Lifestyle Differences in Denver Burbs? (Aurora, Boulder: renting, insurance, loft)
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So in another thread, and off-topic, this was said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by wanttomoveeast
...we thought it'd be perfect.
But we were stooopid. We didn't think about the commute, or the fact that we were used to urban life. I swear, we've both gained 50 lbs. just living in the burbs. We don't talk to our neighbors, just drive into our respective garages, unlike downtown where I knew everyone on my floor.
Since moving in, we realized we are not meant for burb life. We are spending way more money just living out there. And I work downtown, probably always will due to my line of work.
I wonder if we have crossed paths. Do you get downtown at all?
See, I found the opposite in some ways. In the city I did very little to stay active, but living in the burbs allowed us to get dogs (we have 2 200 lb-ers) so we walk them, we feel more comfortable biking on the weekends (well, before we moved to MD).. it has certainly been more expensive, but that's mostly because I have more room for my hobbies now
In the apt. buildings and houses I've lived in in the city, no one talks to each other. In the burbs back in Pittsburgh, I knew darn-near all my neighbors. We femmes would gather and sip iced tea at one of the stay-at-home-moms houses at the end of the block. If they caught you walking by with the dogs, they'd pull you in and make you sit for a spell. Never ever experienced anything like that in the city proper.
Well, perhaps I should have been more clear. So hard to type it all out!
What I meant by urban living was highrises and building apts. When I lived in this manner, I walked to work every day, both ways. I would walk to the grocery store and carry a couple of bags home. When we wanted to go out on the weekends, we'd take our bikes and jump on the Cherry Creek bike trail, right outside our door. We were much more active.
Living in the burbs, I cannot walk anywhere except for around houses and subdivisions. To get to the store, pharmacy, bar, restaurant, anything, I must drive. It has become much more expensive for us. I work downtown, he works in Aurora. Since it is over a mile to get to any bus stop, most days I actually drive to the bus stop. If I don't want to adhere to the once an hour bus schedule, I am forced to drive downtown. When we lived downtown, we had one car. We paid it off, very minimal maintenance since we hardly drove it. In the burbs, it's every other week we are maintaining our cars. I just got my 2nd flat in 3 weeks. Gas is doubled for us. Car payments double. Insurance double.
Then there's parking. If I want to drive, the lowest I can get is $8 per day. My husband's work is a private lot. Again, living downtown I would walk to work. No parking, gas, insurance or car maintenance.
When we lived downtown, our utilities were half the cost they are now. We are in a much bigger home, costs more to heat and cool it. In apt. living, if the fridge broke the management replaced it. Now, we go to our savings and plunk down a chunk.
A lot of what I don't like about burb life is a personal thing, not everyone's the same. Personality, lifestyle, etc. all play a part in what you like. We don't have kids, so we don't care about how good the schools are or how many kids live in our neighborhood. Downtown events consist of events that have free drinks! Burb events consist of free ice cream. Make sense? ugh, so hard to type what I'm trying to say.
One other thing, what I meant by us being stupid, well, it was a dumb choice to buy blindly. Buying is not like renting, we didn't realize this at the time. I think that no matter who you are or where you are living, you should research buying very heavily and think long and hard about the consequences. Because we didn't do this enough, we are unhappy and may not be able to move at all!
Ah. I remember walking to work. We were two blocks away and yeah, the livin' was much easier... though grocery still wasn't walkable. I definitely miss the city, because I miss the feeling of being close to everything going on... but the sheer amount of STUFF we've amassed in the past 8 years and the big, barking Komondorok we have make it very difficult to go back.
Right now we're in a 1800 sq. ft. townhome, and we're looking at moving into a 3,000 sq. ft house because it seems to be the only way to get some of the amenities we want. This is particularly misery causing because like you mentioned, our utility costs will go up. We need land, but we don't necessarily need all that space in-house. (I have no use for a formal, enclosed dining room and living room, for instance. Just give me a first floor that is one big, open floorplan...this doesn't seem to exist in the Denver Metro Not to mention I've fallen in love with Castle Rock, (and will be working in Castle Pines) but all the interest my husband has received job-wise is in Boulder. (AGGH.) So we're still trying to figure this all out, since something's gotta give. We're a mixed-race couple that will probably have, well, mixed-race kids within the next few years, so it would be nice to move in a more diverse part like Aurora... ok, like Stapleton. I've lived in Aurora before, and I know better (it isn't all diverse in a good way. )
My wife and I moved from SoCal, right in the middle of city life of course. Everything at hand 24/7. I grew up there, my wife in MO. Most of my family is from the midwest and I really knew I wanted to be out in that sort of setting, so when the kids moved out, we did too.
