Would You Move To The Boonies For More Money?

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Interesting opportunity just came up today. If you were offered the chance to work somewhere undesireable (at least to you), but were offered a significant raise to move there, would you?

As for details, this would be a rural area in the Midwest, and significant raise would be 50%. Given that the standard cost of living is also much lower there, this would be a way to save a good amount of money for a few years. This would also mean few friends, isolation, change of culture, good restaurants, and so on… Would you suck it up for the money?

Update: I definitely meant cost of living, not standard of living. My friends in rural areas own huge houses with enormous back yards, two car garages, granite countertops, and stainless steel appliances, whereas I’m simply trying afford a place with more than two bedrooms 🙂 I wrote this late last night and worded it poorly. I even realized it as I went to bed but was too tired to correct it. By rural I’m not talking about an hour away from a big city, I’m talking 4-5 hours away from any big city.

Nothing inherently wrong with rural areas, everyone just has their own preferences – A better question is “Would you move somewhere you personally felt less comfortable (be it big city, foreign country, or farmtown), for more money?”

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


User Generated Content Disclosure: Comments and/or responses are not provided or commissioned by any advertiser. Comments and/or responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. It is not any advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Comments

  1. Having grown up in a rural midwest town (La Cygne, KS), leaving and to go to the Capital City (Topeka) of my state (Kansas), and eventually to Chicago and then back to the rural town before returning to the same capital city, I think I might have some advice hear.

    1st – I love the city and would prefer to be in Chicago (maybe New York or for weather LA), where I could use a reliable public transit and get rid of my car altogether.
    However, something is to be said about smll towns. People tend to be friendlier and look after each other. Like the town of 1200 I grew up in, you can walk into the coffee shop (local resteraunt) and chit chat with about everyone in there. In Arkansas, Sam Walton, did that daily. So yes you might leave your current friends but you will make new ones and as for friends you won’t feel so isolated once you get setteled in and make friends.

    On the downside, you might have to drive 30-60 minutes (miles) to get to the closest movie theater or entertainment venue.

    Cost of living does tend to be cheaper on some things, but on some things might be slightly higher.

  2. Hell yes I would make the changes for the money. I would have to scout the area first of course. I have allergies, but I have trouble with allergies where I live now. I really do worry about health care. I’d want to be within 15 minutes of a decent acute care facility and drug store. It is fascinating to me that there are still some places in the U.S. without 911. Personally, I’d also want to be somewhere where I would have a choice in barbers. I hate bad haircuts. When I know I am getting a bad haircut, I simply tell them to stop and I walk out the door without paying – then find someone else, hopefully nearby. I used to think church was a requirement for a decent place to live. But, nowadays I’d settle for a decent bar or coffee shop … I could pray or sing Cumbaya right there. (what, don’t you?). Finally, I wouldn’t want to share a neighborhood with critters. Above all, no rattlesnakes. I’d be concerned with making sure that I’d have a good nights’ sleep and I can’t live in a place with my sleep interupted every night with my wife screaming: “what the F#%k is that sound!?!!” (Yes, of course I’d be panicked and sound like a hysterical little girl too).

  3. Given that currently I am not in any large city area (medium size metro). I would have no problem moving. It would depend on some factors like what is the closest large community, and how large is it. What would the shopping options be like? Would you have to travel do most of your grocery items, etc.
    But the main question is what does the family think. Mostly, spouse/children

  4. depends how adventuresome you are. Looks like you have the option of coming back in a year or two… why not take the risk? Who knows, the new move may provide other great opportunities.

  5. Just because you get a job offer in the boonies doesn’t necessarily mean you have to live out in the boonies. If you need to be an a urban/suburban location, you could always decide to live an hour away from work if possible.

    Hey, at least with the raise you could pay for your gas.

  6. Pros: Cheaper cost of living is a huge plus, nice people, slower paced life, less hustle and bustle which can be soothing to the mind and body; if you do not spend a lot on entertainment now you do not have to fret about losing out on all the entertainment venues a big city offers.

    Cons: Often in a very small town people will be cold until they get to know you (20 years later). There is really nothing to do except visit the local walmart; your kids may grow up to be meth addicts; you’ll find yourself knowing the name of every player on the local high school football team; you may find people to be a bit more rigid and conservative than in a big city (make sure you go to church every Sunday).

    I’ve lived in the rural South and big City Midwest and I like them both. The rural areas have an sort of natural beauty and feeling to them that most cities lack. On the other hand if you are a person who likes to visit museums, go to movies, or big malls, then you would probably miss the city.

