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• I am a single parent who retired way earlier than I probably should have, moved to a small rural village with my two children. My eldest just left for university. she received a huge scholarship which would not have been possible without the change in lifestyle (much more time and money for extracurriculars, full-time home parent support etc).

  I have no regrets despite living on a shoestring budget!

• I’m in the process of reversing this move. I loved the lower cost of living and it was very comfortable financially, but there wasn’t nearly the access to medical care and therapy that we wanted. You may be moving somewhere less rural and hopefully not have issues like that, I hope so!

• tough decisions but it seems that you have the chosen the right direction to move in.. Having family there for you and cousins for your kids is a HUGE thing. I grew up in South Africa, only child, with a very tight knit family around me. Moved overseas, married ( out of lonelyness so I realized years later) and immigrated to Calgary in 1980, as my grand parents had immigrated here the year before to live with my uncle I grew up with. Been here ever since.
  I struggled with big city life, still do its lonely. Back then I had no idea what I wanted or needed in my life in my early 20’s. Had I knows I would probably have asked my husband to stay in Holland where his 5 siblings had a ready made family connection for me and our future children. Now Have 2 daughters, and my mother living here. Have other extended family but not close to them.
  I never had the foresight to think this far ahead in my life, at 61 torn now with my one daughter living in Vancouver, where I wanted to live all these years, on the coast. 2 daughters and 4 grand kids here in Calgary , aging 89 yr old mother and I am stuck, cant move away due to very complicated circumstances.
  When young like you are still, with young children is the time to shift momentum if possible, while still thinking of possible option while aging.
  Vancouver is wonderful with so much to offer but its comes at a price, finantially and emotionally because of the financial cost . Once my daughter has her baby I no longer have somewhere to stay, and that is terrible, as hotels are not in my budget. We are very close, I love their little 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom condo, but its not made for future family living with guests when they value their privacy.
  Having done the bigger home which ended up stretching our finances too far, partly because I became very ill, and ending my marriage..
  my advise is keep thinking of your future while living in the present time with your children.. as time does not stand still, and circumstances can change with a snap of the finger.
  Have less to be able to live more, as Courtney would say!!
  If I was able to go back, it would have been moving to a small costal town to find a community to grow with my children, find connections and age in place.

• We did this — back in 1999 when our oldest was ready to enter school, we realized Los Angeles (where we were both born and raised) was going to require us to either work too many hours, or spend too many hours on the highway commuting (and taking away from our family time). In essence, if we had stayed, I’m certain I would have ended up a single mom. The company I work for offered to pay for us to move to another of their locations in Texas and we did it. Leaving our family and our roots ended up being the best thing we ever did — it forced us to design our own life rather than accepting the defaults that we had been handed. Being the parents we wanted to be — able to give our kids the opportunities we had wanted for ourselves — has been the most rewarding part of our lives. The choices we made to put our family first has resulted in close relationships, amazing experiences and travels, and really open-minded, curious, adventurous grown-up children. There’s a saying I once found (and can’t find again) about how a life well-lived gives back twice, while you’re living it and while you’re remembering it and that has been true for us.

  • Hi! I’d like to leave you a comment from a less expensive, but very large city that everyone knows very well. I’m writing to you from Houston, TX where I was born and raised. 36 years young and my entire family lives here or in the greater metro area. The mass exodus that people are talking about has greatly impacted Houston, a city I no longer recognize. The part of town that I grew up in has grown with over 275,000 new residents in 10 years. A commute (14 miles) one way now takes me 1 hour and 20 minutes. The reason I am writing about the population growth is because I feel that it relates to your feelings of being priced out. I feel like I’m being driven out by my commute. My husband and I often contemplate moving to a much smaller city, one with around 150,000 residents versus the 6 million that leave here. We have two small children and we can’t decide if we really want to take our children away from their grandparents. It would be terribly sad. My husband is in school at this time, so we are planning to visit the issue again when he graduates in August. We figure we could leave but always come back. Is anything really permanent? I think you obviously have thought long and hard about leaving. I always try to think of my great grandparents leaving Poland to move to Central TX in the late 1800s. If they can do it, so can we! Good luck with your move. It will be fun to read about your experience.