We found a great place in Larkspur (16 miles south of Castle Rock, right next to the north side of Monument Hill). It was a shock for my wife, but she's used to it now.
I've lost about 35 pounds since I moved out here (18 months) and I haven't even been trying. We eat healthier cause there's not a whole lot of fast/moderately fast food places around. We do lots of work in the yard - you know excercise, versus, drive to work, work, drive home from work, eat dinner in front of the TV, then go to bed and repeat.
Yes, some things are more expensive, some are cheaper, but the quiet/serenity is priceless.
Like you said, we have room for our hobbies, so we do spend more money, but we also spend less in some aspects.
Our gas bill in SoCal was 58 bucks. Out here, it's about 120 bucks a month. Our electric bill in SoCal was 400 bucks. Here, it's about 200 bucks. Water in SoCal was probably 45 bucks a month. Where we're at here, we're on a well and have water rights, so it's "free". Sure it takes electricity to run the well pump, but see difference in electricity bills.
Had to buy a lot of things we didn't have/need before. We more or less traded across the board for this house over our old house. 8000 sq ft lot to 31 acres and 3 times the size of house. So first off, needed a quad with a plow blade to help with yard work and plow the 700 ft driveway in the winter. Had a gardener in SoCal, which was about 250 a month which we do all that ourselves now. So had to buy a riding lawn mower and a weed eater.
What else? My wife depends on gardening year round as a diversion to her job, so we built a year round running greenhouse which is heated and the works.
We have about 7 neighbors here. We had 100's before. We knew 3 of the neighbors before. Here, we know all 7, plus a bunch that are 4-20 miles away. We only really see 3-4 of the neighbors a few times a week, but we only saw one of the neighbors about once a week on the weekends, not counting that we could see them in thier house from some of our windows. Keep in mind that we were in the same neighborhood for 8 years and this one, for 18 months.
When we moved into our new house, it was months before we actually met a neighbor face to face. Here, we had 2 neighbors come up to our house while we were moving in to welcome us with banana nut bread in hand and stuff.
I gladly plow one of my neighbors driveways and don't ask a thing for it, although their daughter bakes me cookies all the time for it. Think my next door neighbor would leaf blow my driveway back in SoCal real quick if he was doing his? ha.
In SoCal, we'd sit in traffic and go to dinner and stuff which could take 45-60 minutes to get there. Here, we spend 30-45 minutes travelling to do the same with no traffic which is so much better on your vehicle. When I used to visit some family in the mid-west, I'd see that they'd have thier cars for 8-10 years with 400-500k miles on them. In SoCal, we'd start seeing cars breaking down at 70k miles and people dumping them because of problems. City driving and heavy traffic driving definitely kills a car faster than easy long miles.
While we don't have any neighborhood watch signs up anywhere, we all do. I love weather, January, I had to let two of the neighbors know that they were losing shingles on their roofs during a wind storm. They had no idea that was happening. We all know when someone's around that shouldn't be- never.
People wave at you when you drive by out here with all 5 fingers, not just 1.
I could go on and on, but I'll not be trading the burbs for nothin.
ha --- lol!!! the stuff, that's the other thing, omg do we really need all this crap?!? NO!
It's like we moved into this big home so we decided to fill it up. And while I love and adore my husband, he's not the clean type, more clutter type. I clean one room, move to the next, go back to the first and he's messed it up again!
