My Best Move Ever (Part 2)

In Part 1, I talked about the financial benefits of simplifying my living situation. Today, I'll talk about the other benefits.

Less stuff generally translates into more time. With less clutter, there's less time spent cleaning, rearranging, and searching for stuff. Shopping is streamlined --I know I don't have space for anything but the necessities, so I don't waste time window shopping for things I can't have. I try to do one major shopping trip per month (mainly for groceries) and stay out of the stores as much as possible the rest of the month. I'll still need milk and eggs, cat food and a few other incidentals, but I keep those trips quick and to the point. I also don't waste time with maintenance issues since I rent. There have been very few of those anyway, but at least when they do happen, I'm not the one to waste time arranging for contractors or shopping for parts.

I enjoy a slower pace of life here. It's like I've stepped back in time a generation or two. I love the fact that I can let my son run around and enjoy purely unstructured play time here. And the innocence of play is refreshing. In the past weeks it's been Fun With Vegetables. Most everyone here has a garden, so the kids have been entertaining themselves in creative ways with veggies (and fruits). One night it was eating a watermelon they had just picked in the one yard and making a game of chucking the rinds. Another day they carved a jack-o-lantern. A woman down the street gave them a round melon or winter squash that had split open and they were kicking it around and tossing it. My son created a pulley in the back yard and was hoisting and then smashing over-ripe zucchinis (great fun, let me tell you!) which broke them up into better sizes for composting. He came home with a cute gourd that someone else had given him.... I could go on, just talking about vegetables but you get the point. Families don't seem to be so over-scheduled and harried in my town. There's a lot of just families being families and kids being kids. I love that.

And that reminds me of another benefit. There seems to be more neighborliness here than in the suburbs. When I first moved in, I can't tell you the number of people who stopped by to introduce themselves to me. I had never had anything like that happen anywhere else I've lived. People still wave to you on the roads as they pass, whether they know you or not. Such a civil gesture. In the cities, you're likely to see hand gestures but of a much different variety.

There are fewer distractions and annoying interruptions. I've had two door-to-door sales people since I've been here, maybe five or six brochures (mostly the Schwan's guy, who never stops by when I'm home so I can't put an end to it), and two or three visits from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Not too bad after nearly three-and-a-half years in this place. Since I don't buy much anymore and never order from catalogs, I'm not on any mailing lists either. My mailbox is gloriously empty most of the time (it helps that we only have P.O. boxes here --I don't think bulk mailers send as much junk to them as they do to street addresses).

A smaller house also means a smaller environmental footprint and that feels really good. It takes less carbon to heat and light a smaller house and fewer materials to furnish and maintain it. And the actual footprint (square footage-wise) of the house means that less impermeable surface area has been created, leaving more land to absorb rainfall and replenish the water table instead of running off into storm drains and out to sea.

And finally, a simpler lifestyle has brought me much greater satisfaction. I'm satisfied with what I have and where I am and how I'm living. I have all I need--really far more than I need--and I feel incredibly blessed.

My Best Move Ever (Part 1)

My best move ever was moving to a smaller house. Actually, it was more than just that. It was simultaneously moving to a smaller house, moving out of the suburbs into the country, and switching from owning to renting. Those three factors have combined to give me more benefits than I could probably list...but I will try.

First, the financial benefits. My mortgage for the old house was $1492/month. Rent for the new house is $340/month. My car insurance dropped by more than a third because I moved out of a major metropolitan area. I pay no property taxes and have no maintenance costs.

Aren't I tossing money away by renting? Not necessarily. When I owned, I was tossing away nearly $10,000/year in interest (after you deduct what I saved in taxes). Now granted, over the course of 30 years, my interest payments would have gone down, IF I actually stayed put--but being a rather typical American, I move every few years. And IF I stayed put, the house would likely have built equity to at least counteract some of my interest payments. Maybe...but just because markets have performed in a particular way in the past is no promise that they will continue to do so. So you never know.

What I do know is that so far, given the current housing slump, renting has been the better deal for me. The timing was just right and the fact that I was simultaneously downsizing has made it work for me.

The other financial plus is that renting has broken me of thinking like a homeowner. As in: Gosh, wouldn't the kitchen look better with a tile floor, or new white cabinets with glass fronts? We really need a new front door. Why'd the old owner's ever put carpet in the bathroom? A shed would sure be nice out back. And a deck. With a pergola. I never cared for rosebushes much, let's put something else in. It's never-ending when you own a home. There's always some project lined up.

Renting breaks you of that. Sure, I can think of things that would improve my little house, but the fact is it's incredibly charming just the way it is. I don't need to make any changes. Renting has helped me appreciate things as they are, has got me to stop fiddling and fidgeting with everything and just leave them be. Which is ultimately very nice on the wallet.

Then there are the utility bills. My old house was 2440 sq. ft. with an additional unheated 900 sq. ft. attached garage/workshop. My new house is 485 sq. ft. Which do you think costs more to operate? Here, I spend about $500/year for heat and about $400/year for electricity for everything else. Trash service is not mandatory (okay, that has its downside, i.e. neighbors burning noxious crap!) But, I take my own trash to the landfill and since I compost and recycle and don't buy much in the first place I go about once every 2 months. It generally costs me between $3.50 and $5.00 per visit. (In the metro area, trash service was mandatory and if you wanted to take a special load to the landfill it cost $20-something per car-load.)

Being 90 miles from the metro area has other financial benefits as well. Dinner at a restaurant in town costs around $5.50 or $6.50. The one time I went out for breakfast my total bill was $1.75. I can see a $3.00 movie in a neat old theater that still has its original stage curtains and is full of rich architectural detail. And vet bills are extremely low. A visit for a kitten's first shots was $10; for a cat with an infected wound $30, including meds. The most I've ever paid was $38.50, and that was a very dire situation. Back in the city, it seemed like every visit was at minimum $300. They always wanted to run every test under the sun when something was wrong. It's refreshing here to see these country vets taking a very no-nonsense, down-to-business approach to their work.

In the three years I've lived here I've saved thousands of dollars.

In Part 2, I'll get to the other benefits beyond money.