• Look into Vancouver Island. Lots of small towns and inexpensive real estate (although going up in price in some places). The climate and weather is similar. You’ll need to commit to not taking a lot of ferry trips back to the Mainland though as that can negate some savings.

  • We looked at the island (I’ve lived in Victoria) but didn’t quite find what we were looking for there. It’s beautiful but the prices have really gone up and we found a lot of sprawl in the towns we were interested in (Courtney/Comox, Nanaimo). Really the sticking point was price. My husband is trying to semi-retire so we really wanted to capitalize as much as we could on the sale of our Vancouver condo. We ended up selecting the Kootenays and a small town my brother lives in (another reason to move there over the island – family!).
    So now we’ll be able to come down and visit the island and the most beautiful place in the world: Tofino!

• From the other side – my daughters are now 33 (with her own family of 4 kids), 26 and 21 and the youngest just left home – take the money and run.
  You always try to do the best for your children, your situation. It will never be perfect. What is right for you can’t always be right for all of your diverse children and at some point you have to let them go and do their own thing anyway and they need to go through their own struggles to grow, no matter how you want to smoothe the path.
  Good luck and excited to hear what you do and where you go next – I’ve been reading since your eldest was a baby, I think!

  • Take the money and run 🙂 Thank you. And yes, we’ve been chatting back and forth in these comments for quite a few years. It’s lovely. I always enjoy your perspective and advice.

• Oh yes!! Move!!

  We left downtown Toronto 8 years ago. Bought a farm in the middle of a forest north of Napanee. You couldn’t get much different than that! Life is 100% better, slower, more fabulous, appreciative. We don’t pay $14 a pound for asparagus…..we grow it. We don’t mull over the $8 per carton of ethically-raised eggs….we have our own hens….and pigs….and ducks.

  We could never have afforded the rocketing real-estate prices. Now we have 25 acres! THIS is living.

  More and more people around us are introducing themselves from Ottawa, Toronto, Markham, Brampton. It’s wonderful to see they’ve made the leap too.

  Less income? Yes. Less money? No! We don’t spend nearly as much as we used to. Less time? Absolutely not! It seems we have so much more. Less “lifestyle”? Heck no. I’m on my laptop with a flock of turkeys next to me as I write this!! lol

• OMG! This is exactly what I’m going through right now!!! My husband and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and this area is exploding! The average house now is $925K, which is about $300K more than three years ago. I guess it’s going up $100k a year.

  There’s a mass exodus here and it’s so sad, because we want to live here, but my son needs a yard and I don’t want to be stuck in traffic for an hour and a half on the way to work, and two hours on the way home. It’s just not not a sustainable way of living.

  It’s crazy because we just started making the decision that we have to leave a few months ago and now I found your post. I feel a bit better now.

  xo,
  Shelbi | Urban Girl’s Closet

• You are very very fortunate to have real estate in Vancouver to sell! No brainer to me. Grew up there and it is an insanely expensive place and has really lost its soul to the almighty dollar.

  We just left Victoria and moved upisland. Our kids are adults but we decided it was time to slow down and get out of debt. Fortunately my beloved city is only a couple of hours away. Yes I miss things and my daughter there. Nowhere is perfect.

  Are you moving to Saskatoon? That is Avery big change weather wise. But you are young and what an adventure!

  • We’ve moving to the Kootenay region. We looked at Nanaimo, Courtney/Comox too, liked them but found a lot of sprawl and still somewhat expensive! I’ve lived in Victoria before and while it wasn’t a great fit in my 20s I think it would have been great with kids (again, too expensive for us to move and also be able to work less). Good luck up island 🙂

    • We lived in the Kootenays for 8 years..the East Kootenays to be specific. Gorgeous area….and yes winter! I am not a winter person but kids usually love snow so a great time for them to take up skiing. Our girls loved it. And so much more affordable than Whistler!!

      Yes my beloved Victoria is changing quickly and prices are crazy. We will likely move back when we need medical facilities but we will have to rent.

      We live in Qualicum and it is very affordable and would be a wonderful place to,raise kids. ( just saying if the Kootenays don’t work out). The airport here makes travel for business so easy…… 30 minutes and you are at the Vancouver airport!

