I agree about the rotisserie chickens. They are a good value and we can get 2-3 meals from one of them. I'm sorry y'all aren't seeing a cheaper cost of living in KS, though. Maybe after you recover from all the moving expenses things will level off.
@Yvonne Smith and anyone else interested. Ordered a cheap but sufficient laptop today. Watched many Utube videos on ones I had interest in. Suppose to be here Monday. Once setup will tell what I got. As long as I can surf ,pay bills , check emails, and get on the Forum without it taking all day..I will be happy.
Your the reason I started buying one. The chicken is delicious and yes makes good meal and sandwiches. Radar has a hisssy fit soon as we walk in door,he wants his nibbles of chicken. Yeah maybe next month will be better? Sigh, um maybe.
I always "pick the carcass" and put all the little bits in a freezer bag. Then when I want to make enchiladas, soup or something that needs a little bit of meat I can thaw it and toss it in. I'm glad little Radar gets his share!
I was worried about your utility bills. But the summer savings are likely to offset the winter costs. And I experienced a similar thing when I moved to a rural area, although not as extreme as you, Hedi. I went from having several grocery stores and restaurants less than a mile from my house to the nearest ones being 8 miles away...and I currently drive 50 miles round trip every week to get better produce than Walmart and Food Lion offer (at least the savings at ALDI come close to offsetting the cost of gas.) When I was working, my daily commute went from 6 miles round trip to driving 60 miles round trip. Gas in my rural county is more expensive than gas 25 miles up the road in Charlottesville, but I've never been one to chase a 10ยข/gallon, even across town. I did save on real estate taxes, for what that's worth. And I guess that rents and house prices are lower, but so are wages (and availability of jobs.) Net-Net, these "lower cost of living" mantras ain't all they're cracked up to be. I think most folks in these places survive because they are multi-generations under one roof. and/or the legacy family property was paid for before they were born (or parcels were cleaved.) Then there's the "shackin' up to combine benefits" stuff.
My rant for today is Biden's laughing and making fun of the mother that lost two sons from fentanyl poisoning that testified before congress. She never said he killed them or even that it happened when he was president, but rather that he had opened the borders increasing the crisis 100-1000 times from what it was under Trump. It was bad under Trump but he was working on it despite Democrats opposing him on everything he did. Her testimony was all about mothers having to deal with things that could be made better if the borders were closed and guarded. I think it is time for mothers to start a movement called MADS Mothers Against Democrat Socialists. Get 1 million angry mothers marching in Washington demanding Biden and that cackler that follows him around, seal the borders or resign.
Angry moms are changing the politics in some areas. They are one of the reasons that the governor of Virginia was elected. Biden wants them all labeled as terrorists however. I now see that the FBI is tracking conservative Catholics as a "hotbed for breeding domestic terrorists'' according to a memo from the FBI office in that state. Christopher Wray says he knows nothing about it and looked rather dumb when testifying before the Senate on the matter. Angry moms are probably setting up terrorist cells across the U.S.
Thankfully, we don't go to fast food restaurants. I cannot abide them. Sadly, my late daughter in law would rather eat at a McDonald's than a nice steak house or the like. It was how her childhood was like, and she just loved that food.
Last summer I bought a good quality hose from Lowes. First time hooked up, it swelled up like a python that had just swallowed a half dozen large rats. It is very hard to get rid of an old hose in the trash. Then bought two more hoses of medium quality. One sprang a leak within a couple weeks. A few weeks later the other one sprang a leak. Looked more carefully at the last two yesterday. They both had teeth marks all over them. Squirrels ! That never happened before. How do you stop it? Bring the hose inside after every use?
I have never had that happen (with squirrels) although I have experienced many hose failures. I was given one of those Bullet Hoses advertised by Richard Karn on TV, and it was useless from the beginning. I leaked from fittings on both ends. I try to buy the best hoses I can get, real rubber ones if I can find them, although they are quite heavy and difficult to move in long lengths. I was shown by an old friend to use the black PVC pipe for long distances and install fittings along the pipe runs to which I can attach hoses. That is cheaper than running good hoses and means I don't need as many hoses to irrigate and such.
I don't know if you watch golf, but it's gone from being as polite as Wimbledon to drunken idiots screaming "Get In The Hole!" every time a player strikes the ball. Every player, every hole, every stroke, all 4 rounds of 18 holes. It's bad enough I can't enjoy a concert because of the jerks, I can't even watch a decent round of golf in my own home. Maybe I could invent a filter that mutes it.