Tenants will be paying gas/electric/cable/internet. 

We were victims of the gas explosion. 

You don't sympathize with the store owner when you're buying groceries and you don't sympathize with the gas station clerk when you're buying gas.

.$600k SFH purchase price (decent 3br/2ba with pool in walkable area)25% down 4.5% non-owner occupied loan rate = around $3000/mo PITI allinlet's say you can do 1% rule on $600000 place is $6000/mo in gross rents which would be awesome for PS ($72k a year, way above avg)$6000/mo * 30% PM fee = $1800 fees = $4200 left net to you Add in for STR you pay all the utilities - power, pool, gas, heater, AC (summer in PS baby!)

This is my first month budgeting but I have set aside $1000 for food/gas/other expenses and hope to bring that number down over time as we adjust to the budget.

It can get very cold here in the winter so a wood burning fireplace can save some money on a monthly gas bill.

Whether that is part of your tuition, spending a lot of money on gas bc of a long commute to work/school, and in my case, helping my mom pay for rent. 

Was the unit equipped with a gas furnace and straight AC or did it have an electric heat pump (does both heat and AC)?

I looked for land around where we wanted to be, at the time it was really expensive due to New York being on the verge of passing the laws to drill for Gas (which ended up never happening).

Electric, gas, water, sewer, garbage, internet, cable/satellite TV are all on the list.