  7. Depends on a few variables. At this point in my career, a 50% increase would amount to a substantial amount of money, allowing me to put away enough for retirement very quickly. Then, I could move where ever I wanted to after a few yrs.

    But, if the location were truly objectionable, I might not do it. Also, depends on the work – whether I’d be happy with it or not. Right now I’m pretty happy with living and working in NYC. So, it would take more than money to make me consider an alternative.

  8. I agree with most of the comments above. However, if you have a family, you need to consider the impact on children. Keeping them busy with social programs is important, if there are no activites to occupy their time, trouble is not too far away. Money is key, but I don’t know how long I could endure being away from a big city.

  9. Hey Jonathan, I’m going to address this question over on my blog today also as I have just spent a week in New York which is considered to be one of the more expensive cities in the U.S. But the bottom line is, I don’t think I could leave So Cal where I am now, but if I had to, I would go to a City such as Denver, which is cheaper but still has a lot to offer. But I don’t think I could go rural, at least not at the age I am now. The only way I would reconsider is if our families were making the move.

  10. Personal Finance Blogger says

    You joining me in Peoria Jonathan? 😉

  11. Well, I moved to Kansas for a year. My company offered me house, car, fuel and meals. So basically, I saved 110% of my salary (yes 110%). Overland Park (Kansas) was voted in best the top 10 places to live. Lots of good restaurants there!!.
    You’ll miss friends and family a lot, but a year goes by quickly, and it’ll be a big boost to your savings account.

  12. Rural area sounds like it’s all about farmland and cows…

    For me, it’s at most one hour away from a city which has at least one professional sports team (MLB/NBA/NFL/NHL).

  13. Mark Hesidence says

    Hunting, fishing, high speed internet, amazon.com if no book store nearby, and satilite/cable and I’m set. What’s not to like? Lack of traffic?

  14. The standard of living is lower in the Midwest? What does that mean? Just last year we got that indoor plumbing and postal mail.

    You’ve got to be kidding. Hopefully you meant the cost of living.

  15. I was born and raised in NYC. Last year I got a job offer for a job in Trenton, NJ. I found an apartment in Bristol, PA (a small suburb about 30 minutes outside of Philly). I was making good money and rent was cheap. Unfortunately the work wasn’t that great and then I got into a car accident and didn’t have transportation besides my bicycle. Public transportation was infrequent and relied on a schedule…I ended up spending alot of time at Wal-Mart or going back to NYC on the weekends. Eventually I moved back to NYC and took a better job (i.e. better career-wise), but the pay is 25% less, I have to live at home with my parents because the job has a residency requirement and I can’t afford NYC rent AND student loans on this salary, and the benefits are crap. As much as I love City life, it’s unnecessarily expensive, especially for entry level professionals (e.g. doctors in residency, public sector attorneys/engineers, etc). I vote in favor of living in the ‘burbs but making sure you have access to the City.

  16. I think my requirements for living in the boonies would be internet access and a decent airport. I’ve made the observation that I could live and work M-F in Pittsburgh and fly to Boston _every_ weekend and still come out ahead of actually living in Boston 7 days a week. Unfortunately my girlfriend does not like doing such calculations and really seems to enjoy her 60 minute commute.

  17. One thing to consider is the environment where you’d be working. I’m NY born and raised. I’ve always worked in NYC since college and am tackling house and family. It’s hard here because of the cost of living but we’re doing it.

    My company also has an operation in PA. It’s more rural than what I’m used to, but it’s not Deliverance. More than once I’ve thought about if I could transfer there and keep my NYC money, I could do really well. Respectable houses can be had for under $200k there which won’t get you a 2 bedroom co-op by me. The area has basically what I’d need but I’d probably have to drive a little farther for everything.

    As enticing as the cost of living advantage is, I just can’t see myself going to the PA place and feeling engaged everyday. NY has a pace and a fire in the belly that drives me. There is something to be said for working in corp HQ. I just think that I’d bum out going to the other place everyday.

  18. Yes, but I like the rural Midwest.

  19. Future job potential is a big consideration, if relationships drive your field as much or more than skills (ex: real estate or business administration), the rural location could hinder career growth, as it’s likely most people in your field are also in your company. If it’s usually more skills driven (technology jobs), that’s less of a concern.

  20. Exactly where in the midwest? There are serious differences between, say, Chicago and Nebraska. I grew up in Fort Wayne, IN. While I have no true desire to go back there, it’s really not that bad overall.

