Exploring Lifestyle Alternatives

My father often suggested that an automobile was one of life’s worst investments given its depreciation over time and the fact that most cars remain parked for an overwhelming period of time, perhaps as much as 95% according to some estimates. So one of the upsides of downsizing to Linda and me is that for the vast majority of our married life we have managed to drive only one vehicle.

With the average annual U.S. car insurance premium of about $2,000, people are gradually realizing the overall costs of owning and operating an automobile. Fortunately, ours is only about half that total, and while Linda and I enjoyed leasing several vehicles, it made sense for us to purchase our sedan outright so we are enjoying driving a debt-free car again. However, I am not giving up my dream of getting another Vespa (maybe orange:) for tooling around town.

Billed as America’s first totally car-free community, Culdesac Tempe is expressly designed for walkability, albeit in the Arizona desert, and it incorporates e-bikes into the mix to enhance its pedestrian-friendly vibe. As their website states, “how you move defines how you live,” and it is encouraging to see movement toward a more sustainable lifestyle alternative. What is even more encouraging is the relatively affordable home pricing for residents.  

As Kurt Hoelting writes in The Circumference of Home: One Man’s Yearlong Quest for a Radically Local Life: “The social components of work, family, and community that were once bound together in a village format are compartmentalized here [suburban America] into widely scattered fragments that make little sense on foot. What was originally created around the convenience of cars now remakes the people who drive them into extensions of their own tools.”

And Rebecca Solnit stresses in Wanderlust: A History of Walking: “Walking is only the beginning of citizenship, but through it the citizen knows his or her city and fellow citizens and truly inhabits the city rather than a small privatized part thereof. Walking the streets is what links up reading the map with living one’s life, the personal microcosm with the public macrocosm; it makes sense of the maze all around.” So here is to exploring lifestyle alternatives.

La Vida Local

Living “the local life,” as the above title alludes to, is about settling into a place that suits one physically as well as makes sense fiscally. Our minimalist journey has been about creating a lifestyle that allows us to live in special places affordably, as reflected in our original mantra of “minimize to mobilize.” While our traveling days may be winding down with our recent move here to my home state of Virginia and our related purchase of furniture, we remain very mobile.  

In simple terms, geoarbitrage is the act of relocating yourself to lower your cost of living while improving your overall lifestyle. Coined by Timothy Ferris, the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, geoarbitrage is an embrace of life, travel, freedom, and living life on your own terms. That’s why geoarbitrage is also known as lifestyle arbitrage.

And according to the Southern Living article titled “Smartest Places to Retire,” “Although it’s small, this Shenandoah Valley burg [Lexington] has big appeal, starting with its postcard-perfect Main Street…Shopping local is one of the pleasures of living in this small Virginia town…Downtown Lexington has become a haven for farm-to-table dining.”

Given our location here on Main Street, Linda and I enjoy the walkability of living downtown close to two major universities, multiple bookstores and cafes, and the local library, not to mention the weekly farmer’s market across the street. And the beauty of it all is its relative affordability as compared to our former life in New England.

So, while not everyone is so disposed, the ability to live and move more freely and lightly is one of the many upsides of downsizing. And in our turbulent times, it is one alternative to consider if the situation calls for it. For example, when our last landlord threatened to raise our rent several hundred dollars per month, we were able to pivot and land here in a much more affordable place closer to family and friends. Here is to living la vida local!   

Limiting the Cost of Fees

I don’t know about you, but I have encountered a proliferation of fees lately, which I have been striving to avoid if at all possible. I for one try to limit exposure to said fees by only doing business with those who do not “nickel and dime” me as their customer. Usually there is a work around available so by all means I suggest availing yourself of it.

For example, our national bank does not have local branches near us so we do all our banking online and get cash as necessary from local ATMs that are part of our bank’s fee-free network. Until recently we had three main alternatives but one of them has started charging an access fee of almost four bucks so now we deal with the other two exclusively.  

Also, our property management firm uses an app for tenant business and until recently all electronic payments were free but for some odd reason they started to charge a fee of about three bucks for paying DIGITALLY. So, I now write a check and walk it down the block to the local office to pay our rent, which even creates more work for them, but whatever.

The only other bill I pay with a check is our water bill that I walk down the block to city hall each month. With reference to our online bank, we pay no monthly fees and earn a higher than average interest rate to boot. And there are no minimum balance fees or other charges that most banks typically levy.

