That ain't no way to raise babies
That's something I heard on an episode of COPS the other night from an officer that was talking to a women who was raising her children in a house with no natural gas or electricity. Mind you, there were other things wrong with this situation that probably warranted the statement as a whole, but it really pissed me off that he made the statement specifically in regards to having no electricity or natural gas service. Rob and I had a spirited discussion over this other night where he reminded me that I'm probably one of the few of my generation who ever actually spent time living quite comfortably in a house that didn't have indoor plumbing, gas or electricity. And he reminded me that the cop was at least one generation beyond mine and had probably never conceived of such a thing as even being possible, that you could actually raise children without electricity and gas. It appears that yesterday's luxuries are today's necessities and kids born today will probably think that life can't possibly exist without cellphones and cable TV. We've all been hoodwinked into an increasingly expensive standard of living that some of us can no longer achieve. And we've been, to some extent, forced to swallow it hook line and sinker. There's no way I could survive where I live without paying for city water service. I can't drill a well in my backyard and even if I could, the water would be undrinkable from pollution. So I'm stuck with city water, though I could probably get by without the electricity. But I also have to cough up $250/month for property taxes that pay for, well I'm not sure what all, but the biggest chunk goes to schools even I have no children attending them. But if I don't pay it, I'll lose my house. Think about it, $250/month just to keep your hands on land and a house you already own. Maybe it's just me, but that's seems really wrong. And then there's the whole issue of mandatory car insurance. We pay $120/month for this because we have bad credit thanks to being laid off a couple of times over the last few years. I fail to see the connection between bad credit and car accidents since I've not had an accident or ticket in well over 20 years, but the insurance companies disagree and charge us through the nose for something we are required to have BY LAW if we want to drive a vehicle. I'd just as soon ditch the vehicle if I had adequate public transportation in this town, but despite paying 1% sales tax plus a fee to ride the bus, it still doesn't go where I need to go 90% of the time. Now there are city things that raise our expenses some, but it's not much cheaper to move to the country. There's still the property tax issue and those taxes are not that much cheaper out of town. You definitely have to have a car and you'll spend more money on gas going into town to work and to buy necessities so I see no big advantage over moving out to the country except that I could have a cow. Maybe it's just a childhood fantasy, but I've had fresh churned butter before (churned it myself numerous times) and it was so worth the effort. But other than that, there's not many advantages to moving out of town, at least around here where any plot of land within driving distance of your job costs just as much as your in-city plot. I figure we just have to make the best of it where we sit and trim expenses where we can until we sell the house, buy an RV and start making our living as campground hosts.