[Army Guy]

Originally Posted by VillagesFlorida

How can we put a price on "Lifestyle"? When my husband and I decided to live in The Villages over 12 years ago we bought a "lifestyle" along with our home. We could have spent less and had a nice home in any nearby retirement community. Those places are a dime a dozen in Florida. Let's face it, we can't buy a "loaded" car for the price of a stripped-down model. We didn't pay an amenity fee when we lived up north. That is about the only extra cost we have, living here. Our energy costs don't come close to what we spent up there. We didn't have a $50,000 Homestead Exemption there, so our real estate taxes were 3 times what we pay here. Our state imposed income taxes so there was another few thousand dollars going out every year. When we moved here we did so with a mortgage and only 1 pension to live on. It would be several years before Social Security would kick in. Our savings were off limits so we stuck to a rigid budget and went without a lot of stuff that you pay extra for. My husband DID work for two years, part-time, for extra money for championsip golf. We took full advantage of all of the free activities here, including many rides in our golf cart, just thoroughly enjoying the beauty all around us. There wasn't much money for shows or fancy restaurants. There WERE many evenings spent enjoying the sunsets from our lanai and listening to the plaintiff cries of the sandhill cranes high overhead. Did we bite off more than we could chew? Heck, no, we didn't! We wouldn't trade any of our years in The Villages for anything. This lifestyle is unlike anything else in the world. And, 12 1/2 years ago there wasn't one quarter what there is here now. The funny thing is that, now that we have more money to spend, we still enjoy the simpler pleasures that are all around us. We have found that we don't have to spend a lot to be very happy here. It seems that being happy all boils down to what happiness means to us and perhaps how many sacrifices some of us have to make to live here.

VF, this is honestly one of the best posts I have seen here for a long time. You pretty much sum up how a lot of us feel, even though our situations may not be exact like yours. You are right on!

Army Guy