Another recent ploy of some businesses is to transfer the usual credit card usage fee to customers, which at about three percent of the overall transaction can add up pretty quickly. So, I either pay cash at such establishments or quit patronizing them. While each of the above fees is not huge in and of itself, they all add up over time, so try to limit the total cost of them.

Practicing Uncommon Sense

I am not a huge podcast enthusiast but Linda and I do like to occasionally watch (as opposed to simply listen to) a handful of podcasts on YouTube in the evenings. And lately a couple of thought leaders I respect have advocated a notion I have long supported given the scarcity of common sense and that is practicing uncommon sense.

Carey Nieuwhof here has featured both Seth Godin and Cal Newport on his leadership podcast and each has stressed their absence on virtually all forms of social media. Godin hosts his own podcast and simply reposts his blog entries elsewhere while Newport limits his online presence to his own blog and podcast, period.   

By definition the minimalist journey is one of living counterculturally and learning to not care so much about the socially accepted way of doing life. And one of our primary forms of resistance is refusing to spend our precious time scrolling mindlessly on social media platforms that monetize our personal data for their own financial benefit.   

Another area that we try to be more intentional is in our news consumption, which is largely limited to local issues since that is all we are in a position to influence. I got to where I was paying too much attention to the news application on my phone and getting stressed watching televised clips before bedtime so I minimize both.

As I have hinted in this and other posts there is much to be said for thinking for ourselves instead of allowing others to unduly influence our belief system and overall lifestyle. If there is one takeaway from the pandemic I think it is the compelling need for us all to learn to discern between the different voices vying for our hearts and minds. “Democracy dies in darkness,” indeed.

Virginia Is For Lovers

As it has been a couple of months since I posted here I figured it was about time I shared the latest news about our move here to my home state of Virginia. Linda and I arrived to find our apartment not quite ready for prime time but that was quickly remedied. Also within our first week here our vehicle was sideswiped in the parking lot by an adjacent hotel guest who fortunately left a note with his contacts that expedited the resolution process. Suffice to say it has been an eventful couple months for us here. 

With living in Maine for the last six years or so we had forgotten all the issues associated with moving between states and Virginia has got to be one of the most regulated states in the nation, as we were quickly reminded during our marathon afternoon spent at the Department of Motor Vehicles. However, we were rewarded with specialty plates featuring our last name on the organ donor plate that Virginia offers for a mere ten extra bucks. 

Even though I am originally from this general vicinity I had not spent much time in Lexington proper other than treating my mother to a carriage ride through town many moons ago. And one of my favorite things about living here is strolling the downtown streets from our loft on Main Street over to the pastoral campus of Washington & Lee University, which dates to 1749 and is the ninth oldest college in America.   

To excerpt an article from USA Today, “If you close your eyes and conjure up the ideal campus—red brick buildings with rows of white columns, a placid commons beneath the arching branches of ivy-covered trees, a small town of 19th century storefronts—you’ve got Washington & Lee” [and by extension, Lexington]. Our home is on the courthouse square and so we are blessed to be within walking distance of several bookstores and cafes, not to mention the ice cream parlor, public library, and post office, among other amenities.

As even non-Virginians probably are aware, the state’s slogan is “Virginia Is For Lovers” and for our part we are enjoying anew the gracious hospitality and southern cuisine of my homeland. We moved home the first of May and it was always my favorite month living here as the entire Shenandoah Valley springs to life with the scents of magnolia blossoms and jasmine vines. I shall take leave of you for now but stay tuned for updates and in the meantime Live Simply! 

Rainbows and Unicorns

As I mentioned in my last post, Linda and I are on the move once more, this time to my beloved home state of Virginia. The other day we secured a lovely apartment in a circa 1890 building in the historic town of Lexington, home of Washington and Lee University. It is within an hour or so of where I am from and where I have family and friends so it will be a homecoming of sorts for me. Virginia is the one state I have lived that Linda has not so I am looking forward to sharing it with her. And the Atlantic Ocean is only a half-day’s drive away!

One of my favorite sayings of late is that living at an isolated yet iconic lighthouse is not all “rainbows and unicorns,” hence the title of this post. Extreme weather events, tons of tourists, annoying drone activity, spotty cell service, intermittent electrical issues, and other inconveniences represent just some of the challenges people may not associate with lighthouse living. Yet with all that said we are blessed to count ourselves among the very few who can say they ever stayed at a lighthouse, much less lived at one.

