After college and their roaring 20s, many Americans find themselves in a subdivision with a lawn and a mortgage and a couple kids. Hip twentysomethings may mock the suburbs and its bourgeois values, but when their first child arrives the nesting instinct sets in. A neighbor and her husband lived on the north side of Chicago until the kids came; then they moved to a western ‘burb for safety and quiet. “I miss the energy of the city,” she says five years later. “In fact, when we moved to the suburbs, we had a hard time sleeping at night because the neighborhood was so quiet.”

That quote has always caught my eye. When I first read the article I was single…not even dating. At each new reading I have found myself in a new place (dating, engaged, married, parent, changing vocations, etc). So I read that quote with different eyes than before.

I think Goetz is dead on. Many twentysomethings, hipsters, etc. do tend to mock the values of the suburbs. I did a little. I couldn’t stand the cookie cutter houses, the strip mall (you know the one w/a Barnes and Nobles, Starbucks, Macaroni Grill, etc.) that is planted in different places all over the country. Even though I mocked at some points, I grew up in the suburbs. And I loved where I grew up. It was not the kind that has their own built in walking trails, parks and pools, but it was the suburbs nonetheless. Honestly, isn’t anything that is not out in the wild, the suburbs. I mean, can’t you picture the early settlers in the cities mocking those who moved out into the country…or maybe it was vice-versa…mocking those who left the outskirts for the comfort of the city.

Since my post college years I have primarily been living in locations within walking distance to the mountains, oceans, grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants and downtown areas…places like Pasadena and Brentwood. But now my wife and I are living in a leased house in the North part of Dallas, contemplating where we want to settle down. And new questions have arisen for us during this journey.

Let me begin with one question we have been asking:

What does it mean to be a good steward of our finances? Continue Reading…