Frugal Locations
It was a light bulb moment! Of course, I told myself! Years ago, seeking to be encouraged in trying to live the economical life, I had been reading some blogs where other women were also struggling to make ends meet. Although always needing to watch pennies, I was just beginning to understand the process of proactively living the frugal life. Now, reading a budget of another with similar income, I finally realized why I was so challenged to make the same progress. My fixed expenses were so much higher!
No matter how many coupons I cut or deals I found, my real estate taxes and car insurance were so high in my area that they kept me from making the much desired headway. Yes, it was a bit defeating, but it also helped me recognize that some circumstances are beyond my control and I would need to be more patient in my quest to be debt free.
Flash forward years later, and now I do live in a more economical area. My real estate taxes and car insurance are much more reasonable. Although not the main reasons for our move, these facts have contributed greatly to our ability to live within our means. In thinking about this change in our lives, I was wondering where might some of the most economical places to live be?
With this question, I am assuming that having a job, of course, would be first priority. When we moved, a job had already been procured. Husband and I would then set the following priorities:
Living close to our married children, in order to continue our multigenerational vision and build into the lives of their children.
Like-minded church fellowship. Worshipping with others with similar convictions and lifestyles is very important to our family
Economical housing. We chose to live in a doublewide mobile home in order to make a debt free purchase.
Musing on these things, I’ve been wondering where others think the best place to relocate would be according to their priorities. Where would you go given the opportunity, and why?
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4 Responses to “Frugal Locations”
July 15th, 2010 at 10:09 am
I like it where I am, if we moved closer to the private school our kids go to, it would also be closer to dh job, our housing cost and taxes would go up, but our mileage on our cars and cost of gas would go down, some time would be freed up from commuting. It would be a trade off, maybe coming in close $$ wise. Not a move we will make until we can make a profit selling our current home to make a down payment on our next home.
Moving closer to family would be nice but would require a 20% raise in income, everything from income tax, housing, gas, insurance, and food all cost more where my family lives, its a life style complain, my family all makes it on less money but I don’t want to give up the life style I have, my frugality now pays for some luxuries that would not be possible in other places.
July 15th, 2010 at 11:02 am
We choose to live in the city to be close to husband’s office. Although housing is slightly higher here than if we’d chosen the suburbs, there are many other frugal reasons to live here: we are 1 mile from husband’s office so there is no commute and husband can walk or bike to work. Also, he can come home for lunch which is a bonus for us
. We are within 2 miles of 3 grocery stores so we can take advantage of all the grocery deals and competitive pricing. We are close to the library – yay for free books and videos!
July 15th, 2010 at 11:31 am
I appreciate this post. We live in a rural Central Illinois area, and have seen our taxes SKYROCKET in recent years. Our state is nearly insolvent, and I think that rural areas like ours have no other sources of income, so they just keep raising our taxes exponentially! It is very, very discourageing to live in a place like this. And you are right: no matter how much you knock yourself out trying to save money, there is no getting away from things like excessive property taxes, excessive sales taxes, etc. We are seriously talking about trying to relocate.
July 16th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
my husband and i did the “military” lifestyle for 26 years and raised one child…life then was not easy, but we did okay. when retirement from military came we opted to go back to mississippi where we “owned” five acres. upon this acreage we put a manufactured home (20 yrs ago that cost us $28,000.00), and earned a little supplemental income with parttime jobs..his partime work paid for his golfing, travels, etc…and i paid for son’s college expenses when scholarships and grants were not enough and banked the rest into savings for my random trips/vacations and wants. for twenty years and counting we have lived on his retirement pension from the military…and his social security pays for the “wants”. if you live in the country here in mississippi and own your land you can file for homestead exemption and if you are disabled or are older than 65 you are exempt from property taxes. it is still very expensive to shop for groceries, clothing, shoes, etc….as these items have risen in price and the quality is pretty bad…check even your top department stores and i bet no one will find anything still made in the usa either. so, in my spare time i make homemade crafts/quilts/gift items and sell them to people who have the cash or trade for them. life was tough forty years ago, it was hard twenty years ago, and if asked about current times i would say that it could and probably will get worse.. this is the time to save, quit spending on unnecessary items-make do with what you have and prepare for harder times ahead.
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