Retirement planning always involves questions of cost. How much will it cost to live there? What are those costs? Today, let's break down some of these to make it easier to figure out if the cost of living inside Hot Springs Village is attractive enough for you to consider making your future home here.
Let's begin with the monthly POA (Property Owners Association) assessments. These expenses are current as of 2025.
$50.42 a month for a single lot (commonly called "unimproved assessment," which just means there are no utilities on the property
$113.19 a month for a single lot with utilities (a lot with a house on it fits the bill; this is commonly called an "improved assessment")
Next would be the cost of electricity. No gas is inside the Village, although some people have propane tanks servicing their house.
Part of the Village is in Garland County, served by Entergy. We live in Saline County, the other county represented in the Village. Our electric provider is First Electric Coop.
Our house is about 2,200 square feet, built in 2022, and has 10-foot ceilings. In the winter months, during the day, we keep our thermostat set to 69 and turn it down to 67 at night. In the summer months, we keep it around 74. Ceiling fans run year-round (yes, we change the direction of the fans to blow the warm air down in the winter and to circulate the air in the summer).
Our typical monthly bill is about $150. Low months might run under $100, and high months (2 or 3 winter months) will be around $250 (or slightly higher).
Then there's the water bill (pictured below is our most recent actual bill).
Our water bill is issued every other month and covers a 2-month billing cycle. This expense is relatively stable, varying only by a few dollars each time UNLESS you're a heavy water user. My wife and I are empty nesters, so water usage doesn't vary much. Yes, we bathe daily (she takes baths, and I take only showers) and do laundry once a week. We usually run our dishwasher once a week, too. We have no irrigation for our yard (no need to water rocks).
Everybody is charged a minimum of 5,000 gallons every two months. This bill—pictured above—is for January and February. Our usage was 4,204. If we had gone over the 5,000-gallon minimum, you'd see an extra line item for the overage. Since we were well under the minimum, we avoided that.
The regular water bill includes the other expenses - likely similar to the ones where you may live right now:
Sewer Charge $95
Each home has a grinder pump located just outside one side of the house. These are higher-tech devices that contribute to sewage treatment. The POA performs the sewer treatment here inside the Village.
Ambulance Fee $16.67
Street Lights $6.67
FSDWA Fee $1.00*
*Thanks to A.I. I found out what this stands for - Federal Safe Drinking Water Act Fee
Arkansas State Tax $6.75
Saline County Tax $.39
Conclusion: Our Totals*
So, not including property tax or home owner's insurance, our monthly expenses are:
$113.19 monthly POA assessment
$150.00 monthly average electricity bill
$103.00 average monthly water bill (but it's only paid every other month)
$366.19 monthly total
Our property taxes are $2070.10 a year or $172.51 a month.
Like everybody else's around here, our insurance increased due to tornadoes last year to $997.89 a year or $83.16 a month.
That brings our total monthly overhead - not including mortgage because thankfully, we're mortgage free - to:
$621.86 total monthly expenses
Compared to Texas, where we split our time but don't own a house—our old house, where we lived for over 25 years—our Texas property taxes were just under $10,000 a year, or about $800 monthly. The monthly cost savings between Hot Springs Village and DFW are well over $2,000 a month.
Living costs are a major advantage of coming to Hot Springs Village. You can maintain whatever lifestyle you're accustomed to here.