      I will follow your journey and wish you all the best!

      • Oh yes agree about Courtenay/ Comox and Nanaimo which is why we chose Qualicum. Really special place.

        • Love Qualicum!! What a beautiful spot.

• I think people rarely regret leaving behind all the big ticket items. When we visited Vancouver a couple years ago all I could think about was “I could never live here!” Too big, too busy and waaaay too expensive – even though there are so many things about that place that I love. Sometimes I would love to move out of our own big city and live somewhere smaller but job-wise that isn’t feasible and we really do have it good where we are living. I often tell my husband though, when he starts getting stressed, that the kids are flexible and if we needed to move somewhere smaller and cheaper they would adjust and be happy as long as we are all together. I’m excited to read about your next adventures.

  • So true about the kids being flexible. Especially in these pre-highschool years.
    I keep reminding myself that 70% of my life is the same no matter where we live. I really found that to be true – and a comfort to think of – when we moved overseas. Sure, we won’t have the same variety of options in the small town but the day to day will be quite similar. School run, meals, library, park, etc. *There is a library in this town!
    Thanks for the encouragement 🙂

• It’s really all about the job(s). We’ve often contemplated moving to a less expensive area, but often (not always, I know) there’s a lot of competition for good work. As you mentioned, raising a family, expensive housing and limited time make it difficult or impossible to enjoy many of the things that are considered the pros of staying in an urban (or in my case, a expensive suburb of a major metropolitan area) and it seems pointless to stay.

  However, neither my husband or I have jobs that allow us to work remotely. We have friends and family that live in small towns in our state as well as across the country, and we’ve had years of conversations about moving (usually revolving around how much “house” we could get). But the job opportunities were limited and not very secure. Also add in that living in the U.S. our health insurance is tied to our jobs (we have 2 kids, too) and it’s not a risk we feel we can take. If things didn’t work out, we wouldn’t be able to “just come back.” We are in a better position here for alternative employment should we need it.

  It looks like you have many more pros on the moving side. You have family where you are going, they have kids that have gone through the schools ahead of yours, you are not BOTH looking for jobs (meaning you work remotely, not that you don’t work.) and I am assuming, as Canadians, you are not risking your health coverage by making this change. Best of luck to you!

  • So true about the jobs. I can’t imagine picking up and moving to a town/city without work in place. Of course, if we lose our remote employment we will have to change something or move to a bigger city for work. I can’t predict the future!
    Thanks for the encouragement 🙂

• Way to go Rachel. I’m confident it will turn out great. Thanks for sharing it with all of us.

• How exciting…and scary. I just moved 2300 miles away to have more time and better mental health. In the process, we downsized as well. The first few months were hard, but a visit back to my old hometown reminded me of why I moved. I’m starting to feel at home and enjoying my new community. I’m a better mom and wife for it. I wrote down why we made the decision and posted it where I would see it; some things didn’t go well after the move and it made me question the decision, until I reminded myself of the bigger picture.

  Best of luck, please keep us posted!

  • Woah big move! I like your idea for writing down why you moved. I think I will be doing the same as I know there will be some big adjustments to living in a small town, house living and the weather. Thank you 🙂

• Congratulations!!! You have won the lottery, no ifs, ands or buts, if this move will allow you to prioritize your family. We have several monumental moves under our belt, for various reasons, most quality of life/job related. Now, we are happily settled in Minneapolis. It is the perfect sized affordable city for us and we are grateful for the job that allowed us to have one parent home full time while our son is young. I don’t believe you will ever be sorry for taking an opportunity to spend as much time as possible with your kiddos. Best wishes on the move. As an aside, our family is 10 hours by car, but that has not prevented our son from having very meaningful and deep bonds with his cousins and the family overall.

  • Thanks, Susan. And lovely to hear about family ties kept strong even with distance. I hope the same happens for us. It was definitely on our mind as we decided to move to the small town my brother lives in. Our kids will get to see the out of town family more often because they already visit my brother.