  21. California renter moving into my first home in Iowa next month (near Iowa City and Cedar Rapids)

    Check out Money’s best places to live articles, those will give you a feel anyway.

    See ya there 😉

  22. Very interesting scenario. I know people that have done this simply by moving to areas (without the raise) with lower costs of living (North Carolina).

    For me, living close to family is worth its weight in gold (especially if you have or plan on having kids) so a 50% raise wouldn’t matter unless I was living close to family.

  23. What do you consider boonies? I grew up in Omaha NE which people from the east/west coast would consider the boonies. Now I live in a town of 14k in Northwest Arkansas that people from Omaha would consider the boonies.

    I’d be hard-pressed to want to live in a medium or large-sized city again. I make pretty decent money for what I do, my commute takes three or four minutes and one stoplight (soon to be four blocks with no stoplight). My old four-bedroom 2-1/2-bath house with the big porch cost me $68k five years ago (would appraise at 95k to 100k today according to a real estate friend), I’ve had high speed cable internet for about 8 years now. I’m about 30-45minutes away from movies and a mall and all the usual big-box stores. Nice parks, cool little downtown area, and I’m about 30 minutes from a decent sized airport (not just puddle jumper planes).

  24. Only if they had strip clubs

  25. Yeah, I meant cost of living, not standard of living. I wrote this late last night and worded it poorly. By rural I’m not talking about an hour away from a big city, I’m talking 3-5 hours away from any big city.

    A better question is “Would you move somewhere you felt less comfortable (be it big city, foreign country, or farmtown), for more money?”

    Is anyone else having trouble loading this site? I can barely get it to load.

  26. Actually, it is relatively close to Peoria, and I think I bit smaller.

  27. My opinion is worthless.

    But I say move if you still have internet access.

  28. NO WAY
    It really has nothing to do with if the boonies is better or worse, but preference. Money isn’t everything in life and honestly money cannot replace your family and friends in the town/city you live.

    I know people who move to the USA from third world countries that their quality of life is better here, less crime, more money, more opportunties…………… yet they move back to their country. It’s not that one place is better than another place, but I’m not sure if it’s worth slowly loosing your friends and not being around your family. Regardless of location, the best place to live is were your friends and family are, they are more important than money.

    Also there’s no gurantee that you’ll be able to come back even though you think you will. You or your wife may have a hardtime finding a job. I’d only move if it’s a place you have to consider might be a permanent home, not something for a few years to make money.
    Just my two cents

  29. I’d say you move there just to try out. Stay put for a couple of years while deciding whether you can enjoy the new environment. The good thing is that you don’t have kid yet, so it is just like college time. You should explore the country/world as much as you can before you settle down in one place for good. When I say explore, I don’t mean by a 2 weeks tour. You need to stay in one place long enough in order to truly appreciate its people and culture. Every place on the earth, even the most undesirable places, can be attractive to beholder’s eyes…

  30. Peoria, IL? I think of Peoria as a big city, I guess that’s just how I grew up though. What are you looking for when you say “big city” You’re like 2-2 1/2 out of Chicago.

    When you think of being near a big city, what are the things that you’ll miss? Culture probably would be one of the big things, but you’ll have more exependable income! Travel!!!

    When you say Boonies, I’m not sure what you’re talking about, it’s all the same stuff nowadays. As someone above said… Amazon still delivers and so does Netflix.

  31. 50% is A LOT of moola. hmm.

    gotta agree w/ others that it’s not a simple try-it-out deal. everyone’s dead on about family and friends. now, I’m already bad at maintaining some relationships, if it takes me 4-5 hours of driving or half an hour of flying to reach them.. I’ll never see them again my life (unless they come to visit or something).

    how does the wifey feel about it?

  32. Wife and I have been talking about it constantly recently. Wife isn’t feeling it. I am not really either, but the fact that you are not just moving for the cheaper housing, but also get even more money, makes it a harder decision.

    Ideally, you could buy a house, and still save tens of thousands of dollars more over a few years, and then sell the house and move back again. True it may be hard to find a job back in the original area, but one could also just get fired sitting around the in same place. I don’t really trust any corporation’s job security promises.

    In the end, this is the type of decision one has to make for themselves, but it’s always nice to hear some arguments either way.

  33. I just moved from a town with a population of 10,000 to Chicago….for a higher salary!

    Would i do it the other way…yes of course! But I must warn ppl that it is DEAD boring in small towns! We only had a Walmart and thats it.
    This was the reason for my move. The closest good shopping was around 70 miles away.

