It's pretty dependent on how gentle you are with them. If you do a lot of highway driving and coast a lot to stay with the pace of traffic, your brake pads will go basically forever. If you have to deal with a lot of traffic lights and stop and go traffic in town, you'll be doing them pretty frequently.

Pads are pretty easy. I just rebuilt the rear drum brakes on my Civic back in March and that was a proper PITA. So many really strong springs that get hooked in tight places. I mean, it's only like 2 per wheel, but it felt like 8.