Dear World: I Moved to the Country for "The Simple Life." It's Cost Me More Than Traveling the World Ever Did.

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

Owning property in the countryside requires you to be a big, fat moneybags (apparently).

Big, fat moneybagssss, big, fat moneybaggggssss! If I knew how to sing, I’d sing it as a parody. Nothing has surprised me more than how much it costs to live in the middle of nowhere.

Don’t worry. I am not a moneybags. I don’t even have warm socks. But, since purchasing this 1800s farmhouse on five wooded acres in a county with the highest number of dirt roads in the state? I have had to shift my spending in ways I never expected.

Owning property here is VERY, MANIACALLY different from when I had my third-floor snack in Philly.

And, it’s WORLDS different from nomading.

Guess which one’s cheaper?

***

People used to be like: Ash, how can you afford to travel & live abroad full-time?

And, the answer is simple: I DIDN’T NEED TO BUY STUFF.

This is, perhaps, the biggest surprise of buying this property in the countryside: you need to buy SO MANY THINGS. So many more things than you need in a city. And so many more things than you need if you live out of a suitcase.

At first I was all, “Hahaha, this will be cute, let’s buy some property and become A REAL ESTATE MOGUL.” Loose goal, haha. And, I bought this property because I have a historical tie to the area and I thought the property costs & cost of living would be low enough that it wouldn’t make me unreasonable. (I am sometimes unreasonable.)

But, here’s the thing I’ve discovered:

Yes, the wine is dirt cheap. Yes, the mozzarella sticks are, too. You know what else is cheap? Deer feed. Yes, fucking deer feed. Because now I have a mom and baby deer in the backyard and DON’T THINK I AM NOT COMPLETELY AT THEIR MERCY.

But you know what is decidedly *not* cheap?

The hidden fees that come with country life.

So if you’re a fun little toe fungus like me and you’re romanticizing a slower life in the woods, LET ME GIVE YA THE SHAKE DOWN.

Here is a tidy list of the major expenses I have as a property owner in the countryside:

1. Mortgage
2. Property taxes
3. School taxes
4. Homeowner’s insurance
5. Electric bill (mine’s coming in at ~$800/mo with electric heat, another $400/mo for the cottage)
6. Propane bill (another $300/mo for the fireplace)
7. Sewer bill ($500/quarter for both house and cottage)
8. Trash bill
9. Jeep payment
10. Jeep insurance
11. Bug guy
12. Wifi
13. Purchase: Four wheeler
14. Purchase: Lawn mower
15. Purchase: Snow blower
16. Purchase: Generator
17. Purchase: Power tools (I literally own, like, 8 kinds of saws for maintaining the property: chain saws, pole saws, reciprocating saws, oscillating saws, circular saws, jigsaws, planer saws, tile saws! LITERALLY THIS IS MY STASH - doesn’t include things like leaf blowers and augers and shovels and hoses and, and, anddddd, anddddddddddddd!)
18. Purchase: Washer/Dryer (2)
19. Purchase: Stove (2)
20. Purchase: 3 new exterior doors
21. Purchase: 5 new exterior windows
22. Purchase: New electric service and panel boxes
23. Purchase: Lumber for replacing floor
24. Purchase: Landscaping plants, bushes, flowers, mulch, window boxes
25. Purchase: New tiles, floor tiles, sinks, faucets, toilets
26. Purchase: Artwork, paint, wallpaper, lighting, and way too many Sampilize samples, hahahaha
27. Purchase: Tree work (10+ diseased Ash trees removed for safety, no relation)
28. Purchase: Driveway work (replacing sluice pipes, re-graveling)
29. ANDDDDD, Purchase: Torpedo heater, to heat the pipes in the basement when they freeze (it’s happened the last 3 nights in a row in the cottage, hooray!)
30. And finally?????? THE BIGGIE. Are you ready for this super duper unexpected expense? HAVING TO PAY ~$20K/YEAR MORE IN INCOME TAX. When you’re a digital nomad and you’re outside of the states for 330 days/year (doesn’t have to be consecutive), your first $132,900 in income earned while you’re abroad—yes, even online—is excluded from federal taxation. ⚠️ (Look up the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, otherwise known as FEIE. I took advantage of this throughout all my twenties and thirties, allowing me to save more than my peers and benefit significantly.)

