Difference between Housing, Household and Homeowner's Fees

I am not in Canada, so my input may not be worth much.

1. You might get some insights from the tax treatment of those items. For example, in the US, mortgage interest is generally tax deductible, whereas rent is not. I would treat remodeling and mortgage equity payments separately because they are not really expenses but increases in asset value (of you home).

1. From my understanding of those categories (given a US perspective), I would say:

Housing = rent/lease payments or other direct costs associated with maintaining a place to live, but excluding mortgage payments and taxes which have special tax treatment (at least in the US).

Household = expenses associated with the day to day operation of the household, like linens, maid services, etc.

Homeowner's Fees = fees paid to a condominium association for common expenses. Maybe in Canada, property taxes would belong here. I put them in tax:property because they are tax deductible (unless you hit AMT which is another story) whereas other fees are not.

1. However, unless there is special tax treatment for any of those categories, you can define them anyway you like. You can also create any new categories or sub-categories that make it more intuitive to you (e.g. Household:linens and Household:maid).

Peter

The preset categories can be helpful ,or not. Feel free to invent your own, or rename them. The other replier was correct to mention, however, that they might already have a tax treatment associated with them, and that this will give you a clue.

I would have an expense category for rent, if I paid rent. As a homeowner I have an asset account for the value of the house, a liability account for the mortgage principal, and an expense account for the interest.

I have always had an expense account for housewares - the non-grocery items we consume in daily life.

I choose to have - most users don't - an asset account I call household inventory. I put major appliances and furniture in here, and then depreciate once a year "to stay real". The argument against this kind of account (it is also used to argue against listing your vehicles as assets) is that such an asset shows up in your net worth, and for the average user "net worth" means the value of assets they can imagine themselves disposing of someday, such as savings and investments. Whatever.

I'm not sure what Intuit had in mind when they created an account titled "Housing Fees", but it would seem to be perfect for condominium fees, if any, or gated community charges, etc.

Doug