Benefits of a country life:
- Quiet, peaceful, private, no crime, your kids can play outside and have more freedom
- Can have animals, a garden, whatever suits your fancy
- No neighborhood organizations to tell you what you can and can't do
- Housing and land are less expensive
- Amazon.com is now your friend; when I was a kid, we had one grocery store, a drug store and a tractor supply/hardware store in town. Today my brother still lives in that area, and he orders pretty much everything from Amazon. In this respect, the world is smaller than it used to be.
Yes to the quiet, etc. but not to a lack of crime here -- we're in meth country.
Yes on the actually owning your own property (mostly) and on being able to afford it.
Ordering online is a convenience, but it can still be limited. I do holiday shopping online but not much else because the delivery trucks can't manage my drive so I have to have things dropped off at a shop in the nearby town -- no leaving by the road because methheads.
Negatives of a country life:
- The work never, never, never ends -- there's always a tree down or something else that needs doing, and often this costs in terms of both money and time. If you cannot do things like cut up a 100-year old oak tree or take care of a deer that's died (or been shot and beheaded) on your property, you may end up paying someone to do those tasks.
All true. If you can't do those things yourself, rural life may not be for you. The elderly here can call on neighbors, but I don't think an ablebodied newcomer would get the same level of help. You also need to be ready to fight fires (grass and forest). Neighbors generally will help with this, regardless of whether you're a newcomer, out of self-preservation. Usually there are fire departments, and we have a good one, actually, and they're paid, not volunteer. But it takes them time to travel the distances, and if it's a grass or forest fire, a truck won't help if the hoses won't reach.
- "Running errands" often means a lengthy trip into town OR buying from a limited number of stores nearby . . . you can plan for your groceries, etc. and avoid extra trips, but it also means you have to drive farther when you're sick and need to see the doctor or other such errands. No matter how good you are at planning, you will be on the road more often than you expect, and that costs money.
For sickness, yes, but for errands, groceries, and that sort of thing, a pantry fixes the problem. I don't run unplanned errands. If I run out of something (not all that common), we eat a different meal or prepare the meal without the missing item. It seems like a giant pain to do the planning that this takes, but once it becomes a habit, life is actually much easier. I spend much less time thinking about and shopping for food than most people I know because I do it all at once, a week or two at a time (usually a week because I've gotten used to milk in my coffee again). It's more efficient that way. If I miss a planned grocery shop, as happened two weeks ago because the weekend filled up with work, I don't grocery shop that week and we eat from the pantry, which saves even more time. (Downside: I drink black coffee.)
- You don't have access to a wide variety of restaurants and entertainment. This is both good and bad: You won't be able to run out and get a sandwich for lunch, which means you won't spend . . . but sometimes cooking at home does become tedious, and going out is more of a stretch.
Yep. Entertainment is the antique tractor parade on the Fourth of July. Actually, those are sort of fun. As are high school football games. I definitely don't go out for lunch when I work from home -- much more work than cooking!
- Your access to money-saving places like libraries and discount stores is limited -- or, more accurately, the drive is a hassle.
This is rapidly becoming less of an issue. Rural libraries are really ramping up the online databases and downloadable ebooks and audiobooks. Cheaper for them and easier for patrons as the rural broadband push expands, so it's a win-win. Also, I don't know if it's true everywhere, but I find the prices at the discount stores in the city (Costco in one direction, Aldis in another) aren't as good as the local WalMart and Sav-a-Lot ( local is relative, of course, but 10 miles as opposed to 40-45). I've even been surprised at how much higher prices at the WalMart in the city where I work are; my guess is that higher wages there mean that the population will/can support higher prices.
- When you need something done that is beyond your capability -- say, plumbing or roofing -- you'll have few options as to whom you're going to hire. And sometimes you have to pay extra for them to come to you.
Fewer options, yes. But in building our home, we did comparison shop, and the local options were always much, much cheaper than the ones in nearby cities. Again, I think it's the prevailing wages in the area and what prices they will support. We did have to pay travel for a concrete pumper (not the concrete itself or the mixer truck), but that's getting pretty specialized. We hired that, a crew that does poured walls ( from a city, and not the nearest one, but they don't add on for travel because they always travel -- they're equally expensive for everyone!). The local concrete was much cheaper than the one recommended by the wall people (and the local met their specs). We hired local septic installers and drywall hangers for prices our friends find amazing.
If you're truly an outsider, you may pay a markup, though. That's a real issue for people trying to relocate to rural areas for the first time. My husband's family has been here for generations, so we don't have that problem.
- Do not assume that city services like trash pick up or water will be available to you. You may end up paying for trash service (or hauling your own trash to the dump), and you may have to dig a well. Some services like cable TV may not be available everywhere. You should check the quality of cell phone service too.
Absolutely. We can't get cable here at all. Too far off the road. Trash service is a matter of finding a private company or hauling to the landfill. (We pay a local company $54 quarterly.) We were able to get county (not city) water, but that's not a guarantee around here. There almost certainly won't be a sewer system in a rural area, so septic is a must. Cell phones, well, yes, sometimes they work.
- While your house may be cheaper, things like extra-long driveways may add to your cost.
- Bike riding won't be as possible: Narrow country roads may or may not be safe, distances may be daunting.
The driveway issue is there. Paving is not required in most cases, though. We probably will eventually, but ours is pretty extreme.
Bike riding is a death wish here. Not possible, period. I've never seem anyone trying to bike to town from here, for good reason.
Living in the country is not cheaper than living in the suburbs, though you do spend in different places.
Here's where I disagree. It's radically cheaper unless you choose to try to reproduce a more suburban lifestyle in a rural area. That can't be done, but it's very possible to spend a lot of money trying. To do it cheaply, you have to accept the limitations. There are advantages that more than outweigh the limitations in my book, but I won't try to make the limitations go away, at least not by spending; I live with them instead, and I rearranged my life to allow for that in a number of ways because I knew this was important to me. Would I like to see good live performances of Shakespeare? Sure. Will I spend for travel, hotel, etc. to make it happen? No, I moved away from that when I left the city. The BBC has good Shakespeare performances to download for free, and I can do that here. It's enough. I don't have to have the best of all the possible worlds. We picked the world with the best overall set of circumstances for us, and now we make the best of that world. Sounds like you did the same, and when your circumstances change, you'll do it again.
