Great point, thank you for the reminder 
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But if you up your insurance now you have to give something else up! 
You could always sell you first born if you have kids…
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Yep, one of the foxhunters let me do a lesson on her horse while mine was laid up and she was out of town. He is SUCH a well trained boy! Comfortable as the day is long, stops on a dime (which is much harder to ride than you’d think!), adjustable, and brave as all get out. That’s not a combo that’s easy to find, or one that comes without work and training.
Adding on to the work discussion, I’ll also say that certain careers don’t really leave you with the option of working in a low COL area. OP works in tech, which might be able to be remote to a larger degree than some careers, but if they’re in person, they’re probably in a few key cities where the COL is going bonkers. I work in broadcasting. There are maybe half a dozen cities in the country where I can actually make a liveable wage doing what I do. And I like what I do. Moving to the country where land is cheap isn’t an option for a lot of jobs–frankly I’d make more money doing my job in NYC or LA, but having a horse is actually more accessible/affordable in DC than either of those two places. That still doesn’t mean it’s cheap.
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My company has been 100% remote since before it was pandemic-cool, so we have had a lot of practice at work from home bingo. You know, a square for “Allie you’re not on mute,” one for “half-naked spouse,” one for “fully-naked screaming child,” one for “dog barks over presenter.” Well, my team has “horse joins call.”
I work with a lot of different time zones, and it’s semi-expected that I’m available outside of my working hours with notice. In return, I can flex my schedule a fair amount to accommodate. People know that if they schedule outside of my hours, I might be able to join, but I might have a horse on the call. The barn doesn’t have wifi so I’m joining by phone and I just go with it. The only problem is that my horse does try to join. When I used to wear a wired headset he’d try to take it off, etc.
I recommend bone conduction headphones as the safer option to in-ear if you’re going to try to ride on a call. I won’t repeat to your Pony Club instructor why I know enough to have a recommendation here.
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what I gave up was my old insurance company… new carrier provided twice the coverage at half the cost… that calendar they sent me each year evidently was costing me a few thousand dollars each year.
But How we afforded horses, showing and eventually four kids in college was I was in commissioned sales, this was a job that allowed me to travel to the shows as business expense as I had clients nearly anywhere. The job was paying six figures back when six figures meant something in the early 1990s.
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What a great thread this is!
OP - I gave up horses for 15 years to get my career started. At that time, I didn’t have a horse (let go to go to college), so that choice was a lot easier.
The biggest issue for me, coming back: finding a location that was close to my office. Long story short: I bought a horse and found a dressage barn that would take me as a boarder, so that I could meet my location requirements (AND the other stuff, like getting my horse fed every day, uh, yeah…).
Frankly, the $2200/month’s not going to work long-term.
My advice: keep your horse, keep riding, find a cheaper solution for horse care (many options here, including the half-lease).
Like others have said: those early $ in your career need to go to something besides this hobby.
And like others have said: things can change in just a few years.
Thanks for “hosting” this discussion. Great reading. Best wishes to you!
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Bone conduction? I must google this thing…
Also, I need to know the story about how you came to this knowledge 
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@Scribbler if there is anything good about the pandemic, it is that a lot of high wage, white collar jobs have realized the benefits of WFH, WF anywhere. I think that high wage jobs are going to be less and less tied to HCOL cities going forward. The wage cap of LCOL isn’t going to exist in the same way.
I have been WFH for a company in a HCOL area for many years (just under 13 now!). It is great. I traded my lower wages for time—I work half time, so that I have the opportunity to ride.
This also allows me to retire my horses, relieving me of the age-old problem of what to do when they get too old to use and you live in a HCOL area…my son’s pony is now 28 and has arthritis. If I still lived in a HCOL area, that would be it for me horse-wise, unless I was willing to euthanize her.
There is no one right answer. For many of us, staying in the major met area makes perfect sense. For others, moving out can make the horse dream work again. It’s good to hear all the different solutions on this thread…I am definitely more giving ideas than saying my way is the best!
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That’s a big deal for me too. Here, we were able to afford a small horse property. Making owning multiple horses a possibility.
The return on investment in horse facilities isn’t super, but it’s for sure higher than the ROI in board bills.
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Oh working remote: try to have a place with good Wifi and cell service. Also, just answer calls any time you can. People would rather you pick up the phone immediately than worry about noise in the background.
Typical day: get up around 6/6:30, get my kids to school, do round 1 of work for about an hour, feed the horses around 8:30, back in to work around 10 (work is an hour ahead of me time-zone-wise), respond to whatever needs responding to/get some things done, take a long lunch to ride, work a bit more, go pick up my kids around 2:30, work another hour, then fix dinner, feed, hang with spouse or work. It helps that my trainer runs her program out of my farm, so if I get busy or have meetings she can change my ride to a trainer ride. That happens once a week or so unless it is my busy season, then more like I ride once a week, boo. But I always get to see my horses every day I am home.
I work a lot of weird hours, too, especially when I travel or show. My team knows that, and knows they don’t need to respond until working hours. If I have to, say, be at the barn for the vet one day, then I just shift my hours around. My vet and farrier are also used to me answering calls while holding horses if need be.
