Much Too Rural

[chas0218]

^^ You know, one of the kickers to that list these days is something no one ever thought of even as recently as 10-15 years ago. Internet access. While I have decent service, my neighbors only a mile away can't get it at all except on their cell phones.

Having kids that was the number 1 question we asked before we bought our house. Having 2 kids that will be going through school and my wife and I both school teachers we know how much school is changing and becoming more and more digital.

I don't think I could ever be too rural.

Our current house is about 20 minutes from a hospital, 18 minutes to the nearest shopping plaza (although we have a gas station, Dollar general, and pizzeria 5 minutes away). My wife and I made the conscious decision to move to a house that doubled her commute and left mine about the same to "get away from it all". For us that was the best decision we've made.

 

[Steppenwolfe]

After a year of Tiny House living (368 days) we decided to move our family of six back into our old house.

We tried to sell the house, but after 94 days on the market, having 35 couples looking at it, and having 4 offers that all fell through for various reasons, it was pretty clear that it was not going to sell. We even tried to rent it out, and got 50 responses in 5 hours, but after the second rental fell through, we just realized God was not in it, and while it might have been a good plan, it was not God's plan, and so we moved our family back in.

The house is nice, with a nice barn, even a starter flock of sheep was included, with winter hay, and out of 35 people who toured it, we never got any negative comments about the house itself, but there was consistency on why only a few people wanted it...almost all of them said, "it is much too rural here".

Is it in the middle of nowhere, or in the middle of everything? I guess that is the question?

There was aspects of Tiny House living we liked, and some we did not, but regardless we are here again. I have never lived anywhere else, so I just had no idea this area was considered "too rural".

View attachment 625966

Bloom where you are planted...

 

[MossRoad]

Having kids that was the number 1 question we asked before we bought our house. Having 2 kids that will be going through school and my wife and I both school teachers we know how much school is changing and becoming more and more digital.

I don't think I could ever be too rural.

Our current house is about 20 minutes from a hospital, 18 minutes to the nearest shopping plaza (although we have a gas station, Dollar general, and pizzeria 5 minutes away). My wife and I made the conscious decision to move to a house that doubled her commute and left mine about the same to "get away from it all". For us that was the best decision we've made.

Good grief are those things popping up all over the place. Last spring we went to Missouri and Arkansas just bumming around. Out in the middle of nowhere, but any 2-lane state road with a population sign seemed to have a Dollar General and a closed gas station. Same thing is happening in Indiana.

 

[MossRoad]

Bloom where you are planted...

Get outa Dodge...

 

[DMax82]

Good grief are those things popping up all over the place. Last spring we went to Missouri and Arkansas just bumming around. Out in the middle of nowhere, but any 2-lane state road with a population sign seemed to have a Dollar General and a closed gas station. Same thing is happening in Indiana.

They are everywhere here in Tennessee (headquartered in Nashville). I have one .6 miles from my house, and it is mighty convenient for all the little things. It is amazing to me though, that many folks seem to use it as their primary grocery store.

 

[shooterdon]

Funny how things work. The ONLY things I miss after moving to rural MI from the suburbs are:

Cheap, limitless internet
The Trap club I used to shoot at
Seeing my sons as often as I would like
A handful of friends.

For me it has been a great experience. I had a live in girlfriend for a while but that did not last. After we parted ways, being alone most of the time did not bother me but there were days it did. Another lady entered the picture two years ago and she will be living here full time in a week. She says she loves it here but I worry she may have second thoughts after a few months. I have been upfront with her and she knows I am not going to leave if she tires of the rural life.

I worked too hard and long to leave my "little slice of heaven". The Lord will let me know when I cannot live here any longer....no one else.

 

[BigBlue1]

In 2016 we moved from a suburban environment to 'out in the country'. Which isn't severely remote, but is certainly rural. It was one of the primary reasons for moving. I grew up on the outskirts of a small town and liked rural type things like mowing big lawns, hunting/shooting on my property, cutting wood, having a shop and equipment, etc. Plus being able to see the stars at night, which is really difficult near a major metro area. I went 20+ years without being able to see the Milky Way.

