Sarah and I live in Toronto, Ontario with our four cats in a rented basement apartment below Sarah’s business venture, Mostly Math. It’s a fine existence, but it’s pricy. We don’t really take advantage of living in the city anymore. Our life revolves around a 5.5-km stretch of Sheppard Avenue East, from Yonge Street to Fairview Mall. I would estimate that we spend a few hours per month away from that stretch of road. This is one of the many reasons we’re moving to Dauphin, Manitoba this summer (2007).
Yep, the corner of Nothing and Nowhere. At least, compared to Toronto.
I would say the primary motivator for leaving the city is financial: we want to own a house, but are not prepared to pay $400-500k for “something decent”. That kind of mortgage is a death sentence for us, given that our goal is financial freedom before age 40 (the year 2014). Sarah, a born researcher and information junkie, found Dauphin on the web in 2004, so we visited it, looking for houses, a business, the possibility of a new life there. We liked what we saw.
In 2005, we acquired the Dauphin location of the Academy of Learning. This has been a definite learning experience for me, as I have never had employees before. Although our business is education, something both Sarah and I already do professionally, dealing with government education bodies is something Sarah already did and doesn’t want to do again. Not only that, but we’ve had to learn how to register for business in a new province and how to manage people from a distance of thousands of kilometers. Overall, I think we’ve done well. No-one has quit on us for incompetence, at least.
In 2006, we began renting out houses in earnest. We’d trifled with it previously, but we bought a second house in October and have happy tenants there. This has brought its own challenges, like dealing with highly transient tenants, handling late rent payments and the other joys of being a landlord. We are now preparing our first house for ourselves to move into this summer.
In 2007, we plan to simply make the transition and try to survive it. I’ll be frank: I’ve computed how long we need to stay in Dauphin before moving there and back becomes less expensive than staying here and renting. Still, I like the people I’ve met, I like the idea of a slower lifestyle and I like the idea of leaving in a well-renovated house we own free and clear. It will be enough, I think, to get through the first winter and enjoy our new life.
In 2008? Well, I have no idea. I’ll revisit that in about six months.
PS: If you don’t get the reference in the title, you must not be a fan of Frasier.
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