Speaking of rainbows, the very day we applied for our apartment God gave us the double rainbow pictured above as a reminder of his goodness and faithfulness. As this blog’s subtitle states, Living Large With Less is about “the upside of downsizing” but one downside of our lifestyle is the search intervals associated with moving from place to place as frequently as we do. And negotiating the  “unreal estate” market due to the insane economy only exacerbates an already challenging environment.

This past weekend marked the eleventh anniversary of the sale of our dream home in Florida that launched us on our journey of adventure. And out of curiosity, I did an online search of our former address and discovered that the folks who bought it from us just sold it for a hefty profit. All of which got me thinking about whether or not our sale of it was worth it. And I must say that I cannot imagine not having done so, especially with the intervening pandemic restricting travel and overall enjoyment of life. It was our dream to live in New England and we got to live at a lighthouse as a bonus, so we are blessed indeed!

Lifestyle Design

One of the very first questions people ask us when they learn that we live here at the lighthouse is “how do you deal with all the tourists?” And our answer is that other than parking issues and the occasional after hours visitor, it is not that big a deal given the short duration of the season. With that said, it has gotten me thinking about tourism in general, and travel in particular, especially since I just finished reading Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious by former New York Times Frugal Traveler columnist Seth Kugel.

We do get thousands of visitors to the lighthouse annually, many of whom hear about its appearance in the famous movie Forrest Gump, but we enjoy meeting and chatting with many interesting people from all over the nation and even the world. Just this morning, Linda and I met a wonderful couple from Marblehead, Massachusetts over breakfast at our local general store. They were sailing to Monhegan Island and even shared that meeting us made their day, which also made our day. 

One of the reasons Linda and I downsized originally was to live and move more freely and lightly, including in order to travel and explore other destinations, both near and far. However, we have discovered that with realizing our dream of living at a lighthouse, there are very few other places that we want to go out of our way to visit. In fact, we have spent every night the past couple of years at home since moving here. As Seth Godin says, “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”

Another attraction of living in mid-coast Maine is our proximity to other desirable destinations that we can visit during daytrips up and down the coast. And when we have traveled farther afield we typically follow the advice of author Seth Kugel: “Choose a place where you already know someone, or know someone who knows someone and can hook you up. When readers asked how I chose destinations for [my] columns, I freely admitted that it was often because a friend, or a friend of a friend…lived there.”

To bring my point home, so to speak, I close with a quote from John Urry, author of The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies: “The good tourist would stay at home and would find pleasure and interest in their local area. They would buy goods and services locally…and find pleasure in local walks.” And so we take daily strolls down our narrow inlet, even if it means dodging the seasonal traffic from tourists trying to escape their lives back home.

A Day at the Coast

So, I got to thinking how much I enjoy reading about other “day in the life” stories and thought I’d share a sample of ours here. While the other day was not necessarily a typical one it was the simple sort we try to experience on a frequent basis. And since readers share with me the pleasure of living vicariously through our lighthouse experiences, here you are.

It started as a foggy morning here on the coast of Maine, which was not altogether unusual except for its soupiness. Upon waking with the lighthouse barely visible through our bedroom window Linda and I decided upon an impromptu stroll down the lane from the keeper’s cottage. I snatched my film camera loaded with a black and white roll and headed out the door to snap some photos from our front porch. Linda soon joined me and then we grabbed our smartphones to head out for some digital shots, such as the one pictured above. 

What unfolded was a special time for us since the thick fog scared off the usual morning visitors to our point on the peninsula. We thus had the entire area to ourselves as we leisurely navigated the mile or so down to the stone pillars marked Land’s End, where we turned around and then headed homeward, negotiating the rocky coast enveloped in misty fog and capturing it all with snapshots in time. 

Far from a distraction for us, photography is a means of documenting our lives at the lighthouse. As Gretchen Rubin writes in Happier at Home, “To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory, and photographs are a very helpful tool for prompting happy memories.” And it is fun sharing them with you all here. 

Upon arriving at home, we hopped in the car and headed to our general store for a hearty pancake breakfast before returning to our seaside cocoon and cozying up with reading material and relaxing tunes as the fog gradually lifted to the delight of several late-coming visitors. It was not entirely out of the ordinary but a special day nonetheless. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.” 

Finally, William Channing also espoused such a lifestyle: “To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy not rich, to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly…in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden, grow up through the common.” And if our lives are likened to an ocean, then our days are waves, and they are guided by the rhythms of the tides.

