I Got A Homebase! (But Will Still Travel 1/3 Of The Year)

Well, it finally happened. But like a lot of things in life, how it happened was a complete surprise. Of all the reasons I suspected that I would settle down again, such as getting tired of traveling or wanting to create ‘roots’, FOMO was no where on that list🤣. But let me explain.

In the last year my Partner’s entire family moved within the same 15 minute radius in Upstate New York. Previously, part of our travels included seeing his family and our niblings around the country, but now they’re all together and they’re having fun without us🤣!

We’re all on a group chat and for the last year, we’ve had to read about all of the awesome impromptu fun they’ve been having while we’re traveling. That combined with our niblings growing so fast and being at different life stages each time we see them every 6 months, led us to start talking about getting a homebase near family in the future.

I mentioned this as a FOMO possibility in my January Monthly Recap below, but the price would have to be right in rural NY for us to make this transition and still travel 1/3-1/2 of each year. And the price was right 🙂 .

• The Month Of Yuki Matsuri: January 2025 Recap

So now we’ve started renting a 1 bedroom apartment in Upstate NY for $800/month total or $400/month per person. That rent includes Heat (which is a steal given frigid NY winters) as well as Water, Sewer, Gas and Garbage.

The apartment is a top floor, corner unit with a river view, giant windows on 3-sides of the apartment and only two neighbors down the hall. It’s downtown and walking distance to all shops, including a grocery store and my Partner’s family. It checked all of my dream boxes, which I wasn’t expecting, so I had to have it🤣!

When I told my Mom about this apartment, this was her reaction:

Me: It’s $800 a month.
Mom: Each?
Me: Lol – no. Total.
Mom: 😲

Now she gets it 🙂 .

THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE

Originally we were just playing with the idea of getting a homebase near family. We hadn’t decided if we would definitely do it or not, but we wanted to know what the rental market looked like in the rural NY town my Partner’s parents live in.

So I started browsing to see what was in the area and wasn’t surprised to see… Nothing 🙂 . Small towns understandably have less rental inventory than the metropolises we’re used to on account of their much smaller populations, but also it seemed like the rentals were rarely listed online.

We asked around and heard that in typical small town fashion, the way to usually get an apartment is to know people. We then reached out to family members that had rented in the area and asked for their landlords’ phone numbers. We contacted the landlords and they said that they didn’t know of any rentals that were opening in the next year. Alrighty then.

However, just in case something did come up, we wanted to be prepared and make decisions based on facts instead of emotions, so we made a list of our ideal criteria for this new apartment:

• $1,250/month total for rent and utilities
• Located walking distance to a grocery store and my Partner’s family
• Few neighbors
• Little noise
• Lots of light

Originally, if we were going to rent, we planned to do so starting in 2026, so we put the thought on the back burner with the knowledge that few apartments might be available, especially ones that fit our criteria.

THE REMIXED PLAN

But then, we were in Japan exploring Osaka when we heard through the landlord grapevine that an apartment fitting our sky high criteria was about to become available. So we contacted that landlord and they sent us a video of the space.

It was just what we were looking for and it was below our budget, so our curiosity was heightened. We quickly contacted a family member and asked if they would be willing to view the apartment for us. And they were! A few family members volunteered actually so we had a bit of a contest on our hands 😉 .

In the end, my sister-un-law checked it out for any red flags, took a million pictures for us and gave the apartment a thumbs up. Despite this place coming along before our proposed schedule, it matched what we wanted so perfectly that we snapped it up!

We decided to officially become renters again and did it about half a year earlier than planned because we realized how rare a place like this is and we had to have it 🙂 .

A CAR CATCH

After living in NYC and Seattle for my entire adult life, it shocks me how cheap rent is in the rural US. However, there’s always a catch 🙂 .

A rural location means we need a car to get around comfortably in the winter because public transit out here is non-existent (thanks America). And adding a car to the budget with our apartment might equal about the rent we paid in Seattle when we didn’t need a car given all of the public transit and pedestrian options there.

So that’s next on my list – buying a car for the first time in my life. I try to never say never, but I did about buying a car, so that serves me right 🙂 :

• Carfree For Life

However, in that post I was talking about avoiding long commutes on Atlanta’s huge and ugly highways. Driving through rolling green hills on country roads with no traffic in sight is a completely different experience 😉 . So different in fact that tourists actually come to this part of the world just to drive through the changing fall leaves because it’s so beautiful.

But still, I never should have said never. Life likes to throw a few curveballs so here I am about to become a car person. And since I’ve never bought a car before I’m finding it a bit daunting so if you have any tips for that process, feel free to leave them below.

