Ramblings-n-Writings

Archive for January 4th, 2008

Sometimes I’m asked what it is like to live in such a rural area. The best response I can think of, which is technically not a response, is it is different.

Growing up, I lived in the “country,” meaning outside of a town or city, no sidewalks, long driveway, woods. We had to drive to and from the bus stop every day (mainly because our Christian school didn’t have a contract with our local public school district). I still remember the first time one of my best friends came to spend the night – from her responses and comments, you would have thought we took her to Siberia!

Realize that in no way were we in a remote area. Philadelphia was 35 miles away, King of Prussia (the largest mall on the east coast) was less than a half hour drive. We had our choices of grocery stores, libraries, restaurants. If one store didn’t have an item, go to the next. Many in the area earn six-figure incomes. Miss the gas station? There’s 3 or 4 more in the next couple of miles.

Now, I really think my friend would go into shock at where I live. This is definitely remote. The closest town (grocery store, library, hospital, doctors etc.) is 25 miles away. The closest gas station is 10 miles away. I’m sure there are more remote places, but I don’t know that I could handle more remoteness! So, what is it like?

In some ways our cost of living is cheaper than the average place in the U.S. Property taxes here are low; electric is fairly cheap. Land is slightly over $1,000/acre. But other items, like gasoline, tend to run higher, supposedly because of the ‘transport’ costs.

Economically, our state is in poverty. A significant percentage of the people receive federal and/or state aid of some sort – Social Security, food stamps, WIC, CHIPS, etc. Most of the aid is deserving although some do take advantage of the system. Either way, given the “economic” condition of our state, one would think that our prices would be equal to or less than those in metropolitan areas. Well, on our holiday trip back to the “country,” I made a few interesting discoveries.

• An 18 lb. bag of generic cat food is a minimum of $1.75 per bag more here. Name brands in PA were cheaper than generic here.
• A 20 lb. container of Tidy Cat cat litter was $6.93 in PA; here the same container was $9.85.
• Dog food is also more expensive here.
• 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke average $1.25 in our area; the average price in PA was less than $1 with some sales as low as 75 cents/bottle.
• Cabbage was 39 cents per head; here it is considerably more.
• Frozen pizza (can’t remember the brand) was $3.99 regular price in PA; our price is $5.99 with occasional sales of $3.99.
• Snyder’s of Hanover Pretzel Pieces were on sale for $1.67/bag; our best sale price has been 2 for $4.

While this isn’t specifically price related, our coupon inserts in the Sunday paper often have less coupons than other areas of the country. Instead of the coupon, we get an advertisement for the product (not sure how that entices me to buy the product – give me the coupon!!!). While I initially thought I was simply missing a coupon that I knew existed, a fellow blogger who lives in a different area of the state confirmed my suspicion that indeed we were being cheated out of coupons.

My conclusion is that someone is making a hefty profit somewhere! Personally, I can understand price differences, but $3 differences? Isn’t that a little excessive?

More later about living in the real “country”…..