No More Busyness As Usual

One of my favorite structures here in New England is old stone walls, such as the one near our home that is pictured above. And to me it represents an attractive yet effective means of establishing necessary boundaries. As fellow New Englander Robert Frost observed, “Good fences make good neighbors.” So, it is with that idea in mind that I suggest erecting boundaries in our lives, including ones dealing with others’ behavior toward us, not the least of which involves busyness.

It is no secret that the mantra of many is the familiar phrase, “I am so busy.” However, the truth is, like it or not, that we are all as busy as we allow ourselves to become. Yes, I realize that life sometimes imposes itself upon us in pressing ways, but we are not meant to live in a perpetual state of busyness, which is the very status that many wear as a badge of honor. The bottom line is we make time for what matters to us, which may or may not be what is the most meaningful.

We all claim that relationships are most important but we frequently fail to follow through on that rhetoric. With reference to maintaining them, what it all comes down to is a matter of respect and reciprocity. As Dr. Phil so succinctly states, “You teach people how to treat you.” If your friends or family fail to make time for you in their lives, consider communicating your feelings and act accordingly based on their reaction. “Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option,” Mark Twain reminds us.

Here is a personal example: as a favor for a friend, I reached out to her son, a recent college graduate and aspiring writer, with an offer to meet with him and share some helpful insights. Despite being unemployed and living at home with his parents without paying rent or helping in the family business, he apparently was too busy to accept my offer so I politely informed him that I hope he finds someone else to mentor him.

And while I get the appeal of texting and utilize it myself, it has become the de facto mode of communication nowadays at the expense of more meaningful exchanges. I even have encountered people whose excuse for not replying to texts has become, “Oh, I thought I hit send!” Pardon my bluntness, but if you are that distracted or absentminded, perhaps it is time to turn in your device. An email or call may not be as convenient but each communicates more of a relational commitment, as a text is the weakest type of link between two people.

Okay, what am I trying to convey here? Mainly that people in our lives, particularly loved ones, deserve our undivided attention. Life is short and we owe it to each other to live in the present with one another. Technology like FaceTime allows us to experience life together even while apart. One of Linda’s favorite memories is giving her father in Florida virtual tours of our life here in Maine before he passed away. So as for our household, it is no more busyness as usual!

Stillness, Silence & Solitude

With the quiet season quickly coming upon us on the coast of Maine, I have been contemplating three of my favorite qualities of life: stillness, silence, and solitude. It is these three characteristics of living here that particularly appeal to Linda and I as we strive to live more simply. So naturally my reading has followed a similar course and I wanted to share here some of what I have gleaned from my research to help you seek them for yourself. 

As Pico Iyer suggests In The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere, “In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”

And Jane Brox states in Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives, “Silence can seem like a luxury. Or the fraught world has labeled it that way. But from what I know of it, I would argue that silence is as necessary as the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech that we so carefully guard and endlessly ponder…It presents the opportunity for a true reckoning with the self.”

Finally, Doris Grumbach shares in Fifty Days of Solitude, “Alone, I discovered myself looking hard at things, as if I were seeing them for the first time, or seeing them properly for the first time. I wondered if solitude promoted this activity, or whether it was a result of having more time for everything, more time to look and see, more to concentrate on what I was seeing.”

So, wherever you find yourself on the busyness spectrum this autumn I encourage you to secure space and time for stillness, silence, and solitude. It will not necessarily come easily, but nothing worthwhile ever does. The results probably will include refreshed perspective, replenished energy, and renewed relationships, among many others. And perhaps you will experience a simpler life in the process!

Resisting the Attraction of Distraction

To continue our theme from last post, we all struggle with resisting the attraction of distraction. From the time we wake to the time we sleep we are continually bombarded with attempts to arrest our attention and capture our concentration. But the good news is that we need not succumb to these pressures. It is entirely within our power to structure our lives so that the intrusions are minimized and our insights are maximized. 

In his compelling book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, author and professor Cal Newport outlines three useful strategies in his chapter called “Quit Social Media”: 

Apply the Law of the Vital Few to Your Internet Habits

As Newport explains, the Law of the Vital Few, otherwise known as the Pareto Principle, suggests that 80 percent of a particular effect is due to just 20 percent of the potential causes. Therefore, he recommends what he calls “The Craftsman Approach to Tool Selection”: Identify the core factors that determine success and happiness in your professional and personal life. And adopt tools, including internet-based ones, only if the positive impacts on these factors substantially outweigh the negative impacts. In other words, adopt the “less is more” approach.

