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| Thursday, June 24, 2010 |
| Fulfilling your own fantasy |
 The New York Times article: In the Catskills, Comfort in a Gingerbread House tells the tale of 42-year-old Sandra Foster who is a weekend resident at her Delhi, NY home where her husband Todd Foster (51) lives full-time. The Fosters’ 14-acre property has a year-round-habitable trailer, a "man-cave" shed, and the Victorian cottage (habitable only in summer since it lacks heat as well as plumbing and electricity). MS. Foster’s dream of a country house began when she was in high school in Holbrook on Long Island, and her father, a radio announcer, tried to start his own radio station. After the business failed, her family lost their home, and Ms. Foster said she spent “lots of my high school years being homeless,” living with her family in furnished basements or spare rooms in her parents’ friends’ houses. (Her younger sister, Nicole Tadgell, an award-winning children’s book illustrator, remembers it as being less than a year.)
Despite the financial pressures, Ms. Foster said, her father would consider no work but radio and had difficulty working with others.
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“If you don’t have a home, you don’t have a sense of place, you don’t have a life, you don’t have a soul,” she said. “This was a nice average suburban community. We were four kids and two parents living in a single room. I got very internal. I buckled down and did my homework. I got used to living in small spaces.”
Ms. Foster was an honor student in high school, then graduated from Wheaton College in 1990 with a B.A. in literature and a $16,000 college loan. Unable to find a good job in New York City, she stayed with her mother in various rental properties on Long Island and worked minimum-wage jobs to pay off her loan. For several years, she worked two full-time jobs. Her solace was listening to the band Rush and gardening, she said, but whenever the landlord wanted his house, she’d lose her garden.
It was while she was working in Suffolk County, as a mail carrier by day and sterilizing glasses for a pharmaceutical company at night, that she met Todd Foster, who was then working for a landscape company.
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They married in 2000 in a Renaissance-themed ceremony (“I made 19 cloaks,” Mr. Foster said) and settled in Riverhead, N.Y. A year later, longing to be in the country, they bought a big, rundown farmhouse three hours away, near Kerhonkson, for $69,000. Ms. Foster worked two jobs on Long Island to pay for it, going upstate on weekends, while Mr. Foster stayed at the farmhouse and tried to start a landscape business.
“This is when I discover, much to my horror, that Todd and I aren’t completely alike,” Ms. Foster said. “He is not a tidy man, he likes to collect things and stuff, most of which is very large, like tractors. My idea of houses is Victorian, cute, magazine-perfect, lots of white. When I come home on the weekend there are dishes in the sink, dog hair everywhere and he has probably dug some new hole with one of his excavators because he wants to put a pond in, and I have three acres to weed-whack instead of mow — on the weekend, mind you, and I’m working two jobs.”
She continued: “It was horrible. I don’t have the money to do the things I want to do, like decorate. We wanted to have kids, but I don’t feel like I can stop working because I’m funding all this. Growing up with homelessness, I know the consequences of stopping working.”
The stress became so intense that Ms. Foster had what she called a nervous breakdown: falling on the floor, screaming, crying.
“The huge house was half renovated, the life was killing me,” she said. “The only thing holding me together was Todd’s love, and his love of food and feeding me, and his love of flowers. Every single day I come here, there are flowers. A whole path of rose petals leading to a bath full of rose petals and candles. He’s a magical man, despite his flaws.”
Their great big farmhouse, they realized, was ruining their lives. In 2007, they found this wooded property, with the trailer and cabin, for $46,000. Ms. Foster, seeing the hunting cabin on the hill, knew it could be her dream house.
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Does she plan to install plumbing and turn it into a real house?
“Not really,” she said. “It’s just my little studio. If I add on to it, I have to pay taxes. It might be nice to have a fireplace, but do I want to live with Todd up here? I would probably have to clean up after him. What’s the point? It’s a tale of two cities.”
Ms. Foster cannot yet fulfill her dream of living in the country full time — quitting her job and trying to find another would likely mean a pay cut — so she makes the four-hour drive back and forth from the city every weekend. “You have to be self-sufficient in this world, a woman especially,” she said. I have mixed feelings about this article. I love that the New York Times featured people with middle-class/working-class incomes and showcased how they live (showing both photos of the trailer as well as the fantasy Victorian mini-cottage). Sandra's workmanship on the cottage is impressive and the results she achieved while doing all the work herself while keeping to a total budget of $3,000 - remarkable.
