I feel an almost irresistable draw towards the Kootenays. We spent the weekend doing the hot springs and Nelson tour (To avoid repetition, check out Jeremy's blog to see pictures and find out the details). I've been spending a lot of time thinking about a different approach to housing than is standard in our area and it was very affirming to see that there are thousands of people that feel the same way. They just all seem to live in the Kootenays.
Many houses are clearly built as the money comes in, not mortgaged to the hilt. We're not used to seeing houses without "proper" siding or finishing or landscaping but why not? So many of them were also built in stages, as money or need arose. The clarity of mind to build/buy/rent within one's financial comfort zone frees up a lot of choices regarding work and lifestyle.
There are always tradeoffs of course:
- cheaper land and housing are never conveniently located next to cities where most people find work
- which means you spend more time and money on transportation
- that equals less time at home to relax, enjoy the family and follow personal pursuits
- UNLESS you can go all the way and reduce your wants and needs to a low enough level that you can survive on a lot less money, either self-employed or working locally within limited options.
When you stack it all up it's not necessarily a "greener" or cheaper choice to move to the boonies. To rent a reasonable place in the city close to work, entertainment and supplies makes really good sense. Often the ideal places to live (from my perspective) are the gentrified, high end units near downtown areas which kind of goes against the lowering costs ideal.
Round and round...I guess what's important for me is to live with a balance I'm comfortable with. We have an odd arrangement now I think compared to most people. Jeremy commutes to Kelowna (45 min) twice a week which is never a really good idea but it frees him to work at home the other three days. It also means we can live further from the price tag of Kelowna, keeping housing costs a lot lower. From our townhouse we can walk to all essential services and supplies, which I love. I'm fascinated by the balancing act we all do to try to reconcile our contradictory needs and wants.
2 comments:
Hi Tannis
I too am torn. For 4 years we lived in downtown Charlottetown ad we walked everywhere. But we were also by the most active bar on PEI and the summer became unbearable. Also we could not have afforded to buy where we lived. So here we are 7 minutes by car out of town. We find life without 2 cars very hard. Though next summer I am thinking of a moped.
For us the key has been to get our core expenses down. Isn't a big difference in the word been that the cost of housing is so great compared to what it was in the past and that this eats up so much of our income?
I agree about housing taking up a bigger slice of income that it seems it used to. Half the battle for me was realizing that most people are in the same boat, not that we were specifically living outside of our means because housing was costing us more than it "should" by some formula. When we felt we outgrew out last place we had a nasty surprise. Rents and prices had gone way up since we had last moved. After heavy discussions of pros and cons here we are, happy with the decision for the stage we're at.
We've been seeing a lot more mopeds and scooters this year. Gas prices perhaps? We've thought of going the motorcycle route for Jeremy's commuting but aren't quite ready to do it yet.
What would you consider to be core expenses in addition to housing and vehicles? We seem to spend the most time trying to get those two as low as we comfortably can.
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