Toronto Couple Ditches Expensive City Rent For An East Coast Cabin In The Woods

Ever dreamed about leaving the city behind for a cabin in the woods? One Toronto couple decided to make those dreams a reality and never looked back.

Madeline Taylor and Mitchel Kingsley loved Toronto. The city brought them friends, careers, education, and it’s where they fell in love, the couple explains on their blog, Our Little Outpost.

However, after coming to terms with the fact that they’d likely never be homeowners in the 6ix, the pair tells Narcity that they started dreaming up a different life.

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Their dreams led them to New Brunswick, where the average person can still purchase a home without breaking the bank.

The decision, Taylor tells Narcity was less of an inspiration and more of a necessity.

"We make decent salaries for people of our age category. However, we always felt like we couldn’t get ahead no matter how frugal we tried to live - and New Brunswick felt like a place where we could reasonably build our lives as twenty-somethings."

After seeing a few other properties that didn't pan out, they finally settled on their little outpost on the East Coast. 

Taylor says things move a little bit slower in New Brunswick than in Toronto, but they don't mind it at all.

"...We live more simply. We find joy in watching the deer outside our cabin. We have fun going for swims on our lunch break, weather permitting."

"From a financial perspective, we've gone from unavoidable daily spending (think: TTC, impulse buys like coffee for a work meeting, quick grocery shops, etc) to planned spending one day a week," Taylor explains.

Now, instead of spending $1300 every month on a basement apartment in Toronto, the two are thriving in the wild with a mortgage that only costs $600 per month.

But renovation and moving costs do add up.

"We haven’t necessarily saved a lot of money since moving to New Brunswick, but the money we’ve spent is an investment in our life here," Taylor explains.

Although the couple was happy to leave the city behind, they do miss certain parts of their old life, Taylor admits. 

"We miss the diversity of Toronto and everything that comes with it. We miss our favourite Tibetan restaurant in Parkdale (Norling!!) desperately and the vibrancy of all the unique neighbourhoods in Toronto that we’ve lived in over the years."