Dynamiting is a lot more fun than digging.If you've ever had to cower in your bathtub with tornadoes bearing down on you, your sense of what’s economically feasible gets a big rethink.
And if I lived in tornado alley, I'd be glad that there was hunk of granite for me to dig a hole into.
I built my house a few years ago, before the Alabama tornados of 2011. And I decided not have a cellar then because of the expense. Now I regret that decision.
Screw the expense, screw the water table, and screw the frost line, I want a hole under my house to jump into!
And, BTW, let me play with the dynamite.