    Advantages of small town:
    1) Cost…2 bedroom luxury apartment was around $500 rental
    2) Cost of a house is around US$100,000 to buy
    3) Save tons of money on gas (1 mile to work vs 30 miles in Chicago)
    4) Friendly ppl
    5) Cheap cheap daycare ($550 vs $1200)
    6) Cheaper gas prices (not always, but usually)
    7) Lower insurance
    8) Damn cheap cigarettes ($2.20 vs $5)
    9) So safe you wont believe it until you move*

    *The 2nd day of our move in to Chicago, we got a notice in our apartment that someone was held at gunpoint and robbed in our complex.

    Advantage of big city
    1) Personal/professional growth is awesome
    2) Tons of stuff to do
    3) Higher salaries
    4) More social life
    5) Good deals on stuff like cellphones, cable, internet, food etc
    6) Flying anywhere is cheaper

    So was it worth it for us to move? I still say yes. We had about a 70% increase in salary.

  34. Joe Van Dyk says

    I would in a heartbeat, but I could never convince my wife to. She wants our future kids to grow up next to grand parents and go to the neighborhood pool in the summer.

  35. I would LOVE to move to a place more rural. Living in Honolulu, I get Island fever all the time since I grew up on the East coast and was used to just jumping in the car and going on a spontaneous vacation. The only benefit I see to living here is the weather and the proximity to the beach, but even the beach here is less of a concern since I hardly ever get to it.

  36. I grew up on a farm here in the midwest, went to school, lived dowtown Chicago for a short time, returned to my home town and live across the road from where I grew up. Open spaces suit my personal preferences better than big cities but thats not for everyone.

    While we don’t have the restaurant and shopping choices that other locations have to offer, we do have selection albeit a smaller one. Both of my college roommates moved back to much larger cities and the added cost. When they kid us about living here my wife and I just smile because we know that we are living cheaper and earing significantly more money at the same time.

    You shouldn’t be worried about making new friends, small town America is easy to get to know. Heck if you really want to get to know people join a local civic organization. Most small towns have Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary….

  37. Jane Dough says

    Heck No! But then I am very attached to my city. I have had opportunities in the past to move for jobs and they always offer higher salary and cheaper housing markets. But I turn away from Real Estate porn – why do I want a huge house when all the people I love and want to spend time with live thousands of miles away? I refused to be seduced by square footage and dollars!

    But if I was not so attached to my city I would consider it for a year or two. The problem is once you move away it can be very difficult to move back. I have had friends get moved by their company, be trapped for 18 months minimum in the new location (or have to pay back all that relocation money), then when the 18 months are up and they want to be transfered back it is then discovered no positions available to move back for (and company won’t pay for relocation back). So either they are stuck and stay or have to quit job and move back themselves…

    It is not something to do lightly.

  38. Heck yea! I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d definitely get homesick, but there’s no illness the ‘friendly skies’ can’t cure.

  39. GrantParish says

    It doesn’t have to be an “either or” proposition. Jon has the right idea. I live in flyover country in a medium sized city with a good airport. The cost of living is cheap and the climate is great and I easily save enough to travel to the city frequently (if not every week).

    I have friends in NYC who pay so much for housing that they can’t afford to take advantage of the citylife – plays, dinners, museums. When I go to NYC, like I did last week, I can spend a long weekend and do all those things. It does not seem like you are banished to the outback if you can have a monthly trip to a city and still save money.

  40. You don’t know how much you “won’t like it” until you try it…and if you can come back after a couple years, then you will really appreciate what you had. We are trying to move rural (1-2 hrs from mid-large city w/ airport) from where we are, but have to stay for now due to financial and career reasons…..so it’s kinda the opposite of your situation. However, I love the metro area and rural area, plus if we get where we want, we’ll be closer to my family (but farther from all of his). So I can go either way…it’s my husband who can’t wait to get his 2 acres in the boonies away from the city:) plus, here we’re close to the beach (5 min) so I’m happy to wait. There are ways to look at it both ways…if you have that kind of outlook pros for both or cons for both. There is something to be said for having your morning cup of coffee in the outdoors of a nice rural area. I generally agree with most of the other posts, too….gotta have internet, money in the bank is a nice reserve to have, plus do it now, while you don’t have kids.

  41. Been there, done that.

    BIG MISTAKE!!

    It sounds great on paper, but reality is much different.