• My mother and step-dad moved me cross-country when I was 12. The majority of my family (including my bio dad, grandparents, and two out of 3 brothers stayed behind). It was a very hard adjustment at first, so I think it definitely depends on the age of the children. Now that I’m 36 with a kid of my own, I can see what a brave and tough decision that must have been for them. It has its pros and cons. The hardest part was the flying back and forth during vacations. When I finished college and became an adult, I still felt the obligation to visit family there every chance I had. So I missed a lot of opportunities to travel other places because I was always going back to visit the family we left behind. It’s also been very difficult now that I have a child myself. My father and step-mom have only seen her 3 times because the cost of flying (not to mention the difficulty of flying with toddlers) is prohibitive. Finally, my mother left her mom behind. Now that she is ageing and experiencing dementia, it has been extremely difficult for her to care for her from 3,000 miles away. My mother had a sibling who lived close to my grandmother, but he died unexpectedly 10 years ago. All this to say that it’s difficult, but I am glad every day that I live where I live now. Just keep in mind that the decision does have consequences that will be passed on to your children and affect their futures in ways you might not foresee now.

  • Thank you for sharing, Lisa. We grew up without any family near us (they were all overseas) and of the six children in our family only three (about to be two) live in Vancouver. My siblings and I all have wanderlust and each of us have moved across or out of the country for years at a time. So I’m somewhat familiar with keeping family ties strong through long distances. You scenario sounds challenging and it’s something to think about as we make this move.

• Good luck and God bless on your move! Moving with children is incredibly hard (as I know you already know) but if you have thought it through and know this is the right path for your family, I think you will find that once you’ve gotten through to the other side you will not be able to imagine having made any other decision. We did not necessarily move for more time, but we moved for a better quality of life. There were pros (MUCH safer neighborhood, MUCH better schools, little bit bigger house which is what was right for us, shorter commute, it was only the next city over from where we previously lived) and cons (we had to rent out our house because in our market we could not sell it, we had lived 2 blocks from my parents whom we are very close to, it was insanely scary to buy a second house and upend our whole life) — in the end, the pros so far outweighed the cons but big life changes are just terrifying no matter what you do. I hope you find your move to be all worthwhile! Love reading your blog. I’ve been reading it for years and always look forward to posts from you.

• Go for the move!! Can’t wait to hear more about it. Love to read about the adventures and changes your family makes. My family lives an airplane ride away from extended family, but having more bang for our buck and outdoor activities our kids enjoy make up for the inconveniences.

• Wow, big change. I wish you all the best for a successful move. And of course I’m looking forward to reading all about it here. I do find it interesting that your predictions for when the boys are older – using the city as an extension of their home and basically coming in to sleep, didn’t stand the test of time. We live in the city and whilst we have local parks, library, coffee shops, cinemas, theatres, etc… at nearly 9 my daughter is too young to do any of it herself. What she really needs now and for the next few years, is a garden out back of the house and quiet roads through which to walk alone to friends’ houses.

  • Thank you. We aren’t moving because we wanted more space – I was quite happy here and could see a future for the boys as teenagers in our apartment. We’re moving because the financial opportunity to move to a much less expensive area and have to work less/be closer to retirement was very appealing. Our home increased in value by 40% in the last two years. So selling it and buying a modest house (about 1/3 of what we sold our apartment for) in a small town – where we have family – became very tempting. My husband has changed roles, losing some salary but not having to travel and can work from home. The cost of living in the town is lower than where we live now. This is the plan but as I know, plans are just plans 🙂 Hopefully it works out and we like it.

• I was raised in Ottawa and left in my early 20’s. When I see the crazy house prices there now, there is no way I could ever afford to return, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. I live in a city of 100,000 and love it. It takes me 10 minutes to drive to work 🙂

• Your post was so timely, as I am in the midst of house hunting in my target town, planning to move from one of the absolute top-rated “Best Places to Live” (they forgot to add “if you’re a multimillionaire [seriously]) to a small, quiet town that some would call an outright rural community.

  I have been wrestling with this same decision for the last few years, and finally decided that our family would benefit more from moving away from our expensive city, to a small town where we are not house-rich and cash-poor, where we could have actual land to have a big garden, where we could then afford to travel, where there are still occasionally sidewalks for walking and no need to plan every trip to the grocery store around the twice-daily 3-hour-long “rush hour”, where each of my introverted children can have his/her own room and where we are not constantly stressed by not having enough time to enjoy our family or cash to spend on things such as music lessons.