All of the places we lived in downtown had the grocery just blocks away, bars, restaurants, delis, coffee shops, you name it. I don't think there's one coffee shop by our house now. And certainly no bagels.
wow, I can't imagine living in a 3,000 sq. ft. home. Maybe I'm poor, but that sounds like a mansion! oh and amenities? Well, when we lived downtown we had a pool, utilities were paid except for electricity. We had a gym. And parking. Now I pay for a gym, pay crazy high utilities, and no freaking pool. : (
I know there are open floor plans like you want, just not sure how to find them. My aunt lives in Larkspur and boy you'd love her place. Her porch is wood and wraps around her entire house. And I happen to know that homes down there are an arm and a leg. Maybe two legs. Boulder is awesome too, but again, you may have to give a kidney or your first child for a home there.
I really like what I've seen in Stapleton, much more so than Aurora.
Last edited by DenverLawGal; 04-16-2008 at 03:18 PM..
Reason: oops, meant Larkspur, not Castle Rock!
swampy: Some of what you describe is what we hate about the burbs, the driving to work, driving from work, eat sleep. By the time I get home after my hour commute I'm just too cranky and tired to work out. I should also note: While your comparison is interesting and perfectly understandable (helllooooo, SoCal. vs. Colo.???) my response was a comparison of Denver burbs vs. Denver downtown. Seems like SoCal. and Colo. are worlds apart. I mean with everything, costs, people, etc. Some of the things you describe about the people in Larkspur I've seen both in Thornton and in downtown Denver. I personally think that sometimes Coloradoans are much kinder than SoCalifornians. Although I must say last year I was in Orange and spent most of my time at Balboa and the people were awesome. What you described is probably why we have this very high influx of Calif. moving here.
Something else to think about --- what you are describing sounds like hefty money. Probably not so much for you since you came from super expensive SoCal., but very expensive for Denverites.
Didn't realize it was downtown Denver to the burbs. I saw pittsburg and stuff up there so thought it was a generalization.
Fortunately for me, I travel for work and doesn't matter where I live, it will be a long "commute". My wife works from home and can do it anywhere she can get a phone line and high speed internet. So commuting isn't an issue for us fortunately.
I have a 1/2 acre pond, so don't need a pool, although, doesn't help in the winter.
We got lucky and scored this place before prices went too far out there. The builder of this house did an excellent job and the house is very well insulated so our heaters generally don't run too much even on a day like today where it's 30 degrees out. The heaters haven't fired since 5 or 6am this morning.
We have that open floorplan that you guys are dieing for. It's what we were looking for exactly.. 2 bedrooms/baths on the main floor with the kitchen, dining and living room completely open and all wood, then another bedroom/bath on the second floor with a big open loft for my wife's office and a basement for the guy thing with a big open room and a bedroom/bath as well.
Hey, one of my neighbors around the corner is selling their place. Guest house included for 8 million. hahaha. That's crazy (and no, we're not one of those big expensive places).
People wave at you when you drive by out here with all 5 fingers, not just 1.
HA!
Today I discovered that my new-found route home from my month-long internship sticks me behind every Montgomery County, MD school bus returning back to depot on 1-lane-each-direction country roads for 6 miles. A 6 miles without passing zones. And you're just evil if you give the finger to school bus drivers...AND I was on my bike, so I got to suck up their exhaust fumes through my helmet the whole time.
Swampy: I was just clarifying that my post was comparing downtown Denver to Denver burbs. I think the OP was interested in other comparisons as she has lived elsewhere. So it was sort of generalized. I am glad you posted as it is always intesting to hear how life is outside of my little box!
8 million?? that's insane.
I know that when my husband moved here he thought man, it's cheap here! I just ran prices by my best friend (she's in Hollywood) and she about choked. I guess it's all relative.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Swampy101
Didn't realize it was downtown Denver to the burbs. I saw pittsburg and stuff up there so thought it was a generalization.
Wow, that does not sound fun. Are you coming back to Denver? I think that the many different areas and ways to live here make it a good city, I'm just tired of it, that's all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by enigmakairos
HA!
Today I discovered that my new-found route home from my month-long internship sticks me behind every Montgomery County, MD school bus returning back to depot on 1-lane-each-direction country roads for 6 miles. A 6 miles without passing zones. And you're just evil if you give the finger to school bus drivers...AND I was on my bike, so I got to suck up their exhaust fumes through my helmet the whole time.
I can't wait to get out of here.
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