Frugal living for a family in California? (Salinas, Torrance: section 8, rentals)

[jaynetarzana]

Our story: We bought a modest house (720 sq ft) in Santa Cruz for a family of four. The market crashed, we lost everything, moved to Chicago for cheaper cost of living, we've missed California every minute , we're planning a move back in 34 days (yay!), we are determined to live within our means this time (including putting $ away each month so we can one day buy a home again). We need public schools so we have chosen Scotts Valley. Looking at rentals online, there isn't anything decent for under $2K and even those are in the section 8 areas. We don't mind living frugally (other than housing, we do already), but we don't want our pride to hurt either. We want to have a nice place to live that we aren't embarrassed of. I was wondering if anyone has had a similar experience with wanting to "go frugal" and if you wouldn't mind sharing your story. Thanks in advance!

[Charles]

I've always been frugal. These days just about everyone has to.

I'd start be realizing your kids education comes first: before traffic, before nice views, before "hip and trendy and artsy...", etc.

Our story: We bought our house in 1997 and watched the neighbors go HELOC crazy. I passed 6th grade math so I knew what they were doing was very risky. While they hired big expensive landscape companies, I rented my own trencher and put in my own irrigation system. Just one example.

There are tons of websites with practical information and tips: use a library for books and DVDs for example (I had a war with my nine year old on that this morning so this is fresh in my mind - she just "has" to buy books at the book fair at school. No way - go to the library.)

Never had credit card balance in my life. Never had a car payment. Never had a car loan. Wife never had to work.

My parents were from the depression and I was raised with those values.

Frugal Living

This is a nice book to read:

Amazon.com: The Millionaire Next Door: Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko: Books

[jaynetarzana]

Thanks for your reply Charles. We do realize that our children's education comes first which is why we are choosing to live in an area with great public schools. We spent our 20's doing nothing but working, going to college and fixing up our houses so we could make money when we sold them while our friends partied. Both of us came from nothing and built a little something for ourselves before we lost it all last year. So we have always been good with our money because we've never had anything handed to us. I think you and I are on the same page. We get our books from the library. I visit the Frugal Living website often and I've read the Millionaire Next Door as well as many other good ones' Your Money Or Your Life, Smart Couples Finish Rich, Rich Dad, Poor Dad etc... But we personally feel like the quality of life that the Santa Cruz area provides is good for our whole family. So we are trying to figure out how to make it work without living beyond our means.

[timelesschild]

Originally Posted by Charles

Frugal Living

Great website, Charles. Thanks!

[MtnSurfer]

Scotts Valley is very nice. But the prices in SV are higher than even closely surrounding areas. How about Felton, Ben Lomond, Boulder Creek, etc...? Do these close surrounding area have similar schools?

Have you heard about affordable housing in Santa Cruz County. A friend of mine is a school teacher in Aptos, has 4 children and his wife is a stay at home mom. They purchased a nice home in Aptos thru this program (Measure J) for ~ 1/2 market price. Aptos has good schools as well. Anyway because of the high cost of living in SC county they are mandated to offer these homes to families who fall below a certain income level which is actually pretty high (~ $110K). I think they also offer rental discounts. But this might be a way for you to afford a house again some day if things are tight:

Measure J

Affordable Housing in Santa Cruz.

Derek

[jaynetarzana]

Thanks for your post Derek. I appreciate you taking the time. Unfortunately we don't qualify for that program since we have owned a home in Aptos in the past three years (we sold it last April). They have a few decent (which isn't good enough in my opinion when you are talking about your child's education) elementary schools and the middle and high schools rate poorly. Also, they just announced that they are planning to close the libraries in the Aptos schools. Most of the people who I know that live in Aptos are sending their kids to private schools, but that is not an option for us. The SC mountains don't have good schools. I've done all of the research and it is between Scotts Valley and a charter school in Santa Cruz that has a lottery to get into. So since that isn't a sure thing, we are looking for a rental in Scotts Valley. The rental assistance is only for families whose income is below 30% of the county median income.

[MtnSurfer]

Yeah, I thought I saw something there about three years.

I don't know if you are totally set on Scotts Valley or open to other options. If so Monterey, Pacific Grove and Carmel all have good schools. Monterey County also has affordable living options with different rules and income requirements. Here is one web page on it:Mounterey Housing

We live in PG currently. We have three children and homeschool. But many of our friends use the public system and are happy with the schools.