Quit Social Media

“These services aren’t necessarily, as advertised, the lifeblood of our modern connected world. They’re just products, developed by private companies, funded lavishly, marketed carefully, and designed ultimately to capture then sell your personal information and attention to advertisers,” writes Newport. “They can be fun, but in the scheme of your life and what you want to accomplish, they’re a lightweight whimsy, one unimportant distraction among many threatening to derail you from something deeper.” 

Linda and I use LinkedIn for professional networking but have frozen our Twitter accounts and never bothered to join other services to begin with. Let me state for the record that if you feel the pros outweigh the cons of a service then by all means help yourself. Just remember that if a service is free, such as Google’s Gmail, then YOU are the product and your personal information is scanned and available for sale to advertisers.

Don’t Use the Internet to Entertain Yourself

The internet either can be one of the greatest innovations ever or the biggest time-suck of all time, depending on how we use it. And Newport points out that internet sabbaticals are not the same as sabbaths. In other words, regularly scheduled breaks from online life trump periodically quitting it in a desperate attempt to recalibrate our senses.

We got broadband internet installed the day we moved to the lighthouse, but we typically try to stay off the computer for at least one day each weekend, if not both days. And as I mentioned in this space earlier, we cut the cable cord upon our move so our television viewing is limited to FREE Roku and Apple TV. We are considering a basic Netflix account but may not go for it. 

With these thoughts in mind, I recently decluttered much of the detritus on my devices by deleting marginal applications and am in the process of deactivating several online accounts in order to simplify our lives even more. It is with such simple yet powerful actions that we can exert better control over our virtual and, by extension, our real lives. And with our free time, we are enabled to enjoy the true riches of life, such as the sunset pictured above. 

Living the Minimalist Life

One of the questions Linda and I are asked about our minimalist lifestyle is how we afford to “live large with less.” For starters, that is a somewhat prying question to ask of anyone, as it presumes that one has problems making ends meet, which we do not. And it is actually a misguided question for it likewise assumes that the minimalist life is necessarily an expensive one. The reality is that minimalism actually affords one significant overall cost savings with its emphasis on frugal living and conscientious consumption. 

And from a personal perspective, we intentionally choose to live by faith more than most people are comfortable with. It is our experience that if we want to enjoy the fruits of an unconventional lifestyle we need to be willing to do what others are unwilling to do. As minimalism is by definition countercultural, it requires a type of discipline others often lack. Yet daily exercising faith in a faithful God has served us extremely well for half a century and resulted in a lifestyle above and beyond our wildest dreams. 

As an example, while Linda and I are middle aged, we have been blessed with good health and so we opt not to purchase what has become outrageously expensive health insurance. I will not delve into all the details of dealing with this sensitive issue here, but suffice it to say that this is people’s number one query about our minimalist experience. I must add that this is a very personal decision and we are not suggesting that it suits everyone else’s situation.

Regarding other practical matters, we share one vehicle between us, and have done so for about 28 of our 30+ years of marriage. And we are on our third lease, which is one of the best financial decisions we have ever made. While it may not appeal to others, we have thoroughly enjoyed the leasing experience, as the peace of mind that comes with driving a warrantied vehicle is well worth any trade-offs in our book. What is more, I am able to work remotely and chauffer Linda to work most days, especially now that we live about an hour away. 

Another cost-cutting move we have recently made is “cutting the cord” and getting rid of a costly cable television subscription. With the move to our relatively remote lighthouse location, we decided that the time had come for us to simplify our lives even further and use this opportunity to spend more time in our natural setting while saving money in the process. And not incidentally, we look forward to using our newfound time for creative pursuits instead of consuming mediated experiences. For us, “living large with less” is a lifestyle of liberty!

Lifestyle Design Issues

One of the pricklier parts of designing one’s dream lifestyle is trying to figure out who fits into it and who does not. People commonly state that relationships are the most important aspect of their lives, and of course I agree with the sentiment. Yet what I frequently observe is that people tend to take each other for granted. For relationships to be sustainable they must be healthy, otherwise they need to be pruned.

So exactly what do I mean by that? For starters, don’t relate on other people’s terms all the time. Of course, healthy relationships call for give and take on the part of both parties, but if you find yourself giving inordinately more than you are receiving, it is time to reevaluate that relationship. As part of our overall simplifying strategy, we must be willing to edit our lives, and that includes the people who are part of them.

The principle of reciprocity suggests that for any relationship to be healthy it must be reciprocal, or mutually beneficial to both parties. Unless both people in a relationship share in the maintenance of it, resentment from the neglected person typically results. Communication is key to resolving the issues that inevitably arise in a relationship and if one party is mute, it speaks volumes.

