spoonman's Journal

[cmonkey]

Our ideal location is a 3-5 acre acreage in the middle of no where. No neighbors, wide open views, no pollution and lots of room to run around! Preferably on the edge of a small Midwestern town with 1-3K people in it so I could bike to the store and not fear for my life.

Property taxes for many defunct acreages are sub 2K per year even with a lot of land. This one is 9+ acres, 2 acre pond for ~1800 /per year. Can't beat it.

[George the original one]

Since we have an Airbnb rental we can't really rearrange the furniture.

Sure you can, you just have to put it back when you're done! Of course, if new furniture is required, then that's a different ballgame.

[spoonman]

@cmonkey: There's a chance we might gravitate towards the midwest if we no longer care about urban environments. As you point out, there are very tangible ERE advantages to isolated small towns in the midwest. My one concern about living in the middle of nowhere is the potential lack of culture, which is something I really value. Can't have it all I guess =).

@GTOO: The problem with our current place is that some of the furniture is practically bolted down. The few pieces of furniture in the studio are too bulky to move around.

[cmonkey]

That would be great if you ended up here someday, particularly if we were within reasonable driving distance from each other. It would be fun to meet someday.

Have you ever lived in the midwest before? There are a lot of small towns with old-time culture and really neat downtown areas with history.

[spoonman]

@cmonkey: I spent a summer in Michigan back in 2000. I had a pleasant experience because I was living on-campus at Michigan State. I don't know how much I would have liked it in the winter =).

[Pronoid]

How has your AirBnB experience been thus far? Now that you've been in two different long term rentals, are you still planning on using that service for your next spot? I'm strongly considering doing something very similar when my time comes which is why I'm curious. Not having to deal with craigslist and short term leases would be fantastic. Also, paying for rent with a credit card would be great. My family came to visit me recently and rented a small house on the beach using AirBnB. Seemed very nice and definitely easily livable long term. A lot of the more desirable locations seem a bit pricey at a monthly rate, though.

[Kriegsspiel]

@cmonkey: There's a chance we might gravitate towards the midwest if we no longer care about urban environments. As you point out, there are very tangible ERE advantages to isolated small towns in the midwest. My one concern about living in the middle of nowhere is the potential lack of culture, which is something I really value. Can't have it all I guess =).

Hey Spoon, don't discount all of the urban cities in the Midwest! Plus we have a ton of smaller college towns that are full of culture, if you mean concerts, street art, and people walking around. They're pretty affordable too, with your income you can live very well. You don't have to live hours away from a city if you don't want to.

Or do you mean that IF you wanted to live in a non-urban environment, you'd do it in the Midwest?

[cmonkey]

I don't know how much I would have liked it in the winter =).

True, the winters here can get very long.....particularly for someone that enjoys being outdoors/gardening. We have often wondered what it would be like to live in a place where we could garden year round. I would miss the autumn (favorite season) if I lived in a warmer climate, but maybe there is an area with chilly autumns and mild winters all in one.

[spoonman]

@IwantLess: Yeah, we plan on continuing to use Airbnb. Btw, this is actually our first Airbnb rental, our place in the PNW was just a regular 6 month lease. There aren't that many good alternative services out there. The thing about Airbnb is that it's a nice, turn-key system that allows us to skip a lot of bullshit. You mentioned monthly rates, those are actually the cheapest ones on a rent/day basis. Places tend to have a daily rate, a weekly rate, and a monthly rate. Putting our rent (and in effectively our utilities as well) on the credit card has proved very fruitful, our credit card rewards have been coming in a lot faster.

@Kriegsspiel: I'm sure midwest urban cities are great (and so are the college towns, some of which I've experienced first hand), it's the colder climate that I'm worried about. If we wanted to live in a non-urban environment, we'd try to do so in place with a relatively mild winter, such as that in the PNW. I think the mid-west is great in the spring, summer, and fall...but winters are a whole different story. Most people I knew in LA from the mid-west told me how they could never go back to those winters, that they were thoroughly spoiled by the LA weather. But Spoongirl and I could very well change our minds and make the trade off between cold winters and a bigger place to live.

@cmonkey: That sounds like an interesting combination, maybe places along the east coast and the PNW are like that.

[spoonman]

#128 07/29/2015 -- The Underground City

Before coming to Montreal I never thought that we would see 90 degree weather. I looked at charts of historical average temperatures and don't remember seeing anything higher than the 75 degree range. So the recent heat temperatures have come as a surprise.

