I get tired of the endless advertising and posts that tell you how foolish renting is and how it’s better to be in hock to a bank then a landlord because in a few decades you’ll have some equity in a dumpy old house that you still have to pay property taxes on or the government will seize it. Advocates for home ownership seem to always forget the high cost of commuting in an automobile compared to a bus or bicycle, not to mention all the costs of building and yard maintenance. Or the cost of electricity to light and gas to heat a vast space. Or the endless appliances, carpet, roofs, windows you have to go through as a homeowner. Or the furniture you need to buy. I hate those plush sofas and EZ-Chairs that you see in so many houses covered with cat hair overlooking the 900 foot wide smarty televisions connected to internet. All shit you have to buy as a suburbanite house owner.
Mortgage companies always like to promote their options and assistance for those needing help with a down payment. You shouldn’t worry if you don’t have enough cash up front. Don’t you know renters are super poor, depsrate people. But that’s certainly not my problem. I could buy with cash today if I wanted to pay the Capital Gains tax. A lot of off gridders are quite poor, the emphasis seems to be on cheap rural land and the affordability of building a small cabin. Don’t you know if you build a small cabin by hand, you could have something for under $10k. Framing ain’t that hard, and if it’s not perfect, if it keeps you dry and warm, you can survive. But for me that’s not the issue, I make a good salary at my position and have been saving and investing for decades now. If I wanted to build something fancy, I probably could, especially if my savings and investments continue to grow over the next decade.
Maybe my adverision to homeownership is purely that I can’t move out to country and have a burn barrel and burn a lot of stinky plastic trash without having the cops up my ass. Or that I can’t just walk into a store or garage sale and buy a handgun that I can shoot at targets off my back porch. Or that I have to comply with building and health codes, which are pre-supposed to prefer landfilling over anything else. But I actually think it’s more then that – I don’t want to be tied down to New York State – and I want something simpler close to a hunting cabin on acerage in a small rural area, far away from any big city. Where nobody is going to care, where I can live my life without all the gadgets that constantly wear out and need hauling to landfill and replacement like is common in the typical suburban house climate control and flush toilets and sinks. I don’t want to have to deal with constantly handing big wads of cash to plumbers and mechanics, nor do I want to spend my weekends messing with a lawnmower engine, cutting grass and painting walls.
But maybe I am a bit jealous of my friends and colleagues who do have homesteads out in the country, or those celebrating their first home purchase, but I just can’t my find myself committing to New York State like that.. I want to get out, to wider open spaces, maybe not next week but I want to keep my options open especially when early retirement is an option less then 13 years away at this point. Which is not a long time – Big Red just turned 13 1/2 years old – and it seems like yesterday when I got that truck new. I guess to reject the dream of the suburban single family house in favor of a hand-built shack on acerage in a deep rural area of a freer state is just a sign of my severe mental illness.
This book I am reading makes a good point about the Midwest – the land is cheap, people are friendly and laid back, zoning and codes regulations tend to be much less with less enforcement. Conservative cultural norms are more laid back, preferring that government stay off people’s land and out of private businesses.
Building and living in an off-grid ‘tiny’ house or cabin is much easier when you don’t have to deal with nearly as aggressive of code inspectors. Buying a handgun or other firearm for hunting and personal protection is just as easy – fill out the federal paperwork, have them do a quick background check, and pay the cashier, and walk out with your new gun. Outhouses and composting toilets are easier to get approved, if there is any review at all. As long as there isn’t a high fire risk, you’re free to burn your trash and debris, typically with no permit. Off-road shops, ATVs, snowmobiles, and alike abound, often with a good trail system to ride not too far from home. Good-sized white tails, geese, ducks for hunting and other wildlife abound in the rural landscape.
The flip side, as the book notes, is the Midwest is mostly flat or with rolling hills. There aren’t the big mountains to hike, the state forests and national forests are much smaller part of the landscape – and often far away. The distances are spread out, they mean a lot of driving to get to work, shopping, or healthcare. Much of the Midwest is gritty and industrial, with lots of big farms and industry in cities and surrounding areas. Farmers for the most part don’t care what you do on your land, but recognize they have a business to do and that includes spreading manure and applying pesticides their fields, sometimes late at night with big loud tractors. Cows can be noisy, even if they are fun to watch graze. Hunters hunt, they have loud guns. People love shooting. I get it, I grew up in the country. I like doing many of those things too.
I am not one for conservative politics per se. If anything, I have become less political in recent years, focused on my own life concerns, making and saving money. I actually kind of like the idea of living in a culture that is less politically liberal, one more focused on natural resources and using them efficiently. Is there a thread in conservative politics that is entirely irresponsible and not based in reality? Sure, but it’s hard for a farmer, a hunter, and outdoors-man not to love and respect the resources that produce for them.