But I couldn't help thinking - how impractical. She lives four-hours away during the week and then when she sees her husband on the weekends she retreats to this fantasy cottage she built? She is working so hard to pay for a country home that she can't afford to live in and the sweat equity she puts into the cottage is for a space the two of them can't really enjoy and fear of property taxes is preventing her from building something that she likes that also has indoor plumbing and heat? Perhaps I am just too practical to pursue such a fantasy. What do you think?Labels: Frugal Females |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 7:16 PM *
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| 13 Comments: |
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It's interesting that she is OK with working two jobs, whereas he TRIED to start a company. So, what does he do now? I sure he chip in for that kind of lifestyle.
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I think this woman has some serious emotional issues from growing up in what sounds like a very disfunctional home ...
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Wow, she is a hard worker. Her cottage is beautiful but I agree that the fruits of her efforts don't seem to be worth it. I guess it must be worth it to her.
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Hmmmm, she seems to support him, works 2 jobs away in the city, comes to "their" place only on weekends, and does most of the work herself on "her" special building. And he can do what he wants and be as messy as he wants. Is that impractical? I dunno, he seems to get everything he wants and then some. (Oh you were asking about her? Sorry never mind.)
P.S.: As a guy, where I can I sign up for this type of wife?
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I'm with you - just the commute: 500 mi. x $.70/mi x 52 weeks is $18K per year plus whatever her rent is (say even just $100/week) and the total is about $23K just for a start. That's a lot for a very imperfect fantasy/goal - About $2k/month extra - not a lot if you're wealthy but they seem to live close to the bone otherwise. Couldn't this scenario be redesigned to be less stressful to that talented woman - so she has to drive and work less.
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In his defense, Mr. Foster works at a local poultry farm and has back problems that prevent him from working full time. On the other hand, it should be perfectly okay for him to not be working. My husband is a stay at home Dad, while I work full time and teach as an adjunct online (ie, a part time second job). These are the choices my family has made because I enjoy my jobs and can make a lot more money than he can (I have a PhD, he has a high school diploma). The hours I work, even at the second job, earn far more than he can at any job. Maybe she also loves her job, and its worth it to her to live at her dream property only on the weekends and vacations. I can understand that, living 35+ minutes away from my job and having to commute in order to live in the country instead of the city.
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Everyone is different. She seems very happy; it's certainly not a lifestyle I would choose.
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Is she commuting from NYC? I think the problem is that people there are so stressed out they feel they need a "country home" to relax, yet they have to stay in "the city" to earn enough money to afford it. They get trapped on the treadmill trying to pay two overheads instead of just finding jobs in a more livable place (urban or rural). Plus they enjoy the cachet of saying they have a "country home," even though I agree with BG that it makes no sense.
This is precisely why I left Brooklyn for the Midwest.
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Funny-- right beneath her contact info on her blog it says "Book Deal Wanted".
She and her husband are eager to sell you a how-to-blog ebook. And they -did- have a free gift for NY Times readers, but now it's available for $9.97.
Oy.
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We thank You For all your comments,
I am sorry that some folks do not "get it". Sandra lives on eastern LI about 70 miles from "the City". Her time there is rent Free although she still gives her mom money. I cook food for her work week, so she has more time and saves money. I am a great cook, she enjoys that. I still work. I earn about $300 a day when my truck and I go out. I work as many as 80 days a year. then the farm duties kick in. I split and stack wood for our winters so we have no heat bill. I cook on a wood stove about 7 months of the year...yes wood stove. Eggs in the morning, Pancakes, Kaiser Rolls, then Grilled cheese or pizzas.
We have worked hard to get this far in our dreams. Everything takes time. This moment in time you see this stage of accomplishment. Follow her Blog and mine and you will watch how we do what we do.
MyShabbyStreamSideStudio.blogspot.com
ActualManCave.com
Clarity?!!
Sandy works and lives 70 miles or so from the city. Our Home is 120 miles or so from "the City". I work on our Farm. I am also contract hauler.
I may not be "tidy" but if you loose electricity I will not. I will not loose water or heat either.
I create a subsistance farm for our future while she works a job she totally loves, eccept that it is so far from our farm.
Peace Cavedweller@actualmancave.com
Have the guts to sign in and suport this community.
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Sandra worked 2 jobs in the past and does not now. This article was about her and left much about me out. It was her desire to build it on hher own since she wants to write a book empowering women.
I love the spineless anonymous posts. Why not take pride in your post and tag it with your name?
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I fail to see how "CaveDweller" is significantly less anonymous than "Anonymous"
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Ahhhh....and the classism and white priviledge seem to shine through various postings.
It seems that her cottage lifestyle has been analysed a bit too much. They have the acreage to build something for retirement or a non-urban lifestyle. The book deal will be the next stage towards this end.
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It's interesting that she is OK with working two jobs, whereas he TRIED to start a company. So, what does he do now? I sure he chip in for that kind of lifestyle.