Time is winding down, and I only have about a month to go before my lease ends. As much as I like my apartment and the area it’s in, I decided not to renew my lease here. Long story short, I haven’t had a car in over a year, so I depend on public transportation. The public transit system here, called MARTA, had to take some drastic measures to stay within budget for their next fiscal year, which starts in the fall. They eliminated 40 bus routes, and made a lot of changes to almost all of the remaining routes.

There are two buses that come where I live. One was eliminated. The other was spared, but it’s only a M-F peak hour route, anyway. It doesn’t run from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and the last bus leaves its bay at the MARTA station at 6:40 p.m. Not very useful. I thought about staying put and taking more cabs, but the county has set the minimum fare at $6. That could get expensive fast. So, once again, I’m moving. And, I am not happy about it.

Dealing with public transportation is becoming too much of a hassle. I can’t, and won’t, move every time MARTA decides to cut a route. The best thing for me to do is to get another car, but in order to make that work, I need to find a cheaper apartment. When I say cheaper, I mean a lot cheaper. As in paying no more than $475 a month for rent. There are complexes in the Atlanta metro with rent that cheap, but they’re in very bad areas.

So, I’m thinking about moving to one of the small towns, or smaller cities, in North/Northwest/Northeast Georgia or upstate South Carolina where decent apartments in safe areas can be rented for what I need to pay. I’d live there for the 18-24 months it would take to pay off the used car I’d buy. These smaller towns and cities may not be very happening places but, truthfully, besides my photography hobby and going to an occasional movie, I don’t do much of anything anyway. Once the car is paid off, I’ll be free to move back to the big city and go back to paying big city rent.