  42. It all comes down to personal preferences.

    As a matter of fact, even smaller towns today have WalMart, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, and malls that look alike….

    To me, an hour (or maybe two) away from a big city is max. I don’t think driving 4-5 hours to get to specialty stores, say A/X, Urban Oufitter, H&M, WholesFood, etc. is a good idea…

  43. What phenomenal comments!!
    We moved a bit over a year ago to the rural south from a major city. What a difference – ultimately I agree with Mike – mistake – but I’m very glad we tried it.
    Here’s my detailed response on my blog.
    Some key points I’ve picked up that I didn’t address are:
    1. Do you want to live close to family or far away – what do you give up by the distance (or gain)?
    2. Will both spouses have income enhancement from the move?
    3. Are you willing to invest social energy to create friends and entertainment for you AND your children
    4. Will you be able to advance your career once you’re in the boon docks – will you be out of the career mainstream?
    5. Will you be able to afford a move back to the city in 5-10 years into a similar home?
    6. Will you REALLY be saving more money, or merely spending it differently?

    I address other issues in my posting in much more (too much?) detail.

    Have a wonderful day and thanks to Jonathan, et. al. for the great Meme!

    makingourway

  44. Some of you are a little too much. Kids growing up to be meth heads? lol, I hardly think if a company is offering a 50% increase on whatever youre making now if its really as boonies as you think. I doubt its backwoods alabama. Seriously, just because youre 5 hours from a major city hardly means its bumfuck.

  45. Growing up, I’ve lived in small college towns where we had to drive 90 minutes to go school shopping for clothes, or to get formal clothes for church. I’ve also lived in big cities as well, both in the city limits and on bordering suburbs.

    Right now, my preference is either a residential community in the city or the closest suburb.

    It sounds nice, to move to the cheap area, make 50% more and save thousands. In fact, I’ve considered it. The type of house I want in the Seattle area will cost me at least $500k, probably $650k+. I could go back to upstate NY and buy something bigger for $100-$250k.

    BUT

    Professionally, you have fewer opportunities to make contacts and network. Unless your company is HQ’d out in the boonies, you’re not going to advance as fast professionally either as working in HQ nearly always gives you more opportunities.

    Finally, if you’re a city/urban person – you’re probably not going to be as happy in the boonies, cash savings or one.

    I think we should all seek out balance when it comes to our financial decision, seek to balance happiness vs. financial concerns.

    -Mark

  46. Maybe a good decision if you want to have a family. There are now more dogs than children in Seattle and San Francisco. Portland will be there soon. LA is the exception because it’s a Latino city. The trend is that urban elites are shunning the kids. Urban culture seem mostly about highly educated Democrats who want to be around others like them to validate their lifestyle. Is that really a great cultural experience? I sugggest you will find a better environment for kids elsewhere.
    As for access to shopping — Who cares? That’s about the dumbest reason I can think of. What the hell is the Internet and UPS for anyway?

  47. What town in Illinois is this offer coming from?
    I go to college in central illinois about 35 minutes east of Peoria and would be interested to know what city you are talking about. Peoria has about 150,000 people with some “burbs” probably bringing the metro area up to 250,000. They have minor league baseball, hockey, indoor football, D-I college basketball(Bradley University) and have numerous restaurants, bars, stores, riverboat casinos, lakes for rec. boating, etc…
    Plus is only 2.5 hours from Chicago. If you had the name of the town, city, metro area… I could help give you a better idea of what that area has to offer.

  48. Interesting that so many people say they’d do it. I moved halfway across the world from my newly developing / developed home country to Manhattan, both for my job and because I really wanted to be in a huge, international city. I miss my friends and family back home but I love it in NY. A 50% increase in salary would be a huge amount of money but I don’t think I could do it. But then I couldn’t even make myself move from Manhattan to Queens for a 50% reduction in rent.

  49. Not quite the same situation, but add my experience. I live in CA and telecommute for a company in TX. A while ago, they offered to relocate me to TX. They’d pay moving expenses, but it wasn’t a raise in my salary. They said because the cost of living is so much cheaper there “it would be like a raise.” Ultimately, I turned them down. Althought it would be like a raise, it isn’t actually a raise.

    While discussing it with my wife, we thought of doing it so we could save money. It would have been good financially, and we wouldn’t have been worse off moving back to CA (since we rent right now anyway), but it came down to the non-financial sacrafices that made us say no. Things like leaving family, friends, and my wife still being in college. It would save us money, but we wouldn’t necessarily be happier, and it would accomplish the goals they were looking for.