Living somewhat remote is good on many fronts and challenging on many fronts. We like to cook, but we also like to eat at a variety of good restaurants from time to time and now we're not close. We're 15+ minutes from the nearest town that has a handful of restaurants and larger stores to shop at (Menards, big grocery store, Wal-mart/Target, etc). We're also 45 min to an hour from major metro areas with things like warehouse stores and a good variety of shopping options (for whatever), health/dental provider selection, etc. If we were closer it would be easier to get to that stuff (and less expensive in time and gas) but it would also put us nearer to busy roads and lots of people. So, at present it is a pretty good compromise. The benefits of either side would be greater (closer to metro == easier to get stuff; further == less people to deal with & quieter) but would so would the drawbacks. Part of me would love to live in the mountains of Wyoming/Montana/Idaho, but that would really put us a long way from 'civilization'. I'm not sure I'm ready for that.

Choosing our location involved prioritizing a bunch of the things from Don's list. Having Internet access was at the top because both of our jobs require a good connection. The rest of our criteria was easily met by the place we found and focused on: Located on a paved road, acreage (we have 10), no 'next door' neighbors, surrounded by fields & trees, nice house that isn't a 100 year-old farmhouse, lots of shed space, within 10 miles of a small town with gas/grocery/dollar store. But the ISP options were limited. Basically there was only one, a DSL provider with a bare-bones connection (called 5 Mbps, but realistically 1.5-3) and we had to pull some strings to even keep that because the prior owner had the connection but 'new customers' were limited to a sub 1 Mbps connection due to growth restrictions. We made it work for a while and then - thanks to this forum - found a cell-based option that has much better speeds (15-30) and was pretty cheap. Now we're living in a good balance mostly and enjoying it all. Plus I got to upgrade my garden tractor and get a MCUT, which I get a ton of use out of. Life is good. But we're thinking of what our future holds in 5-10 years as the kids graduate and move on to their own lives.

I can relate to the 'much too rural' topic of this thread because a lot of people I knew while living in the suburbs think I have basically moved to Canada. "You're HOW far out?? 45 minutes from the cities?? Whoa!" It's all perspective... I remember my early days of working in a big corporation in Minneapolis and some of the ivy league urbanites that I worked with had the same reaction about me living in the outer suburbs of the cities. "That's way out by the fields..." Meh...

Rob

 

[Molalla1]

If you are close enough to see smoke from your neighborç—´ chimney you are too close !

Now that is close standards! One neighbor away from me chimney is 3/4 of a mile from me and I sure can see it (the smoke) on a clear day . . .

 

[Imold]

Wife and I like rural living, the farther from other folks the better, matter of fact I bought 12.7 acres farther out in the rural area then we are now, it will be our retirement property when we get the home built in a few years, I am hoping sooner then later.

 

[BrokenTrack]

So...
What made you move 6 people into a tiny house and give up what you had?
Sounds like it was a great place to live.
Was the tiny house MORE remote?

No, we have a few houses, and one was of my Late Grandmother just across the road.

We had been approached by a couple from church who wanted a house for their adult son (married) and adult daughter (married) who would share our house and save some money on their own individual rents. They suggested we move into my Late-Grandmother's home, and rent our bigger home out to their children, That would give us some extra money, so we fixed up the other Tiny House, and then moved in on October 7th 2018.

But after we moved in, the two couples realized they could not pay for the rent, the heat, electricity, etc so they never moved in.

So the house sat vacant all winter. We figured since we were getting along without it, and since we own it outright, we could sell it and be completely debt free. We own quite a bit of land, so why not sell what is unused, and the most valuable? So we put it up for sale, but it never sold despite 4 offers. We even tried to rent it again, but when that fell through, then we knew it just not what the Lord wanted in our lives. It was a good plan, but it was not GOD"S PLAN.

But we liked Tiny House living, the cost of living there was half that of living in the bigger house, and as a family we were close-knit. We got rid of 2/3 of our stuff, and really pared down on everything, something I like because I am a minimalist by nature. But Tiny House living can be hard on a marriage too because there is no place for a husband and wife to get away. I do not just mean sex, although that is an issue too, but just being able to have private conversations. In a Tiny House, you can hear everything, so it is kind of tough.

If the house had sold, we would have been fine living in a Tiny House, but with a nice house sitting thee, not being sold, or even rented out, why not move back in? So we did.

But we would have not given up anything except the house and a few acres. We own hundreds of acres, so we were not going anywhere. We got a yet a third house in New Hampshire, so we put that house up for sale, and will see what happens with that house.