We are currently house-hunting. We've pretty much picked an area - we might not move there if we end up hating it, but chances are good that we're going to end up in it. So here's the issue... The area is a smaller town (though for some of you I guess it'd be huge) of about 4000 people. It's an older area so the lots are pretty small - on average the nicer ones are about 1/4 acre. Some are up to 1/2 and a few are a whole acre.
If we stayed within the village limits we would save a ton on utilities and other misc. expenses. Don't ask me how that worked out - you'd think that living in the outskirts it'd be cheaper, right? Well, apparently not. This is the big thing, because we were originally going to look for a house a little while from town. We're also going to be in a snowy area, so that's a consideration - we need easy access, and there really isn't easier access than the village itself. Plus DH "needs" cable Internet and only the village gets cable. (Which is ridiculous - Europe is SO far ahead of the U.S. in this regard! But anyway.) And I mean, DH isn't really on board with homesteading so he probably wouldn't be a lot of help fencing/mowing/etc. It'd probably be easier with less land, if I'm stuck doing all the work.
However, this would mean that we'd be compromising a bit. I could still have a garden, and possibly chickens (not sure.. called code enforcement to check as a lot of places in NY don't allow chickens, but they haven't called me back yet). I could still line dry and can and we already sourced some farms to get our meat from, and probably dairy too. We could do all the urban homesteading stuff and then some (since we'd have an actual yard).
We would be sacrificing privacy, the ability to keep goats, etc... I'm also not sure what sort of trees we could plant on a smaller lot. Chances are if we had more acreage we could just find a good spot for them but that may not be the case if it was a city lot. Could ya'll please help remind me what else we'd be giving up if we lived in town instead of outside it? I'm kind of blinded by the cost factor but I don't want to be regretting the decision to be in town down the line.
If we stayed within the village limits we would save a ton on utilities and other misc. expenses. Don't ask me how that worked out - you'd think that living in the outskirts it'd be cheaper, right? Well, apparently not. This is the big thing, because we were originally going to look for a house a little while from town. We're also going to be in a snowy area, so that's a consideration - we need easy access, and there really isn't easier access than the village itself. Plus DH "needs" cable Internet and only the village gets cable. (Which is ridiculous - Europe is SO far ahead of the U.S. in this regard! But anyway.) And I mean, DH isn't really on board with homesteading so he probably wouldn't be a lot of help fencing/mowing/etc. It'd probably be easier with less land, if I'm stuck doing all the work.
However, this would mean that we'd be compromising a bit. I could still have a garden, and possibly chickens (not sure.. called code enforcement to check as a lot of places in NY don't allow chickens, but they haven't called me back yet). I could still line dry and can and we already sourced some farms to get our meat from, and probably dairy too. We could do all the urban homesteading stuff and then some (since we'd have an actual yard).
We would be sacrificing privacy, the ability to keep goats, etc... I'm also not sure what sort of trees we could plant on a smaller lot. Chances are if we had more acreage we could just find a good spot for them but that may not be the case if it was a city lot. Could ya'll please help remind me what else we'd be giving up if we lived in town instead of outside it? I'm kind of blinded by the cost factor but I don't want to be regretting the decision to be in town down the line.
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