News from Jules | 12.04.2023 | This is a First
The high-pitched ringing startled me out of a dream this morning. I immediately jumped out of bed and scanned the hotel room. The yoga and meditation area facing the large front window, the two matching queen beds and nightstands, the oversized desk beside the giant TV, mini-microwave, mini-fridge, bistro table and chair, the bathroom at the darkest far end of the room.
Unlike the first few disoriented mornings after I moved in a couple of weeks ago, I did know where I was. I wasn’t on vacation, but in Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort’s seasonal employee housing at the Campfire Hotel in Bend, Ore.—a regular two-star motel along a strip of fast food joints and big box stores that looks more like the two-and-a-half-star hipster paradise that it is.
But where was that noise coming from? The fire alarm? That kitschy clock radio? The kitschy yellow landline phone!
Who knew that telemarketers can even reach us at a hotel? Huh, I guess it is slowly starting to feel like home.
This is a first. Of the 23 places I’ve previously lived—not including the countless hotels, motels, Airbnbs, and friends’ homes, plus all the campgrounds (20 campsites in this recent road trip alone!) that I’ve stayed at—I’ve never lived in a hotel. I have lived in houses, mansions, duplexes, double-wides, apartments, dormitories, cabins, and a two-car garage converted into an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU).
Discounting my two childhood homes, that’s 21 places in 24 years, averaging one place per year, which seems like a lot. Sure, it’s above average from other Millenials moving once every 2.2 years according to a study by Porch, but it is on trend.
Why are we moving so much?
Affordability. Or lack thereof.
The ability to afford one’s needs for housing, food, gas, insurance etc. based on existing resources and earnings. Not what’s cheapest—or “least expensive”* if we’re candy-coating it—but what’s sufficient.
Sufficiency is precise. Not too little, not too much. Exactly enough.
So says Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money, which I highly recommend for anyone who wants to understand their relationship with money. Twist further asserts: Sufficiency is not the same as abundance. Abundance is more than we need—it is excess—and merely the flip side of scarcity, or striving to get more than one needs because of a belief or fear there is not enough.
When I first moved back to my hometown of Portland, Ore. in 2005, I still envisioned an abundant future much like how I was raised. Living “comfortably”* with a husband and kids in a spacious “forever”* home in a tree-lined neighborhood where kindergartners can walk themselves to school and the neighbors knock on the backdoor when they run out of sugar while baking cookies.
I had lived it, so it seemed like reality, but it was a dream—“the American Dream.”*
As I started to live into my post-Millenium, post-housing bubble, post-recession reality after graduate school, I found myself adapting to constantly changing circumstances of job insecurity, and thus housing insecurity, alongside costs that rose a lot faster than my earnings.
Affordability felt like a personal problem of balancing my budget better or “getting my priorities straight”* or buying nothing, not a systemic problem. And, as it became harder and more competitive to find affordable places to live with every successive move, it still seemed like a problem of a growing city, not a housing problem everywhere.
I watched Portland grow significantly during my lifetime, but I didn’t really understand what that growth meant until now. Or that it was a microcosm of our whole economy. I naively thought the growth was slow, steady, and inclusive.
While visiting my retired friend in Bend throughout the past decade, the growth spurt here seemed so much more obvious. Huge areas of once open, forested land quickly filled with houses, schools, parks, and more. The population increased from 77,000 in 2010 to 107,000 in 2023, including nearly 10,000 people since the pandemic—plus me this year.
This spring and summer when I was only working one part-time job it made more sense that it was harder to “make ends meet.”* I earned just enough to pay my bills, but not enough to afford rent and utilities.
So returning this winter, I’m working over full-time between multiple jobs, making $3-5 above Oregon’s minimum wage of $14.20 per hour, but still challenged to “make a living.”* To consistently afford one’s needs for housing, food, gas, insurance etc. based on existing resources and earnings. Not too little, not too much. Just exactly enough.
How is that? Why is that?
Apartment rental websites agree the average monthly rent in Bend is about $1,700, “but you can find more affordable one-bedroom apartments for as little as $968,” boasts one of the sites. A third of U.S. households made less than $49,999 a year in 2022 and would not be able to afford that average monthly rent, nonetheless a mortgage payment.
According to Zillow’s Affordability Calculator, a rental of $993 “should fit comfortably within budget” for me. That’s 30% of a monthly income after taxes based on earnings, for instance, if I worked 40 hours a week at REI, or earned about $29,920 in annual income after taxes at a 12% taxable income bracket.
Theoretically, that math works out. Yet, during my first month here, the “least expensive”* studio apartment I found was $1,100 per month for about 400 square feet, plus utilities. I also interviewed at a large house with three roommates and it was still about $1,100 per person each month, including utilities.
So, when the opportunity arose for shared employee housing at the hotel through my job at Mt. Bachelor for $400 per person each month all-inclusive, I quickly weighed the trade-offs:
Pros: Saving money, walkable to work, hot tub.
Cons: Roommate, no kitchen, no laundry.
See photos of my latest housing adventure on Instagram.
My optimism presided but of course, there have been moments of questioning my logic during the past couple of weeks as I try to fit a week’s worth of groceries into half of a mini-fridge, cook healthy meals with a microwave, or cut an avocado with a plastic knife. And I haven’t even met my roommate yet.
It’s an adventure, I keep telling myself.
Clearly, it’s not sustainable, but it’s the best option so far while I continue looking for long-term housing here without so many compromises. Just a small, quiet, and beautiful place to call home where I can create art and enjoy nature. That’s my real dream.
As I stepped outside this afternoon and set out for the closest coffee shop to write from in my new neighborhood, I was still basking in the afterglow—grounded, yet also floating on air—in gratitude for being healthy, earning income, and having shelter.
For now, the hotel is almost exactly enough.
May you choose sufficiency this week.
Love,
Jules
*I’ve emphasized these terms and phrases because they seem a bit silly, outdated, imprecise, and potentially insensitive nowadays.