I agree with both of you, of course, but this means that in order to just break even you have to do something like tourism or similar just to cover your own costs of taxes and plowing.
People often mistake convenience for "required cost". An example?
If you have a 1/2 mile private road, you don't actually need to plow it. This is a convenience. A 1/2 mile is not a long distance to walk, regardless of the temperature (if one is relying upon "getting to a car" to be warm, that's not even remotely safe. dress appropriately, your car could break down after all...).
Instead, you can:
* not plow it at all, and hand shovel a small area right by the road
OR
* use a snow blower right by the road
OR
* use a snow blower to make a person wide path to the road, then plow the "at the road" driveway
If you don't buy a truck, and a plow for it, and only clear a small area at the road, as above, a snowblower can do the job cheap and easily. So can a shovel. Yes, I know this for a fact.
I might add that even with frequent snowfalls, walking back and forth to the car is an event of path creation and snow flattening in itself.
And that also, the winter is great because a sled can be pulled by a person with much ease, even with a lot of weight on it. It's why many pull firewood, entire trees out of the forest in the winter, instead of the summer.
One may say "well that's inconvenient". So? That's my whole point. You still have a car, you have mail at the road, and there are even modern super-cheap workarounds such as a remote camera at the road.
In terms of water? Yes, being on a well can suck in the winter. But there are workarounds to generators. Generators aren't cheap, maintaining them isn't either, nor is the fuel for them.
But when buy and build your well infra, you can use a large or a small pressure tank. Modern methods tend to have this super-tiny pressure tank -- no power, no water.
I have a 40 gallon pressure tank, and it retains a lot of pressure for a long time. I also have a super-insulated hot water tank, which means:
* I can take 3 showers, one hot, then warm, then lukewarm with the power off
* I also have at-tank water that has no pressure to drive the taps, but does have 20+ gallons of fresh water at the pressure tank
Is that entirely convenient? No. Well the first part is.
Typically, power outages are less than a day for me. Some are far worse (once 2 weeks!), but for the short outages of < 1 day:
* you just don't flush the toilet.. "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown send it down" is the old adage. This significantly extends water stores.
* you don't need to shower quite as frequently
Now... one can have a small generator, meaning "less expensive, less fuel", to just re-pressurize the pressure tank. Water can be infinite, and I frankly get by a day easily during power outages without needing that generator.
And most people with forests to maintain, tend to do wood heat a bit if they can. Even if it's only ornamental, living room "that looks nice" fireplace, that's plenty to keep you warm during outages.
And of course, our friend 'the sweater" helps too.
But my point is, you can be inconvenienced and live on the cheap. You don't have to plow. You don't have to do a lot of things. And clearing the forest becomes "here's how I heat my house", so the work you do, the costs of the chainsaw, becomes a break even, if not a bit of a savings and also a "here's how I stay warm without power" bonus too.
You need to maintain a rural home well enough that you can get out in an emergency, or when you are sick or injured. Or old. Assuming that everyone can always walk half a mile, or shovel by hand, is a dangerous game to play. If you slip, fall, and break a leg during a storm, the ambulance won't shovel your drive to come get you.
How many people, when buying a home, seek out and assess the mean time to response?
Did you buy a home? Or even if you rent, have you checked? Depending upon city neighborhood, average response times vary widely.
Some city areas are hospital adjacent. Some are a mean time of an hour away.
If you haven't purposefully checked, then why not?
Some people live in 6 story buildings with (gasp!) no elevator. What of them? I assure you a stretcher up and down 6 stories is no better than a mere 1/2 mile walk on flat ground.
What of power outages in the city? Did you check to see if your building has a backup generator? Yes? No? What do you do if the power is out, and you're on the 35th floor? Yet many city buildings have no backup generator, even tall ones.
If one is to throw stones, take care not to live in a glass house. Or in this case, an apartment building.
Hmmm...Until recently I had an elderly relative living with me and I _know_ the difference in difficulty in getting them out with cleared snow vs not, and it's a lot.
Does that sort of thing (and hospital proximity, etc) matter to everyone? No. Or certainly it doesn't matter the same amount.
Bear in mind I advocated clearing with a snow blower a walking path. This is far cheaper than owning a truck and plow, and can be done very fast each storm.
Note, this is a thread about cost savings in rural circumstances.
But my statements about parallel situations stand. And about people evaluating things ahead of time, they just don't. Rural living has different risks, but city born risks are just as high. IMO, higher.
Just the additional smog and pollution alone are an issue. It's even hotter in a city.
I'm sorry about your incident, but I've seen 6 story buildings with no elevator. People live there to save money too. The stairwells are not conducive to a stretcher either.
So people save as they can.
All that said, how many people move when they get older, so they're closer to hospitals?
I get why you wanted to chime in, with a personal experince though.