I once heard a minister say that the people in our lives who we most try to please will also be the greatest source of our pain. And I think we have all experienced the tragic consequences of familiarity breeding contempt. If you have people in your life that fail to respect you for who you are—without trying to change you—sooner or later you will experience their contempt of you. It may be subtle but the underlying message from them is: you are not enough.

Now I don’t know about you, but I am done with the soul-sucking people in my life. Just this past weekend, I deleted about one-third of all the contacts in my phone’s address book. Most were not necessarily leeches, but simply antiquated contacts. Yet several prompted negative emotions in me as a result of the sour state of our relationship. And news flash: the fact that someone is family does not give them the right to mistreat us either.

One of the lessons I am learning as I get older is that so much of life is about its corresponding times and seasons. It is liberating to accept that not everyone is meant to be a part of our lives forever. I cannot count the number of relationships that I have propped up indefinitely because I failed to realize they were meant simply for a season. So, I encourage each of you to ponder your relationships and be willing to pare them accordingly.   

I’ll close with a thought-provoking statement I read in an article from The Guardian titled “Why Time Management Is Ruining Our Lives” by Oliver Burkeman: “Which paths will you pursue, and which will you abandon? Which relationships will you prioritize, during your shockingly limited lifespan [emphasis mine], and who will you resign yourself to disappointing? What matters?” 

Leveraging the Leasing Lifestyle

One of my very favorite aspects of our minimalist journey is what I call “leveraging the leasing lifestyle.” Our experience leasing places to live has turned out even better than we anticipated, as five of the six places we’ve lived the past six years not only have been furnished but also have included utilities.

And though we hadn’t planned on leasing our vehicles, that part of our journey has been such a good experience that we don’t intend to purchase another one. Driving a warrantied vehicle equals considerable peace of mind for us. And the free car washes don’t hurt.

Along these lines, I recently read a thought provoking article by the contrarian James Altucher on his website here. It’s entitled “It Is Financial Suicide to Own a House” and it reinforced my own convictions about selling our house so we could move at will instead of the whims of a capricious marketplace.

I personally think the title is a little over the top, as we enjoyed owning our dream home for a dozen years and it appreciated about 3% per year, which more than outpaced inflation. And since we refinanced it, we had considerable equity when we finally sold it, which in turn has enabled us to do what we are doing.

But it is important to note those were factors that made it work for us. As Altucher points out, the average homeowner owns their house for less than 5 years and the average house has appreciated a measly 0.2% per year for the past century, both of which make buying a bad bet.

So, what do I see as the chief benefits of leasing versus buying? I am glad you asked! As I mentioned earlier, the mobility we gained from selling our house was a big deal to us. We never had kids or pets to root us, the costs of maintaining an aging home were escalating, and with the tidiest house in a declining neighborhood, it was time to move.   

Leasing also gives us the flexibility to adapt to our changing circumstances with relative ease. For example, while I work remotely, Linda typically works in a more corporate setting, which we all know is susceptible to fluctuation. With our fluid living situation and low maintenance lifestyle she can afford to temp or work part time if necessary.

And the liquidity of our assets affords us the ability to shift our finances around as necessary rather than tying them up in illiquid investments. When the markets tank again, which they invariably will, we are able to pull up stakes and move if we like. And we utilize online banking, even paying bills electronically and depositing funds via an app.

Finally, I cannot stress the liberty we enjoy by not owning. One of the maxims my late father left me with was “try to use other people’s money.” In our situation, it could be said that our dealership and landlady help fund our lifestyle. If something needs fixing, we simply notify them to take care of it. So, whatever your situation, think about leasing!

Of Sea and Sand

In the recent 30th anniversary issue of Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors, I read an article titled “Why We Love the Ocean: The Psychology and Physiology Behind Our Attraction to the Water” by Catherine Schmitt. As the article suggests, “spending time near the water is good for our mental and physical health.” It even feeds our souls.

You could say that both the earth and humans are largely bodies of water, as both are about three-fourths wet stuff, so it makes sense that we would feel at home here. The article also states, “some people cannot stand to live away from the ocean, needing physical access to the sand, rocks, and surf.” That describes Linda and me.

As much as we loved living in the beautiful state of Tennessee, the one thing that was missing for us was the ocean. We simply could not get the New England coast out of our systems after our radical sabbatical of living on the island of Nantucket for a season. In the immortal words of Rachel Lyman Field’s poem “If Once You Have Slept on an Island”:

You may chat with the neighbors of this and that
And close to your fire keep,
But you’ll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell
And tides beat through your sleep.