  50. I just wanted to throw this in there since I haven’t seen it mentioned yet. I came to America when I was 5 and grew up in NYC since. Most of my childhood education was filled with competing with other immigrant children for the top grades. I haven’t kept actual track, but most of us have made it to law, medicine and finance. I wonder for my children if I were to raise a family in a rural area, if they wouldn’t have that kind of driving influence around them and rather settle for living off of my savings.

    On the other hand, not growing up around crime and experiencing muggings by neighborhood gangs would be welcome as well. But by the same token, coming face to face with poverty and having many friends who were poor (welfare families, government-subsidized housing) inculcated upon me a financial and social responsibility that I wonder may be lost growing up outside of a metro area. I’d like to hear what people think about this secondary or even tertiary benefit of living in cities.

  51. John:

    dunno about that one, I came face to face with poverty plenty in rural America….I have also known people from upper-middle class families who grew up in the middle of the city who have never even spoken to a poor person, much less reached out a helping hand. These kids were often pretty lazy and content to life off their parent’s trust funds.

    When I was at college, I noticed that many of the hardest-working students came from immigrant families or rural areas.

    But I think the quality of the community is more important than the urban/rural setting, and good quality parenting is definitely much more important than where one grows up.

    There are a LOT of different types of rural areas in the US…everything from quirky Vermonters to easygoing Nebraskan farmers to rural Californian meth-heads. I would definitely choose the rural setting if it had a solid community and I felt my family could be a part of it. I’d only be willing to move to an “undesirable” rural area for a year or two if the position would clearly advance my career.

  52. My husband moved me to a rural part of southern OH and while it’s lovely here, we have 5 acres and lots of privacy it does come with inconveniences, like only dialup internet, the usual suspects in restaurants and small city politics. It is definitely cheaper to live, especially when I see other parts of the country’s property taxes!Ouch!

  53. I moved to Meridian, Mississippi for $80,000 a year, thinking that I’d be able to save a ton of money by living in an economically depressed area, and live like a king at the top 5% of the strata for the area.

    I didn’t factor in that I would be surrounded 24/7 by people I didn’t have much at all in common with. I’m a non-religious Kennedy Democrat, and the Deep South is seriously RED Republican and Southern Baptist, and they wear those affiliations proudly on their sleeve (or bumper) on a daily basis.

    The lack of an educated populace also means that it is difficult to have rational discourse with people, as their minds just are not as open to outside viewpoints or new, unfamiliar ideas/concepts.

    in two years of living there, I met numerous people that had never been 85 miles to the state capitol, or 200 miles to Memphis-even though they had lived in the area all their lives.

    Also, consider the possible dietary changes you may set yourself up for.
    I live in the San Francisco Bay area for 15 years and the variety of food available in supermarkets and restaurants is truly wonderful. Seafood in Mississippi is catfish, fried catfish. Farm-raised fried catfish, where they grow up in a murky pond eating pellets very similar to rabit food.

    The other dietary staple in the south is pork. Bacon and eggs for breakfast; barbecue pulled pork sandwich for lunch, and ham roast for dinner. What do we have for snacks you say? Pork Rinds!

    Exercise is called the “12 ounce lift”, which is a beer and a bag of pork rinds. Once in the dead of summer (85 degrees and seriously humid) I was out jogging a few miles in full sweats and I had a guy pull over on the side of the road and atch me; because he couldn’t believe that anyone would be stupid enough to be exercising in that heat. Maybe he thought I was running away from the scene of some crime I’d just committed.

    Moral of the story…..before deciding to dramatically realign you life by moving to another area for any reason, get familiar with it. Spend your next few vacations living in the town or area for a few weeks at a time. If you’ve spent two weeks there one summer, and a week or two there the following winter (-5 degrees in the howling wind on the Plains in mid-January) and still decide it is the right move, then at least you have prepared yourself.

    Personally, I can’t wait to get the hell out of Dallas (like LA but MUCH hotter and more dangerous) and move to my cabin 30 feet from the trout stream in idaho. But I have been there enough to know what i’m getting into………..

  54. Green acres is the place for me.
    Farm livin’ is the life for me.
    Land spreadin’ out so far and wide
    Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

    New York is where I’d rather stay.
    I get allergic smelling hay.
    I just adore a penthouse view.
    Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.

    …The chores.
    …The stores.
    …Fresh air.
    …Times Square

    You are my wife.
    Good bye, city life.
    Green Acres we are there

Leave a Reply to Trent Cancel reply

*