Although SC is nice we prefer the Penisula Beach cities for family activities, less traffic, and nice communities, etc... Plus we are only ~ 1 hr to SC.

Derek

[jaynetarzana]

Derek,

Thanks again for your thoughtful reply. I love all of your posts, especially the pictures you share. It seems we have a lot in common and it would be worth meeting your family when we get ourselves back there if you are interested. We already have plans to come down to the aquarium. We have considered the Monterey area since DH will be working in Salinas, but there are several reasons why we opted for Scotts Valley instead; one of them being that I am a tribal belly dancer and ballroom dancer and Santa Cruz has better opportunities for me. Also, we much prefer drier, sunnier, warmer climates and Scotts Valley fits the bill on those.

What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of both SC and the peninsula beach cities?

How is homeschooling? I love the idea of it, but I'm not the kind of person who could pull it off. I will however, be a very involved parent in my children's education.

[MtnSurfer]

Thanks for the compliments on my posts. We really do enjoy living in the Monterey area now as you probably have gathered

As far as SC and Monterey we orginally wanted to live in SC when we were first married in the SC Mountains at the wedding chapel in Mt. Herman Christian Camp, Scotts Valley. We were young and that was many years ago. The only problem we found was that there were too few jobs in SC and the drive into SJ via the 17 was a nightmare. Ppl drive that road like they are on crack or something especially during rush hour in the rain & fog.

So we ended up staying in SoCal (Torrance) where there were more jobs. Although we really longed to get out of the big city and around more natural beauty like in NorCal. We eventually moved away from of CA to CO after the birth of our third child for all the common reasons (high cost of living, increasing crime, crowds, pollution, etc...). But I missed the sea too much and my wife her family. So of all the places we could think of to live in CA Monterey was at the top of our list. I was also offered a job in Seaside on base at Ft Ord. So that cinched the deal for us.

We have watched SC change a lot over the years and unfortunately it reminds me a bit of my home town of Hermosa Bch - a once sleepy town which got increasingly crowded. Although SC still has a lot of beauty and open spaces especially once out of town and in the mountains. Actually I think Scotts Valley is the nicest area. It still seems like a small town even after all the growth SC proper has seen. I also like Aptos because it is away from the major crowds and traffic of town.

PG, Monterey, Pebble Beach and Carmel just seem to be stuck in a time warp in a good way. Growth is very restricted in terms of construction and new developments. The environment is protected. Monterey Bay is a marine santuary and Point Lobos and Big Sur are very much protected as well. PG is fun small town living which is very family friendly. Anyway those are just some of the many reasons we like living on the Peninsula.

We are very glad we can homeschool. While there are some good public schools(some not so good) we really enjoy being able to provide daily education for children rather than letting a stranger do that. We have found some good homeschool support groups in Monterey as well. This weekend we are going with a group of homeschool families on a whale watching cruise in the bay. I know homeschooling is not for everyone. But for us and our children it is really great.

Stay in touch and let me know how things go as you guys get closer to your move. I really like the idea of living more frugally. Since my wife is a stay at home mom we definately need to watch our spending with the high cost of housing here. But the trade off is worth it for us in having the opportunity to live is such an amazing place.

Derek

[jaynetarzana]

It is apparent that you love Monterey and the area is very beautiful. But it is more expensive than Scotts Valley which is already a stretch for us. When we moved to Aptos, we had subscribed to Monterey mls listings in our price range and not once did anything come up in a single family home.

I'm a stay at home mom too. We made that a priority before we thought about having children, so we planned for it. The thing we didn't plan for was this terrible recession. Who knew we'd lose everything we had. At least we were able to sell though and didn't mess up our perfect credit.

We have done attachment parenting with our children which has been wonderful and I thought about homeschooling, but I realized that I just don't have the right personality for it. That is why I am taking extra care when choosing schools for my girls and I plan to volunteer in their classrooms.

I'm looking at rentals in Scotts Valley and so far I haven't found anything nice that is in the price range we want to stay in. It is making me nervous since we are moving in 33 days. We're just staying positive and believing that it will all work out. In the meantime, I'm reading up on all of the frugal living information I can get ahold of so that we can one day buy a home again.