Here is a tidy list of the major expenses I had as a property owner in Philly:

1. Mortgage
2. Property taxes
3. School taxes
4. Homeowner’s insurance
5. Electric bill
6. Water bill
7. Trash bill
8. A LOT OF WINE BARS
9. A LOT OF UBERS

Here is a tidy list of the major expenses I had as a digital nomad traveling the world for two decades:

1. Rent
2. A LOT OF WINE BARS
3. A LOT OF UBERS

My point is that perception isn’t real.

People assume “setting down” is the responsible, safe option. But, is it?

I know that not everyone needs everything I just listed, but I’ll tell you what: there are lots of things on that list that you do need (and probably a bunch I forgot). When you live in the country, you need a lawn mower that can do all of the mowing. You need some kind of snowblower when you get two feet of snow, like we did last week. You need to become self-sufficient in ways you would never have to in the city, and certainly not if you didn’t own property at all.

Do I regret the purchase?

Hell no. I’m having a ball. And, in proper Ash style, I don’t take myself too seriously. I don’t ever think “welp, this is the end of the road for me.” I always assume I’ll move on to something new when I’m excited about something new. So nothing ever makes me feel trapped.

I view everything in my life as an experiment.

All are successful in so many ways.

Not all are experiments I keep living forever, though.

It’s a thrill to see how many people you can become in one lifetime. Everyone is so worried about seeming like they ArE a VeRy SeRiOuS pErSon—complete with very serious resume and matching pair of aggressively engineered undies—and I’m over here being like, “Wait, but I still have to start my wallpaper company! And become a photojournalist! And work with hotels! And teach hillbillies how to travel Europe!” (I can say it because I was one, snappp. ✌️)

Perhaps this is why the traveler cannot stop traveling:

We aren’t running from a life.
We’re trying to fit more lives into one.

After all, nothing beats the high of “maybe.”

Maybe this is the kind of trench coat I’d wear all the time if I actually lived in London. Maybe I’d have friends like these if I cold plunged in Copenhagen. Maybe I’d have a cooler hair cut if I lived in Berlin.

Maybe I’d be a cooler version of myself, anywhere.

How can you ever stop looking, once you’ve opened Pandora’s box? It’s like catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, and liking it. How often can we say that? It happens more when you’re traveling because you’re cosplaying who you wish you were.

No one knows that you usually wear your hair pulled back like Captain Hook. No one knows you usually wear sweats all day because you’re writing on the couch.

And being here in the countryside is yet another grand experiment to see what kind of person I become when I stay still.

It’s one of the most creative things I’ve ever done.

The act of micro-reinventing yourself every day.

In a different place, you put the pieces of yourself together differently. And that’s when you can see yourself clearest.

Right now, I still like the reflection in the mirror. I like my rubber boots, whom I’ve named “Helen.” I like putting my sweaty little feet by the fire. I like learning how to drive in the snow. I like the challenge of making something beautiful that feels permanent; more permanent than the internet, more permanent than a newsletter, more permanent than a fleeting post.

More permanent than me.

But, as I’m learning?

Nothing about this life is actually cheaper. It’s just quieter about where it sends the bill.

The city charges you for culture. Nomad life charges you for novelty. The countryside charges you for permanence—up front, annually, and whenever the pipes decide to freeze out of spite.

I may not be a moneybags, but I’ve apparently joined a very exclusive club called People Who Own Eight Saws and Still Don’t Have Warm Socks.

And that’s okay.

Because every life has a cover charge.

This one just happens to include deer feed.