Do you ever fantasize about picking up and moving to a lower cost of living area?

[Anonymous]

Sometimes, but there's only a handful of places that we'd consider and they're not actually cheap, just cheaper. Denver, Charlottesville, Seattle, Asheville, New Orleans. That's about it.

Instead, we do our best to minimize the stresses of living here (almost no commute, quiet street, low-key jobs by DC standards), hang out with down-to-earth people, and spend carefully so that we can take weekends away in places like W.Va and the Eastern Shore.

You can't totally escape the high housing costs here but you can escape the frantic pace if you set your mind to it.