And when it comes to decorating our home, we’ve always loved the nautical motif, incorporating our fair share of ship and lighthouse décor. So suffice to say it is a dream come true for us to live within sight of the ocean itself. Just this morning, I sat with my coffee and pastry down by the harbor to greet the dawning of another coastal sunrise.

When I was a youngster we vacationed each year at the beach, whether Virginia Beach, VA; Wrightsville Beach, NC; or Myrtle Beach, SC; and I always wondered what it would be like to daily wake up to the sound of seagulls, smell the salty air, and watch the tide ebb. And now we get to do just that since simplifying our lives to live by the sea.

As Maine naturalist and author Rachel Carson writes: “Like the sea itself, the shore fascinates us who return to it….In the recurrent rhythms of tides and surf…there is the obvious attraction of movement and change and beauty.” Whether or not your dream is to live by the ocean, I strongly encourage you to simplify your life and live with less stuff in order to chase your dream lifestyle.

The Wayfaring Life

It may have been the author Ernest Hemingway who coined the phrase “a moveable feast” for the title of his memoir but it can also apply to what I am calling “the wayfaring life,” or the journey on which Linda and I have been since selling our house and furnishings almost five years ago. To quote the German architect, Rohde-Liebenau, “Just as we ourselves have become mobile, we must have movable possessions.”

Since that fateful day a neighbor’s tree landed on the roof of our beloved cottage, home has become more a state of being than a fixed address for us. And our journey has been as much a spiritual and philosophical one as a physical and structural one. As writer Tom Robbins is quoted as saying, “Any half-awake materialist well knows that which you hold holds you.”

To bring readers up to date on our continually evolving journey, an opportunity too-good-to-pass-up has befallen us in the form of an invitation from a relative to lease a charming cottage [including furniture and utilities] for the winter on the coast of Maine. While we had entertained notions of settling here in Middle Tennessee for the foreseeable future, the prospect of needing to procure more furnishings as a result weighed on us, and so the journey continues!

During our monastic retreat this summer I came upon some insightful thoughts in a library book titled Wayfaring: A Gospel Journey in Everyday Life by Margaret Silf. As she writes, “Ways are made very simply. We don’t have to accomplish some feat of heavy engineering. All we have to do is put one foot in front of the other, and walk them...It is an invitation to become a wayfarer, who, simply by walking the way alongside the One who is the Way, and in loving relationship with fellow wayfarers, will also become a waymaker for others.”

And lest the author’s intentions be misinterpreted, she reminds readers, “This is a pilgrimage journey, not a tourist outing. It is a journey that changes the traveler, a process that shapes the soul in ways we cannot predict. In my diary I have a slip of paper with the following text: ‘The future is not some place we are going to but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and the making of those pathways changes both the maker and the destination.’” For those wondering how we merry wayfarers are faring, all I can say is that we are enjoying the moveable feast.

Learning From the Shakers

Linda and I recently returned from a wonderful two-week vacation in New England and one of the highlights of our journey was a visit to the last community of Shakers, a grand total of two women and one man, located on a bucolic village farm called Chosen Land in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. I even had the opportunity to chat briefly with the lone male, Brother Arnold Hadd, whom I had corresponded with earlier.

Shakers are often confused with Quakers, from whom they are descended but who may marry, and the Amish, who eschew modern technology to live separate from the world. Yet even as Shakers embrace technological tools, their future existence is limited by their celibate lifestyle to converts from the outside world. Suffice it to say that they have their work cut out for them.

In her book God Among the Shakers: A Search for Stillness and Faith at Sabbathday Lake, author Suzanne Skees also visits the Maine Shaker Village and writes: “Current society loves what we perceive as the simple, pure life of Shakers because it stands in stark contrast to everything we have become.” In other words, people settle for admiring the Shaker lifestyle rather than adopting it.

And she continues, “Shakers seemed beyond the reach of attachment, while we other Americans lived immersed in material goods that lost their value almost as soon as they were acquired, scrambling in a flurry of activity that amounted to less than nothing at death.” As the Shakers love to sing, “Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free.” That is simply the truth.

Finally she concludes: “Our entire culture has been built upon the material. The ‘pursuit of happiness’ usually means money, property, food, and romance—the whole lot of which the Shakers have tossed out their two-hundred-year-old farmhouse window.” While converts to the Shaker lifestyle may be lacking, the rest of us could stand to learn from their simple ways of being and operating in the world.

