There was a great post on Treehugger recently that I’ve bookmarked for more serious contemplation.
Although they may be neither popular, nor well known, there are alternatives to the two major housing options of “buy” vs. “rent.” It seems like every day I personally vacillate between wanting to live in a Parisian apartment overlooking local markets and wanting to live on a lakefront, almost cottage-y property. In the first case, we’d walk everywhere we needed to go and in the second case we’d generate our own electricity and grow some of our own food. I just can’t decide whether I want to live with people or get the heck away from them.
We’ll likely be where we are for some time to come, but Dauphin was always a calculated, strategic move. So far it has pretty much worked according to plan. We’re closing on houses #8 and #9 on August 1, and our rental income will provide more than we need to live comfortably there. And for the total cost of all 9 houses we’ve purchased, we still would have been only able to buy the most entry-level of entry-level homes in Toronto. (And, that would be with us paying for the privilege of ownership, not being paid enough that we don’t have to work!)
As I said to Joe last night, although yes, we can consider ourselves “retired” from traditional careers, our “job” right now is to figure out where we really want to live next and how we will be able to afford it. It’s not as easy as you might think, and you really do need to be semi-retired before you can tackle that task; you can’t know what you really want out of living when don’t yet have the freedom to just “live.”
If I were still tutoring, I would be too busy and preoccupied to really think about what I wanted out of a house, community or local environment. How was I to know, for example, that I really don’t mind “cooking*” when my previous life was arranged in such a way that preparing food was nothing but a huge inconvenience? When I had taken probably less than a dozen baths in my whole adult life (and had never seen Joe take a single one!), how was I to know that we would treasure our jacuzzi tub? There is a lot you discover about yourself when you stop “working” and start doing what might be work for some, but is really just an activity for you.
That’s why I don’t think of it as a “failure” that Dauphin won’t be the place we live for the next 30 years. Rather, moving somewhere that is decidedly not our retirement paradise was the smartest thing we ever did:
- We had no illusions or unrealistic expectations of the perfect life. (It was a stop along the way – another phase of the plan.)
- We chose to move solely based on finances (including of course our required amenities and necessities) so there is less of an emotional attachment to where we live. (Leaving Toronto was emotionally so much tougher than leaving Dauphin will ever be.)
- We put ourselves in the best position to figure out what we really wanted, and didn’t assume we already knew what that was. (How could “Rat Race Rainsbergers” even pretend to know what “Retired Rainsbergers” want or need out of life?)
- Although it wasn’t part of the original plan, travel is such a huge part of our lives that we can somewhat experience and compare locations. Two weeks ago we were in Ireland and I’m writing this now from Malvern, PA. In August and September alone we’re projected to be in Dauphin, Winnipeg, Toronto, Oshawa, “the cottage,” Brampton, Niagara Falls (ON and NY), Chicago, Turkey, the Netherlands and Costa Rica. If we can’t find something we like, it sure isn’t from a lack of trying!
And, if home ownership in Dauphin means we get to travel like this, then maybe there’s even something to be said for not doing too much of your “living” where you live!
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* – I still hate “cooking” and will refuse to prepare anything that involves the actual cooking of meat. And, much fewer of our meals are actually “cooked” now since we’ve been eating a lot raw. So, I use the word cooking to mean “making meals.” But, what I have discovered is that I like the act of chopping vegetables, I don’t mind boiling things into a soup and as long as Joe’s not sick of honey-mustard, I’m quite happy to make our own salad dressing.
Consider an ordinary-looking receipt. I have to process this for my corporate income taxes. I use QuickBooks Pro to do my books, although I imagine this problem exists in all major book-keeping software. I have to enter a tax code for this transaction in order to get the input tax credit (ITC) related to the GST I paid which, I should mention, comes to $2.49. Look at how hard I have to work for my $2.49.