  After many months of sleepless nights wondering if it would ruin the children’s chances of success at life to move to a less metropolitan area, I finally realized that a smaller, more affordable town would still provide the interactions needed to gain the social skills and work ethic that they need to succeed as happy, healthy, independent, productive individuals. Now I just need to crack down ASAP on culling our stuff!!

  Thank you for posting!! Your post, and the replies of those who have already taken this path, have helped put my mind at ease that yes, this is absolutely the right path for our family!

  Best wishes with your move!

  • We had so many similar hurdles to making this decision. One thing that helped us was that my brother lives in the town we are moving to and his children are older than mine (his youngest is close to my oldest’s age). His children are great – independent, kind, great work ethic and doing well in school. I can see all the benefits they have from living in a small very walkable and easy lifestyle town. I know we are going to miss the amenities and opportunities of the city but I hope that the more relaxed lifestyle and the abundance of time will balance that out.
    Good luck culling your stuff! Pre-moving is a great time to do it.

• We moved across the country from Toronto to Victoria in the spring in pursuit of a lifestyle change. We cashed out on our Toronto real estate and bought a new house in Victoria for $300,000 less than what we sold for. Now my husband works five months of the year (though he’s gone for those five months) and I work three mornings a week. We loved Toronto in our twenties, but once we had our daughter, we found we were paying sky high prices for things we couldn’t take advantage of — all the great festivals, restaurants, etc. were just not happening for us anymore. We’re very happy with our move! Good luck to you 🙂

  • Kendal – so great that you are enjoying Victoria! I’ve enjoyed all your updates on IG (and I think I’ll be painting a lot in the next few months just like you!!). I lived in Victoria in my 20s and thought it was so boring. Hahaha. Then I had a kids and of course now I think it would be great.

• My family just went through this. We moved away from my husband’s family who we only saw a few times a year to closer to my family who we now see several times a week. We left a city that we loved to move to state we had never even seen! But trading a small home in an expensive area meant we could get an reasonably sized home with no mortgage. It’s only been a month, and we still miss our friends and home town, but ultimately I think it will be the best decision for us.

  • Thank you for sharing – this sounds very similar to our move. Good luck as you settle in!

• Yes! We could have easily stayed where we both loved and made more, but would have sacrificed time and a slower pace of living. We chose somewhere neither of us thought we’d live and have been here for nearly 10 years. No debt, flexible schedule and time and SLOW have been the rewards. A bonus is that we’ve carved out a little community here that we adore. It was scary but it paid off.

  • Love hearing this! Thank you.

• Just under 2 years ago someone approached us and offered to pay a hefty sum of money for our little home. This allowed us to put a nice down payment on our dream home…or so we thought. Turns out the big house in one of the top neighborhoods in our city was not a dream. Money felt tight, my relationship with my husband suffered as I worried. We continued to travel even though we shouldn’t have. We looked pretty impressive on the outside…even heard that from friends. So when I could no longer do it, along with the tough decision came the shame of feeling like we had failed. The same of admitting we’d made a mistake and overstepped. That this house and lifestyle were not possible for us. We had to choose one or the other. Travel or Home. Our house went on the market in June and we just finished moving (the 2nd time in 2 years). We are in a rental and looking for something more reasonable that better suits our lifestyle. I’ve reduced possessions by selling things and had at least 20 trips to Goodwill. I’m proud of this tough decision and haven’t regretted it for a second. I feel big changes coming for us and right now I’m just hoping for the best in this new season of life for our little family.

  • It is a wise person who can look around and realize, “Hey, I overstretched and have found it is totally not worth it. Let’s move to a house/place that works better for us long-term.” There’s no shame in that. It only took 2 years to reach that conclusion — something others need 10 or 20 years to realize, as they keep slogging through work and life. People have different priorities.

    Best wishes in your progress, Diana.

  • Thank you, thank you, thank you. We all need to hear more stories like this. How smart you are to realize that the big house in the best neighbourhood wasn’t worth it – and to take action to change things. Good luck Diana.