The other main thing is simple communication and being available. I might work half/flex time, but if someone calls I pick up 95% of the time, even if it is just to see what’s up and get back to them in a few hours.
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I was thinking about the whole theory on ‘give up everything you do to afford your horse’ post(s). (Reminder, I am one of those people who does not eat out, go out, etc so I can afford to have my horse, so I am not anti this theory. I just think it does not fit this specific question/discussion.)
Let us say the OP would spend $10 for their morning coffee (I think that is generous).
It would only (laugh) take them seven and a half months to save enough for their board for a month (at the rate of $2200/month).
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Same there. The more I think, I think this economy in the US has made a hard shift that even if you do give up daily out-coffee (a term from my dad), dining out, hair/nails etc etc a good majority of people are still between a rock and a hard place. I was reading this over breakfast. Of note, “Nationwide, there are only about 250,000 homes currently for sale that are considered affordable for households with between $75,000 and $100,000 in annual income” “This means there are now about 65 households in that income bracket for one listing, up from 24 households in 2019.”
SO and I bought a year old townhome in October for $195,000 which is the lower end for anything nicer in our area. It was total turnkey. That bracket they mention in the article is the type of house we were looking for. We just used my income for the loan and I could have easily afforded double that; if SO and I went in on it together, quadruple. We didn’t want to spend that though. A lot of places between 200K and 300K were completely outdated and needed work done; we would have needed quite a bit of money invested to turn it into something we liked. And even the 400K to 500K still would need more than we would have wanted to pay to make it “ours”. After reading that article, I was thankful we were able to find a house we liked at that price point and get our offer accepted; we went in 10K over asking and waived inspection. If we had to pay double or more what our mortgage is, something/s would have to give in a big way.
I also read this morning that rent is up on average 24%. With the prices for a roof over ones head alone being what they are now, skimping where you can hardly seems to scratch the surface when you are trying to budget in horses/showing. Factor in increased boarding rate hikes, increased cost of a horse/trailer/truck, increased costs for training, increased vet/dental/farrier etc…it’s no joke.
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Just a guess, but I imagine one of the reasons for the rent to rise so dramatically is a lot,(not everyone,) but a lot of people not paying their rent during covid.
Still having a landline, and never giving out my cell # I get landline calls that I forget to skip asking if I want to sell my home. The answer is No and don’t call again. Ha.
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Those calls are the worst! I get them in text form too and they don’t even have my address or name correct 
Oh my gosh yes. We bought in fall of 2020. We were looking at sub $250k for a house and a bit of acreage. At that time, there weren’t a ton of listings but we found something every week to look at it.
Currently, there are 0 listings for houses with a bit of acreage in that price range. Gotta get close to 500k to find anything and they are few and far between. And moving like hot cakes.
I have a couple friends looking for similar type property with the intent to keep horses there and it sounds very similar to your experience. Bare bones land and maybe a house that is a mess is 500K here IF you can find it. Anything barn/indoor you’re looking at a million to start.
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I disagree it’s not relevant. A professional woman in a high COL tends to look a certain way, and that way often includes a fitted, thoughtful wardrobe; hair that’s colored (no matter what age) cut and styled by a professional; eyebrows plucked, nails done. I see toes done, fake eyelashes. I see teenagers that look like that. It raises the bar for everyone, and women are expected to be so clean and styled with nature under firm control and all that takes extra time, money, and thought that is already stretched thin.
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Yes, @FjordBCRF, I count my lucky stars that we bought our house a few years ago. The market was “hot” then, but from today’s lens it just looks pleasantly warm in retrospect. Based on the prices my neighbors are getting and paying for comparable listings in the last 6 months, our house would likely have gone for at least 30% more than we paid, and there’s no way we could have afforded to make an offer on any property in our area. Oh, and we purchased in the first place because our rent was only $100 less than our current mortgage with taxes and insurance included. We have friends who moved into their home in 2020- they were looking for a similar property to what we found, and they had a very difficult time and ended up paying more than we did for less house. I am worried for my friends who are shopping now. They’re feeling like they’re going to drown in rent payments for life because the amount you need in hand for a down payment has skyrocketed.
You are right. Increased prices for everything… it’s no joke!
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It’s wild. I sold the house that I had with my ex-husband in Oct 2019 for 50K more than I bought it for (he had no stake in it either thankfully and I was able to keep all the profit). I had been wanting to sell it since early 2018 but I had no place else to go. I didn’t want to sell and buy a house that wasn’t as nice which would have been the case. Rentals here are few and far between especially with having two dogs.
When I bought Charlie, my network increased in a major way and I found out through my trainer who was looking for a rental, that my BO’s daughter had a house on the property that was available to rent, and for a reasonable cost. 150 years old, drafty AF, no AC, no frills, but it was perfect for what I needed and 3 minutes from the barn and on the trail system. And there was rapport built on both sides which made me a lot more comfortable and also my landlord. I agreed to the lease with her they day I saw the place and called my realtor that day to get mine on the market. It sold the first day it was open to look at.
I’ve been pretty lucky with timing these last few years and also thank my lucky stars everyday for it.
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I guess I should be thankful that all I get is postcards in the mail from realtors suggesting I sell and list with them. Um. No. Thanks anyway. For so many reasons.
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