wo years ago, my family's finances looked pretty grim. We had a healthy six-figure income, but that was no competition for what went out. Worse yet, almost none of that outgo went for the pleasures of life - vacations, eating out, entertainment. It all went to fixed costs.

For a personal finance columnist, making a budget was a joke. Total the fixed costs. Subtract the income. Start looking for extra work.

My family of four - plus our dog, Smudge - lived in New York City. Monthly mortgage: Just under $2,000. Monthly maintenance: well more than $2,000. Total: $54,000 a year. Next item: tuition at the United Nations School for two children. Goodbye, $20,000-plus. New York City collects unincorporated business taxes on people like my husband and me who are self-employed. Farewell, $18,000. Altogether, federal, state and city taxes gobbled more than half of our income.

It was time to change our lives and get a grip on our finances. My family is living proof that you can dramatically alter your lifestyle and lower your expenses in the process. And yes, it's possible to still be happy.

My husband had been dreaming about moving to the country ever since our son, Thomas, was born. But I was dragging my feet. OK, I was immovable. We all read about the benefits of simplifying our lives. But what's the point of a simple life that isn't any fun?

I remembered the simple life from growing up in rural Minnesota. One-room schoolhouse. Houses without electricity and plumbing. Hardscrabble is more apt. I loved New York City. I loved jogging in Central Park. I loved writing a column for The New York Times. I loved the U.N. school my kids attended.

Truth to tell, that's what always bugged me about the simple-living crew. Where's the fun in recycling toilet paper rolls? Life isn't easy for any of us who give it a little thought. It's hard to find a life that fits you. I'd watched so many friends leave the city. I felt sorry for them. New York defeated them. "Leaving the city was the worst thing that I ever did," they said on the telephone, one after the other.

Hmm. I bet I have your attention here. I wonder how many of you have been caught in this dilemma. You've created a life that suits you. But it's not a financial fit. What do you do?

I didn't rule out a move. I knew it would have big financial advantages. But I wanted to make certain that the lifestyle suited my family as well. So we looked around for a way that we could try a pared-down lifestyle outside the city on an experimental basis.

We were lucky. My daughter had European friends at school who spent summers in Greece. They asked us to housesit in their Long Island home during the summer. We did it. And we loved it. During that summer, we reveled in the ordinary - looking at bugs and rabbits, watching the Independence Day parade, baking bread, riding bicycles, inline skating, walking at night and looking at the stars.

The house had no TV and no air conditioning. It was a hot summer - lots of 100-degree days. I got up between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. to write and worked until around 10. Most afternoons, to escape the heat, Thomas and I walked to the library to read and play Freddi Fish on the computer. We sat on the back porch and listened to audiotapes of C.S. Lewis' Narnia series.

And we started saving money. By summer's end, we liked our new lives so much that we decided to move out of the city in one year. We moved into New York's Hudson Valley, to a little house nestled in the woods on a forest preserve with magnificent views of the mountains.

Moving is expensive - and stressful. Even so, we started saving money almost at once. We increased our life insurance and disability coverage. We amassed an emergency fund for the first time in 15 years. We started pumping money into retirement and college accounts. And, by the way, our country life is pretty wonderful, too.

My advice to those who are toying with drastically changing their lifestyle to save money is this: Focus on your career, your relationships and your pastimes rather than on how much money you spend or save.

When I eavesdrop on conversations among people who have made big changes, what I hear is that many of them forgot to take off their rose-colored glasses. Perhaps they didn't like their life to begin with and were hoping it would magically improve.

Here are five questions to ask yourself: