When we first got married almost ten years ago, we lived on a 1,000 acre beef farm in a rural area of Georgia. It was considered “remote” by most people. Our nearest Wal-Mart was 26 miles away. The nearest town with a gas station and one red light was 12 miles away. While the house was on the pitiful side and needed to be pushed over, it was a great location and beautiful. There were 139 people living around our area.
(see that little spot wwwaaayyy back at the tree line, almost in the middle of the picture? That’s our second most favorite spot in the world.)
I’m truly sorry that we don’t have many pictures of the place. I was young, and didn’t realize how special it really was.
Then in year four of being married, we moved to the “city”. It really wasn’t a city at all, but we were only a mere 10 minutes away from the East side of Athens, a Wal-Mart and other luxuries (yyyyuuummmm…chick fil a). Church was only a small 5 minute drive. We had neighbors all around and no dirt roads for miles and miles. We had 357 people in our “city”.
Now, we live 20 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart, grocery store, church, post office, bank and public gas station. The nearest Southern Baptist Church is 20 miles away and the second is 50 miles away. We have 35-50 people in our ZIP CODE…not the city…the zip code.
(looking south into downtown..through the windshield.)
(city hall)
(gas pump. You have to be a member of the local co-op. Turns on by scanning a card. We are not members)
For you Georgia folks…here’s a comparison of your city/zip code populations according to the 2010 census:
Lexington…239
Carlton…260
Ila…337
Danielsville…560
Colbert…592
Crawford…807
Franklin Springs…952
Winterville…1,122
Comer…1,126
Royston…2,582
(small community south of us)
When we first got married, we both agreed that at some point I would stay at home. We decided that it would be best to start off by living off of one income and budget all monies made and save one income. We also agreed to be debt free.
So far, it’s worked for us. It takes a good deal of planning and organization, but it’s the main reason I’m able to stay at home with two kids in diapers, eat, have air conditioning, internet and satellite TV.
I plan all our meals for the month, go to the grocery store once a month*, and go to town twice a week. One day is just basic errands and to get out of the house, story time at the library, go to the park, etc. The other day, Sunday, is a day to go to church and a lunch date with Wooster.
There’s not much of “running to the store” or “swing by the store on our way home”. So, we have to plan. There are times that I forget a certain ingredient for a recipe, or forgot to put an essential item on the grocery list. I’ll just wait to make that meal until I get back to town.
Meal planning is also good if neither one of us is “feeling” up to eating a certain meal. You can switch things around easily, because you have everything to make meals. You don’t want chili today? Fine. We’ll make chicken enchiladas instead.
We have a big deep freezer that I freeze and store our extra: butter, cheese, milk, meat, and bread.
Fresh produce is picked up once a week when I “go to town”. (I would LOVE to do Bountiful Baskets, but we don’t have that option available in our little town yet.)
Every Wednesday, I review the meal calendar, supplies, produce and make adjustments.
The last Wednesday or Saturday of the month, I’ll sit down and plan the next month’s meals.
I don’t really do much couponing. We don’t get a newspaper, so I am subscribed to some coupon sights via facebook. I catch some deals. Our little library also has a coupon exchange box. You can take or leave any coupons you want. I look through the box once a week when we go to story time. Some of the time you can find good deals, but sometimes you don’t.
Dillon’s, our Mid-West version of Kroger, has GREAT manager deals every week. I get our bread, milk and some meat there. Just last week I got milk for 1.97 a gallon. I also got bread for 49 cents a loaf. Those extras go into the deep freezer.
(BUSINESS HOURS OPEN WHEN I AM HERE CLOSED WHEN I AM NOT HERE) (old store south of us in Cullison)
Rural living is quiet, nice and rather easy. There’s no real hussle and bussle. Unless you count planting, cultivating, sprinkler season, wheat harvest, corn harvest, soy bean harvest and calving. J
It requires a good bit of planning, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
