square mile living

[Sara Noel]

Are you familar with square mile living? (based on your money or your life)

I feel fortunate that we have just about anything we could need within 2 miles from home. Many things are a block or two away.

I always remind Gabe of these things whenever he is considering new jobs. We are very fortunate to have drs, hospital, firehouse, food stores, gas stations, bookstores, his job, etc etc within 2 miles of home.

Are you in a location where you are able to support your local community and live and shop in just your local area?

What percent of your life do you need to go outside your square mile of living?

[homesteadmamma]

If we wanted to, we could do everything in a square mile, except the hospital.

We have a grocery store, 2 gas stations, 2 hardware stores, a nursing home, 2 schools, a variety store, 2 grocery stores (although one is closing July 31st). Two different doctors come into town on 2 different days a week, you can order your medication through the pharmacy that delivers the medicine to the nursing home. You can order your library books from "open shelf" and it comes right to the post office. The fire station is a block away, the insurance company we deal with a block away and a Ford dealership a block away. So basically we could do everything within a square mile.

BUT we have chose not to. We want to spread out our business to 3 small towns, all within 20 minutes of us and often we go into the city which is 1 hour from us to do our major grocery shopping and to visit the health food store.

Its interesting because when we were in the city, we had to travel about 20-30 minutes to get anywhere.

[Katybird]

We live in a very small town and have to drive about 25 miles to the city for most of our needs. I work in the city so it is really not an inconvenience to shop there, I am already there for work so it is easy to run to the store or whatever else needs to be done there. Our small town has...

Grocery store--Mom and Pop type, very expensive and very poor selection and you have check the expiration date of anything you buy to make sure it has not expired. We rarely shop there

Gas Station--much more expensive than the city but they are real full service, they pump your gas, wash your windshield, check your air pressure and oil. I don't mind paying the extra for the extra service, I get a lot of my gas there.

Post Office--small but we always use them

Bank--we used them when we first moved out here but they are far behind the services the actual services that I wanted like online banking and telebanking. I changed to a bank in the city that offers all those things and has a great direct deposit relationship with my employeer, I get free checking as long as I have my check direct deposited there.

3 churches-Baptist, Methodist and Assembly of God

3 small beauty shops

1 construction company

1 phone and cable company--we use the phone company because we have no other options available but we use a satellite TV service

That is a brief tour of our little corner of the world

[MMP]

Not exactly a square mile, but everything we need is here in town. The only thing we dont have is a warehouse club like Sam's or Costco. There is only one thing in OKC that I want to go to(havent been there in over 2 years) and that is the food salvage store.

[guest2]

Originally posted by Katybird
We live in a very small town and have to drive about 25 miles to the city for most of our needs. Our small town has...

Grocery store--Mom and Pop type, very expensive and very poor selection and you have check the expiration date of anything you buy to make sure it has not expired. We rarely shop there

Post Office--small but we always use them

Bank--we used them when we first moved out here but they are far behind the services the actual services that I wanted like online banking and telebanking. I changed to a bank in the city that offers all those things and has a great direct deposit relationship with my employeer, I get free checking as long as I have my check direct deposited there.

You could be describing my small town too! We also have
3 beauty shops and 1 barber shop
1 tavern
3 churches
a health clinic
a retirement center
1 elementary and junior high school
1 greenhouse business
1 specialty products manufacturer
2 contractors
several business realted to farming equipment
lots of family farms
1 Restaurant
tiny library


I use the post office, the clinic, sometimes go to the restaurant, Jaysn gets his hair cut on one the the beauty shops, we purchase plants from the greenhouse, my kids buy treats at the store, and my hubby works for one of the contractors.


I do all of my shopping in the surrounding area or Spokane when we are up there for church. Our Dentist,Physical Therapists, medical specialists are all in other towns.

[FarmLady]

There isn't a whole lot close to us here, we do some business like shopping and such in the town closest to us and we bank there. As far has hospitals and doctors the closes to us is about 20 miles away. There are drawbacks to living so far out in the country, but the good far out weighs the bad. I guess as we grow older we may want or may need to be closer to town but for right now, we are satisfied where we are.

[PrairieRose]

We could do about 50% of our business in our small town, and do I reckon. We don't have a hospital or pharmacy, video store (we used to!), or dept. store of any kind. Most of our major shopping is done about 20 minutes away. We "could" live within one square mile and if we did (unless we needed the hospital) we'd be much richer

[sunshine]

Well, since I live 7 miles from the nearest town- I'm in trouble already.

Palmyra (the town closest to me) has:

3 churches- Baptist, Methodist, Christian
1 Tavern (used to have 5)
1 small grocery store, more of a convienence store actually
1 Casey's gas station
1 bank
1 post office
1 car dealer
2 insurance companies
1 auction house (that gets people for miles and miles to come)
1 restraunt- only open from 6:00 Am to 2:00 Pm
several hairdressers that work in their homes

We get our gas at the Casey's and will order pizza there occasionally. We do nearly all of our mailing from the post office here. We attend the auctions and enjoy watching more than buying, although we do a fair share of that too.

[Guest1]

I live on Post so everything I could possibly need is all within reach:
5 gas stations
beauty salon
barber shops galore
the PX
Commissary
3 banks
any denomination of church you could want - literally ANY
craft store
fast food joints
sit down restaurants
hotels
post office (closed on Saturdays, but it's on Post)
auto repair shops
dry cleaners
alterations
Troop Medical Clinic
movie theater
bowling alley
veterinarian
paint ball field
3 swimming pools
more convenience stores than you can shake a stick at (and just what does that mean?!)
3 gyms
library
numerous laundromats
home furnishings rental place
youthplex
girlscout/boyscout facilities
numerous daycare centers
museum
ticket center
car rental place
a couple of parks
a mini-golf course
a full sized golf course
an elementary school
3 regulation size baseball fields
florist
Baskin Robbins ( ! )
arcade
our own GNC
optomotrist
optical shop
1 hour photo
pharmacy
jewelry repair
video rentals
liquor store

even the airport...

[crdurham]

We live in the city- its a small city...lol...but everything is close to us.... I would say we are not 5 minutes away from 4 grocery store, the post office, our credit union, two hospitals, the mall, a ton of gas stations, about 20 fast food/sit down restaurants, Super Wal-mart, Super K, Wal-greens, CVS, Big Lots and a bunch of other stuff...lol...all our docs are close to.

If i had my way, we would be living far out in the country and I would only go to town once a week....lol... I grew up on a farm in the country where it was a get dressed up for a Sunday drive to go to the grocery store. I like the convenience but it would be worth the drive to be away from the city.

[grace1902]

We live in a small town with 2 grocery stores, a hardware store, clothing shops, lots of restaurants, 3 gas stations, 2 florist shops, but the prices are high. It's a 20-25 min drive to shopping areas where you'd say there's some price competition. The hospitals are in the city along with most doctors which is a good 20 minutes, also. There are no Costcos or B.J.'s food warehouses in my immediate area; they're about half an hour away.
I find it very hard to price shop where I am here in New England for this reason; the savings just don't seem to justify my time and gas. Prices seem to be pretty high all over; sales and coupons seem to be the best bet here.