The Lease of Life

As I mentioned in the interview with the New American Dream Center linked to a couple postings ago, Linda and I love how the leasing lifestyle allows us to fix our overhead costs, especially when it comes to big-ticket items such as housing and transportation. So in the meantime we returned our Nissan Altima a couple months ahead of the lease expiration to lease a Nissan Rogue [pictured here]. Suffice it to say that we enjoy driving a fully warrantied vehicle that costs us less than owning one.

And vehicles are not the only parts of our lives that are leased. If you think about it, our very lives are leased, or on loan in other words. Once my wife and I realized that truth we got a new lease on our lives in the form of freedom from conventional thinking. Until we are challenged to change our minds about things, none of us are likely to live the type of life we dream about. Leasing is one result of rethinking our lives.

As another example, during our retreat last month at the nearby monastery we learned that the monks work part-time in the mornings and are free to explore personal hobbies, such as printing and photography, for the rest of the day. One thing that stood out to me about the monks’ lifestyle is how apparently content they are living so simply, with all their physical needs met and ample time to grow as people.

To the contrary, Margaret Silf writes of herself and a busy friend in Wayfaring: A Gospel Journey in Everyday Life: “We discovered something inside us that suggested we were only worthwhile, as human beings, if we were constantly pleasing people. We found that we felt guilty if, at the end of the day, we had nothing to show for our twenty-four hours’ lease of life. We realized that we felt that we were only entitled to occupy our little plot of earth on the condition that we earned our rental” [emphases mine].

There is much that is sad about the above quotation but I think it describes many of us at times, even to the point that we feel we need to justify our very existence. Let’s face it: there is something about a rainy day that sort of gives us permission to putter around the house, even when none is really needed. What will help us to overcome such faulty thinking is that while our lives are indeed on loan, we are designed to delight in them.

Not Busier Than Thou

I read an intriguing article in the latest New Yorker titled “No Time: How Did We Get So Busy?” by Elizabeth Kolbert in which the phrase “busier than thou” is used to describe the warped attitude of many people today, thus the title of this post. Kolbert quotes several researchers who have endeavored to get to the bottom of busyness, including one Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University.

As Kolbert highlights, “Stiglitz argues that people’s choices are molded by society and, over time, become self-reinforcing. We ‘learn how to consume by consuming,’ he writes, and how to ‘enjoy leisure by enjoying leisure.’ In support of this position, Stiglitz cites the contrasting experiences of Europeans and Americans. In the 1970s, the British and the French put in just as many hours at work as Americans. But then the Europeans began trading income for leisure” [emphasis mine].

And she continues: “The average employed American now works roughly 140 hours more per year than the average Englishman and 300 hours more than the average Frenchman. Current French law mandates that workers get 30 paid vacation days per year, British law 28; the corresponding figure in the U.S. is zero. Stiglitz predicts that Europeans will further reduce their working hours and become even more skilled at taking time off, while Americans, having become such masterful consumers, will continue to work long hours and to buy more stuff.”

I love the lesson here of trading income for leisure. Personally, my wife and I make it a point to live more like Europeans by consciously limiting our consumption in favor of enriching experiences. It doesn’t hurt that my wife happens to work for a progressive-minded organization where she gets five weeks of vacation but we embraced such a lifestyle long before she got a job with them. We believe the key is to not own much stuff that needs financing and maintaining so we are free to live on our terms instead of some lenders’. And we prefer being “not busier than thou,” thank you very much.

The Sharing Economy

According to a new study by Havas Worldwide titled “The New Consumer and the Sharing Economy,” about 80% of people polled globally agree that progress is not about consuming more but consuming better and more than half say they could live happily without the majority of the things they own.

The report calls “collaborative consumption” the next wave of consumerism and states, “a new economic model is emerging—one that focuses less on ownership and accumulation and more on community and collaboration.” Two-thirds of the total sample believe society would be better off if people shared more and owned less.

The bottom line is that many people are gradually realizing it is becoming more about access than accumulation, especially for big-ticket items like houses and vehicles. As a case in point, my wife and I lease both our home and automobile, freeing us from the weekend routine of lawn mowing and car washing, since both are included.

And without kids or pets tying us to a particular place we are in a position to explore a location-independent lifestyle. Americans claim to dream of a home to call their own and my wife and I lived that dream, but since counting the overall cost and selling our extra stuff to become more mobile we are realizing how fun an untethered life can be.