When it gets too hot in our studio, we decide to retreat to Montreal's underground city: a vast network of walkways and complexes. It is also known as the indoor city and is the largest underground complex in the world.



Granted, the underground city is full of establishments that cater to the consumerist masses, but it's still a nice place to escape to when outside temperatures become extreme. One of my favorite spots is the Desjardins Complex next to Place des Arts. Its huge open areas remind me of a futuristic arcology or space station.

The weather will let up a bit in the coming days and we'll resume our exploration of other parts of Montreal.

[thrifty++]

There is also a free outdoor swimming pool in a small park setting in Centre Sud that could be an option for you. I think its on Fontaine. Cant remember exact street.

[George the original one]

Why am I suddenly reminded of the movie "Subway"?

[spoonman]

@thrifty++: I'll have to check that out. The last swimming pool we saw in the Plateau charges adults $5.

@GTOO: That looks like a really cool movie, I'll have to watch it!

[KevinW]

I was in Montreal recently and saw the underground city. I agree that it mostly caters to vapid consumerism, but it's still a helpful resource. If nothing else, having ready access to clean free bathrooms and water fountains everywhere downtown is a huge boon to the urban hiker.

[thrifty++]

Ah I just remembered the free swimming pool was on Rue Fullum near Rue Sherbrooke. I just looked it up. Says it is $5 on Saturday Sunday but free the rest of the week. Being ERE you wont need to have your timetable dictated by days of the week
Also there is an outdoor man made beach in Montreal. That was cheap - about $5 per day. It was kind of interesting that it was so urban and had a massive casino on the beach. Worth checking out as a cheap place to cool down. Its on one of the islands that you take the metro to. Exploring the islands generally was quite a fun free thing for me.

[spoonman]

@kevinW: Yup, we're taking advantage of the bathrooms and water fountains to boot. One nice thing about that is we don't have to carry a heavy water bottle everywhere we go.

@thrifty++: Ah, thanks for narrowing it down. I'm intrigued by that beach you describe, we'll have to check it out.

[spoonman]

#129 08/02/2015 -- July Expense Blurb

For the month of July we received $2117 in income. That's higher than usual because we received $50 in cash rewards from our primary credit card. Additionally, back in April we received a $432 special dividend from T. Rowe Price that I forgot to take into account. For the sake of balance, and because we weren't gonna blow all that money in one month, I decided to split that nice little dividend bonus into two parts, $232 for July and $200 for August.

We spent a total of $2073. As usual a good chunk of that was spent on food and drinks, especially at the beginning of the month when we were at the Montreal Jazz Festival (the festival ran from June 26 to July 5). We devoted some of our discretionary dollars to Jazz Festival food and booze. We spent a little more than usual in the Personal Care category because we got ourselves pedicures (I know, not the most masculine thing in the world, but I don't want to be one of those guys with disgusting feet).

I have to admit that had it not been for the money from the special dividend, we would have struggled to stay within budget. I think next time we go to a festival we'll try to be a little more creative with snack options.

[cmonkey]

Do you budget this months expenses based on last months income? I have thought this is what I will do post FI as it would give me a target to keep my expenses under since I wouldnt know this months income until the end.

[spoonman]

@cmonkey: That's a good idea you have there, and I think that's how a lot of YNAB folks do their budgeting, but that's not how we operate. Most of the time we operate on a fixed level of income, but every so often new money trickles in above the standard amount but that's only 2-5% of the standard level. Because of that, I haven't yet bothered to do it in the way you suggested. If in the future we really hit a snag, then we'll probably adopt your methodology.

[spoonman]

#130 08/11/2015 -- Repurposed Banks

The other day we were chilling out in the Plateau area of Montreal and came across this awesome establishment:



It's funny that it got converted to some sort of bar or drinking joint. Maybe that's what the bankers were really doing all along...who knows =).
We've seen several of these repurposed banks. We also ran into an old post office in the Village that got turned into a nightclub. "Repurposed" may not be the right word, but the new businesses are certainly putting the architecture of the building to good use.

I don't quite know the circumstances of these conversions, but I can't help but feel that there's a bit of poetic justice involved here: evil banks repurposed into something more useful to the community. Now, of course, the Canadian banks were not involved in the whole financial meltdown (though that may change soon when interest rates rise and the property asset bubble bursts), and these are just a couple of branches, but still.

The picture below is of another repurposed bank that we encountered on our way to the Westmount neighborhood.