All of this change also means I’ll be transferring my residency from Washington State back to New York where I started my career. So cyclical 🙂 . Car buying is going to be another interesting process I imagine, but luckily I have time to figure it out (yay retirement 😉 ).

THE RENTING PROCESS

For those curious about the process of renting in a rural area, here are all the details of my experience.

THE APPLICATION

After only living in NYC and Seattle for my adult life, I was prepared for the apartment application process to require lots of paperwork like it did with my previous experiences. I had to provide a million pieces of proof about my financial status, my job, my previous apartments and my identity. I would have to cough up enough money to cover first, last and an additional month’s rent as a security deposit and at times, a broker fee. It was a whole thing 🙂 .

But I should have realized that small towns, where everyone knows everyone, are different because we needed exactly…none of that stuff 🙂 . This had been a concern of mine – that if we ended up getting an apartment down the line when my Partner was also retired, that it would be difficult because we wouldn’t be able to provide a W-2 like all my applications required in the past.

But none of that was necessary here. In fact, the entire process was shockingly easy. The landlord didn’t ask for anything besides our names and email addresses to put on the lease agreement and that we provide first month’s rent and a deposit when we sign the lease. Easy 🙂 .

And that’s not the only way this experience was completely different from my previous ones in a big city. Unlike most of my NYC landlords, this small town one is super responsive – they respond in literal minutes to any question or concern I have.

It’s absolutely wild when compared to my first NYC landlord who completely ignored my calls for weeks when our heat went out in the coldest NYC winter on record at the time. And that was after we had spotted ants, roaches and rats in the apartment, but they didn’t care or ignored all of our concerns.

Though I guess in a small town if you’re uncommunicative and uncaring word gets around and you wouldn’t be a successful landlord for long. So small town life is winning in the lack of paperwork and the gain of a great landlord.

THE LEASE

We had been texting the landlord throughout the month and she sent the lease to us for review a week before it was set to start. The paperwork looked great except for one thing. The lease had a clause that said if we’re gone for 14 consecutive days, the place may be considered abandoned unless we’ve told the landlord about us leaving in writing.

Since we are often gone for that long, I asked the landlord to remove or edit that clause and she did. She just asked that we text her when we’re leaving for long periods so she can check on the place and make sure it’s good to go.

Apparently this clause was added because last winter she had a tenant who left for a few days with the heat in the apartment turned off and the pipes burst. Yikes! So she wants to stay on top of that kind of thing.

I’m not sure why that tenant did that especially since the heat is included (and unlimited) in the rent. So it’s not a big deal to just keep it at 60F while we’re gone, which is what the landlord asked us to do going forward in the winter. Sounds good to me!

RENTERS INSURANCE

A requirement of getting the apartment was understandably having renters insurance so like with all things, I did some research. I found this website listing the renters insurance options in New York helpful and went down the list to explore what each was offering.

And it’s never been more obvious to me how much I value my time and convenience over most other things because here is how those interactions went:

• NYCM said I have to contact a specific insurance broker for a quote – NOPE!
• All State’s website glitched out – NOPE!
• Travelers said they couldn’t help me online – NOPE!

State Farm was the only company at that point on the list that didn’t have an issue, and they insured our Seattle apartment back before we were nomads. So we had our renters insurance provider and it will cost $10.42/month.

ELECTRIC

Next on my to-do list was to set up electricity to our apartment. That service is provided by National Grid and my landlord sent me a phone number to call, but hilariously the number was actually for the Pennsylvania Chief Of Police’s Office.

Luckily I always Google random phone numbers before calling them so I knew that, but I still called just to check. And yep, that’s what it was 🙂 . I let the landlord know in case it’s a common copy/paste mistake.

I then used my beloved website GetHuman to find the correct number for National Grid. I went through their prompts and then was placed on hold.

Hilariously while I was on hold, the recording kept saying that their website might be able to do whatever I’m on hold for. So I went to the website while still on the phone and they did have a section about starting service. I went through all the forms and filled them out only to receive this message:

Unable to process your service request.
Please contact us to complete your request.

Wow 🙂 . Well I guess it’s good I trust no one and stayed on the line the whole time while going through the online steps. However, the original message said I would be on hold for 10 minutes and it took 30 minutes until someone picked up.

I was going to give praise for providing a wait time estimate at all, but somehow an estimate that was 1/3 of the actual wait time felt worse at the end of this. I should have selected the call back option 😉 . Lesson learned!

Anyway, after I was finally connected to a human person, my contact Sarah was extremely helpful and set up my electricity without a hiccup so that was a great end to this saga. Now I have: