"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
from "Fran" contains these words:

And Len is quite right about rural living - it is far more expensive in
terms of daily costs. I pay about double the cost of groceries if I shop
in
the village vs getting in the car and going 30 kms (and fuel here has
also
recently blown out in cost).

Agreed so far as transport and shop prices for foods go, but in other
ways living in the sticks can be cheaper than urban /city life. Local
taxes and all insurances are cheaper, and in a cold climate, there's a
big saving in fuel costs from plenty of free wood for heating. Private
water and sewage systems (unavailable in suburbs/cities here) are far,
far cheaper than the charges for public water/sewage.

Well agreed that taxes are cheaper as are most of the insurances if one
lives in town, but wood is no longer either free or cheap anywhere within
coee of where most of us regular posters in Oz would live. Yes it can be
got in some cases but then the cost of taking the vehicle to get it,
acquiring and looking after the chain saw, time involved etc all adds up.
We gave up getting our own some years ago now as it was cheaper to buy it in
bulk and have a big truck bring it once a year - and that is when we have
lots of trees and lots of land available to us.

And as for water, well that one is a two edged sword in a dry country. As
Len mentioned pumps are often a problem and they also aren't free to run.
If anything goes wrong with one the difference between the cost of a year's
water rates in town and fixing/replacing the pump are gone in one trip to
the rural supplier/repairer, and if one has to buy a tank load of water well
that is certainly more than the cost on one years town rates (and in the
recent drought I heard of people paying up to $5,000 in one year for water
outside of town!!!! -about 5-10 times the cost of any town water rate pa.).

And I don't know that I'd agree about the cost of sewerage either unless you
are talking about ammortising (sp?) the cost over a lot of years (which in
Len's case he hasn't yet been able to do). Yes, it could perhaps be cheaper
(except for the ongoing mortgage cost which includes interest) if one bought
a place with it already installed but certainly not if one had to install it
oneself as it casts a packet to get the tank and the water supply to
connect to it and then have it all plumbed in - I reckone one would'nt get
much change out of about $10,000 from a start up. That would be a lot of
years of village rates/taxes.

The thing that does give me the pip though when I go to the bigger or big
smoke is how cheap things are. Like all stationery items, all shoes and
clothes and vegetables! Why bloody vegetables for heavens sake! They grow
in the sticks!

I think I should just take myself off to the big smoke more often and do a
shop till I drop exercise once a year and give the local shops the flick.
If the buggers don't support me by trying to keep their prices lower then I
dunno why I think I should keep supporting them all the time.