• Interesting timing for me we are just about to take the leep to sell our house in a small town inorder to buy some land in a small village inorder to possibly build an off grid dwelling for us and a place of retreat for others. We have no way of knowing if we will get permission to build till we buy the land. If we seek permission prior to buying the price will go up beyond what we can afford. We cannot afford the land without selling our house. Our house is an affordable home which we will probably never get the opportunity to buy again. Your post has encouraged me. One difference is that it is only 3 miles away from where we currently live so schools, friends and family will still be there, just possibly not a roof over our heads. It’s a leap of faith and another.adventure. I wish you well in your move

• You’ll probably find, no longer being house poor, and having more time, you’re able to see more of everything and not just one (albeit awesome) city. I always told my hubby, I’d rather live in our tiny dust bowl than the exciting city if it means I can see everything the world has to offer.
  Congratulations on your new chapter! Can’t wait to read what surprises unfold for you!

  • It has crossed my mind that if things go well we could do more travel with the kids – more funds freed up to save for bigger trips (I’ve always wanted to go to Australia with the kids when they are older). Actually, even with this move we will be able to do more province wide travel now that my husband has moved to a remote job that doesn’t with very limited travel required (maybe a few times a year for a few days).
    Thanks, Mikala 🙂

• Any major decision when you have dependants is a tough call. You can only go with your instinct and trust that the universe has your back (which it does). Good luck with the move and much love to all – Jo

• Never.
  8 years ago I moved from Stuttgart to Kassel and I still miss my friends there.
  Housing in Kassel is about 1/3 of housing in Stuttgart, but it is a whole different life.
  And I wasn’t able to work the last 7 years because my son is autist and I can’t bring hin to kindergarten the whole day, so I would need someone who takes care of him. But here is no one who would sit my boy 5 days a week. Now he is in school and I have 7 hours a day. Still not enough to work full-time.

  And who knows where my children want to live when they are adults?
  They are not doomed to stay in the town their parents live.
  When they want to move out they still can go to the small town where the rent is cheap.
  But changing the hometown in childhood so the children might not have to change their hometown as adults doesn’t seem logic to me.

  • Anita – I really appreciate your honest response. Yes, I can see all the points you’ve made. True children are not doomed to live in the towns they grew up in. Did you look at moving back to Stuttgart?

• We’ve done it and it’s worth it…if you take your philosophy of minimalism and work consistently you’re never locked out of anywhere….people like to say you will be – but I don’t believe that to be true having seen others do it..it’s all about give and take…not wanting all the shiny stuff or keeping up with the joneses….just be yourself…and manage your priorities….enjoy life …ps there is an Aussie bloke called the barefoot investor who I’ve found helpful (no affiliation just an avid reader)

  • Thanks Yolande. Yes we could still come back to Vancouver in the future – we keep telling our friends here ‘you may see us again!’.

• We made a similar decision when purchasing our first family home (minus the lottery win). My husband is a sailor so we weren’t tied to this town (a somewhat soul-less Scottish new town which is basically a big suburb) – we could have settled in the Highlands, nearer Edinburgh, or in any historical town/city with character. However, we had four kids under six and decided our simple priorities were a decent nursery/school and nice parks within walking distance.
  The reality is that we don’t go to the ballet every month, or museums every weekend. I don’t need the “big shops” to keep up with fashion.
  We treated our family to a city break this summer in Glasgow. We loved it but… kids noticed how dirty the city was and that it smelt funny.
  Did we love the conveyor belt in the sushi bar – yes! But did my husband nearly faint at the bill – yes!
  Compact living can become its own kind of busy-ness, same as city-living. I’m not saying all kids need their own space but SOME do. My eldest needs to go sit in his room and just switch off from people sometimes (he has SLI – communication is really hard work for him!) That would be difficult to do in a compact space in a busy city.
  I’ve blathered on, sorry, but your blog always raises such interesting points!
  Karen
  (Scotland)

  • Thanks Karen. Interested to see what my kids think of the city once they are no longer residents. They already complain about the smells sometimes 🙂

• oh man, this is a conversation we’ve been having at our house too! I still can’t decide if it would be “worth it” to leave my family and community…..it’s SO tough. I really value the close connection my children have with their grandmothers, and how we have deep roots here. But, it comes at a cost, as you know. We live outside your beautiful city, and the cost is shockingly high out here in the suburbs too! Anyways, I look forward to hearing more about this big move! Maybe it will help me decide?? All the best to you and your family! I always enjoy hearing what you’re up to.

