Money Stream paid off $20K worth of debt in a year. Pretty impressive!

Over at Clever Dude, Brock tells us how afternoon grocery shopping can be a budget buster, because of what he calls the “reshop”.

Thanks everyone for the great reads this week!

I’m clearly partial to the suburban lifestyle. I love the sense of community, the lack of noise, and the clean, breathable air. I also like the ability to take my dog for a walk and let her run on grass that isn’t that of a park, driving past children playing in cul-de-sacs and the ability to park in front of my house without paying a premium.

This is Suburban Finance, after all, so there are quite a few reasons why I prefer the suburbs to the city. However, there are also a few expenses that you typically only experience in the suburbs.

Commuters Costs

I’m one of the fortunate suburbanites that works in the suburbs as well, but many suburban families have to shell out quite a bit on gas and maintenance for their commute into the city. One of the Suburban Finance writers, Catherine, is one of those people.

This can really add up, as public transportation from the suburbs isn’t always efficient or a possibility for everybody. Let’s not even talk about the price of parking if you work in the city.

Car Costs

Many city dwellers don’t even have a car; they can typically get around from point A to point B with a transit pass, because transit is so efficient in the city.

Cars can be expensive, and the costs of having a car include not only insurance, gas, and the car itself, but also maintenance and, of course, depreciation.

Landscaping and Yard Maintenance

It’s not that nobody in the city has a property with a yard, but it’s true that most suburban dwellings have a much larger property than that of most city residences. After all, space is at a premium in the city and there’s not as much room to stretch out. Therefore, the land upkeep tends to be much more costly in the city.

Most city dwellers I know don’t really need a gas powered lawn mower because if they do have a yard it’s small enough to fathom mowing with a push mower. Some suburban lawns are expensive just in gas to cut!

Home Improvements

Now, I’m not saying city dwellers don’t have homes. However, suburban homes are larger generally than urban homes, and there are generally fewer condos and apartments and more single family dwellings in the ‘burbs.

As a result, home improvements can cost quite a bit more, because there is more space to.. well, improve.

Of course, many home improvements add value, such as the ones in the infographic below, so at the very least, that is positive.

(This infographic is from Evolution Money).

While suburbanites do typically incur costs that city dwellers don’t, people who live in the city also incur costs that suburbanites may not have to incur (such as a higher cost of living, etc).

Have you noticed any costs that you incur because you live in either the city or the ‘burbs?