A Moving Experience

The subject comes up every once and a while: Should we move?

And by move, I don’t mean a cross-country haul, but more like moving from Madison County back to Bonneville County, where our parents are, where most of the family is and where we do most of our shopping.

When we moved to Rexburg, both of us had jobs there. Our move to Sugar City got us a bigger house, but also still in proximity to our workplaces. Now neither of us work in Madison County. I, in fact, work in Butte County, a mere 1 ½ hours from home by bus. So the thought is since we’re no longer tied to Madison County for employment, would it make more sense for us to move further south, putting me within an hour of work and that much closer to our families?

I have mixed feelings.

Housing is definitely less expensive where we are now. And where we are now there was a buyer’s market in single-family housing before the economy collapsed, so you can imagine what it’s like now. Houses have sold in the neighborhood, yes, but not after sitting on the market for a very, very long time. Which may be advantageous to us. We’re not in a hurry.

But the kids are in school here, and we like the schools. We like the quiet of our little town. To replicate that, we’d have to live in the country somewhere, since Michelle isn’t convinced Iona, the little Bonneville County town she grew up in, is the little town she knew as a kid any more. Living in the country would be jim dandy with me, but there’s the expense. Houses down there are on the market for at least $50,000 more than they are up here. We’d have a bigger house payment – going into a year when the company I’m working for is looking to lay off about 600 people. I’m hopeful I’m not in that category, but I can’t make any guarantees.

Then there are other considerations: We’ve accumulated a lot of stuff over the ten years we’ve lived here, including a season’s worth of firewood, which I don’t necessarily want to have to move if I can just put it up the chimney first.

No matter, of course. This is all speculative. And besides, we all kinda like the isolation we’ve got where we are . . .