  • Appreciate your comment, Katie. It is such a frequent conversation here: stay or go. We looked at suburbs but really found the prices so high it wouldn’t change much for us (except needing a car!). It is tough to leave family here but… we don’t see the family here as much as we would like (live in different neighborhood/suburbs, everyone works a lot and is busy). We’re actually moving to a town my brother lives in and I think we will see them more in a week than we did see all of the other family combined over a month here (helps that we are moving a few blocks from him, my kids will go to same school as his). Plus it means my side of the family will come and visit us twice as much! Good luck with your decision.

• I think you’ve made a wonderful choice. I’ve made similar big decisions throughout my life and never regretted it.

  I opted out of the corporate world because I wasn’t willing to face 50-60 hours of misery per week “playing the game” and working for something that went against everything I believe in. Faced with ever rising rents in my early twenties, I bought a house in a Latino neighborhood where I was basically the only single, young, white, English speaking woman for miles around. And when the little non-profit music school where I worked became so “successful” that it was starting to suck the life force out of me, I quit my job and started making a “living” on the internet – which I could do because my expenses were so low.

  Ultimately, time is our most valuable currency, and IMHO, it’s the only one that really matters.

  • Thank you 🙂

• We did something similar, though it was driven by an excellent job in academia for my spouse. Except that we moved across the country (I grew up outside Toronto, and as an adult settled in Ottawa, and 6 years ago moved to Saskatoon). While I really, really, really miss Ottawa (proximity to other cities, livability, fantastic museums, not so far from southern Ontario family), I don’t regret moving here (well, sometimes I do, especially in February and March). I’m not sure we could ever go back to southern Ontario, even with great jobs–the housing market is ridiculous even outside Toronto and the commute would be rotten to the core). We miss family, but this little city is amazing for raising children. Your gut is not often wrong :). I cannot wait to hear of your next adventures.

  • Wilma – We are taking on ‘real Canadian’ winters with this move. Scary to this coastal raised softie. But, more sunshine, right?
    Lovely to hear that you are enjoying the change and have good things to say about Saskatoon 🙂

• We took a sizeable paycut and moved, when our children were young, from a hip/expensive/academically and socially on overdrive/ lovely, thriving suburb of a big city to a small, economically modest, mostly rural town, which was part of a small, reasonably good school district and near a rather small city on the other side of the country. It was one of the best things we ever did for our family.

  Our children are grown now and living wisely and well. We still go back to visit family in the expensive suburb. We would never be able, financially, to live there now. And we don’t regret that in the least. The move was totally the right thing for us and for our children.

  • Thank you!! 🙂

• It’s a really tough decision, especially to move away from family. We faced something similar, did we get a huge mortgage to stay in the inner ish city suburbs or move a lot further out. At the time it was an agonising decision and it took us years to figure it out. In the end we moved further out, down the coast, it’s been the best thing we ever did and I am so grateful not to be living with that huge mortgage over our heads.

• No brainer your children are only young for a short time. You chose to bring them into this world, they are your top priority,

  • I’ve been reading the author for a while and think she’s consistently been GREAT at putting her kids first. What that looks like will change over time for each family. This seems like a tough call–is it better for the kids to move away from extended family?–but they have obviously thought through all the angles.

    • We’re moving from extended family and that will be hard. But… we don’t see them that much. Live in different neighborhoods/suburbs and well, everyone is so busy! We’re actually moving to a small town my brother lives in and we will be a few blocks from them, very relaxed and time plentiful lifestyle there, cousins in same school. So it’s strange to say but we will actually see more (but less variety!) of extended family with the move. And, lucky me, because my brother already lives there we will get a lot of visits from my side of the family.
      That’s the plan at least.
      Thank you for the encouragement Meg!

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