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Places Rated, Skeptically
Reader nick_davison has some thoughts on the cost of living:
- Job A: $50,000/year, $10,000 annual rent.
- Job B: $100,000/year, $40,000 annual rent.
Relative to the cost of rent, Job A is phenomenal: You're making five times the cost of rent. Job B sucks: you're only earning 2.5 times rent. By this measure, job A is far and away the better option - by a factor of 2.
The thing is, once you've paid the varying rent, where do you spend the rest of your money? The decent spec new PC will be $2,000 in Rancho Santa Fe, Manhattan or BFI. The new $25,000 car will be $25,000 wherever you buy it. The big TV is the same price wherever. And, most important of all, the internet porn subscriptions run the same wherever you are too.
At that point, would you rather the job that's 5 times "cost of living" but only leaves you with $40,000 or the one that gives a sucky 2.5x but leaves you with $60,000 extra.
Next, on the simple level, let's look at that cost of living. Assuming you get on, buy and pay a mortgage off, in 20 years time the place with the poor salary relative to cost of living will leave you with a $500,000-$1,000,000 home vs. the $200,000-$250,000 place in the "better" area. Now, aged 40, you can up and move to the cheap place, selling your home, buying one of the nicest places in the cheap area and having a nice large nest egg lfet over to let you get to retire early. My in-laws have just done exactly that and apparently a lot of people in Texas are getting seriously pissed at all the Californians coming in, buying huge homes after selling up smaller places in CA and pushing up the Texan cost of living for people who're still paid no more.
And, finally, there's a reason rent and property are so expensive in some areas. Go to California and look out of the window. Rumor has it that other parts of the world have a condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder. Land is expensive in California because you never shovel snow, you rarely deal with crazy humidity, you rarely have the insane heat of Arizona, you rarely get mosquitoes the size of Volkswagens and you can sit on the beach on New Year's Day. In short, supply and demand means that when there's a crazy price, there's generally a great reason for it.
So, yes, some areas have high costs of living and lower salaries in relation to that cost. But I.T. is famous for the fact that we out earn most other professions and, once you get past earning about three times cost of average rent, everything else is gravy. Sure, you reach that point faster elsewhere — but once you do reach it (and you do in I.T.), you keep going even further when the numbers are bigger.
I've watched a lot of friends leave California because they're in other fields and it's just too expensive to live here if you don't earn well. But once you get to the kind of salaries I.T. tends to pay, the cost of rent becomes a relatively minimal part of the total cost of living a great life.
Job mobility (voluntary or involuntary) plays a big role, too: razvedchik writes
Similarly, reader osho_gg highlights the difference between a high salary in local terms and possibilities for advancement in the future:The biggest factor for me is to consider the possibility that if your job goes south (project ends, company folds, you don't like your boss), then you are stuck in the middle of nowhere. If you are relocating, you need to understand that at some point you will need to move again.
If you are used to an environment where you can lose your job today and have a new one by the end of the week, then you will be shocked when you spend 6 months unemployed.
One could go for one of these highest paying jobs in obscure locations where few companies are there. However, what is the growth potential in such locations? How many companies are there to work for in such locations that can pay high salaries for specialized skills? How many companies can pay more than 100k in places like Idaho Falls, ID? And, what happens if that company goes bust/one is laid off in such areas?
I dislike the high cost of living, traffic, unaffordability of houses etc. in places such as Silicon Valley. But there are lot more companies where one can work for with decent salary. One's chances of finding another job with close to maximum salary in one's field are lot higher there without having to move.
These are not just idle concerns. I have been asking many such questions to myself recently as I am not in high-tech area such as Silicon Valley. There are no easy answers to such questions. These become even more difficult once one has family, house etc. and has established roots in one place.
Several readers contributed endorsements for (and critiques of) locations around the United States and Canada:
"Go to Alberta," says reader Easy2RememberNick:If you want to know where high paying jobs are go to Alberta, Canada it's insane!
McDonald's workers are getting $15/hour, signing bonuses and $100 extra pay if you show up for all your shifts that week.
Housing is a bit of a problem, there's a booming business finding old homes, ripping them off their foundation and dragging them to Calgary.
Calgary is sprawling outward at an incredible rate, it's bigger in area than NY city.
It's all from oil, tar sands that is, Canada exports oil since we make more than we use. The U.S. gets about 10% of its oil from Canada and that will probably increase due to the U.S. public's of growing concern about "foreign oil."
People are going there by the thousands every day, it's crazy!
Reader NoHandleBars wasn't happy with a move from expensive California to Texas:
That comment drew some spirited disagreement from reader DaFallus:I once oversaw moving a firms's HQ and IT functions from Silicon Valley to San Antonio, TX because of the "math" some white collar genius put together like this Forbes nonsense. Sure, the "average" wage was one-half of what it was in Palo Alto, but because of the "quality" of local talent, we ended up hiring THREE TIMES as many staff to do the same amount of work. (For the math-challenged, that meant productivity sucked by 50%.) This wasn't just a drain on company resources, but on the few people who DID know their chops and had to hoist it in for the dullards. Those that made the move and saw the disaster had to in turn move completely out of the area to restore sanity to their careers. And the "icing on the cake" is that San Antonio is the only place I've stood hip deep in mud and had sand blow in my face. No thanky-thanky.
That's odd. Southwest Research Institute is based in San Antonio and although they primarily do a lot of government funded research they have a lot of talented people working for them. There are also a large number of smaller technical companies based in San Antonio. I have a number of friends who still live there working in various tech jobs.
San Antonio is a great place to live if you don't mind the slow pace of the city. It is one of the few cities I've lived in where you can do pretty well for yourself making around $30k. There is also a lot of cultural diversity, and I'm not just talking about the Hispanic influence.
I myself would have been happy to stay there after graduating but I just couldn't handle the slow pace that everyone lives at there. Also, the city itself is pretty poor and the roads are in horrible condition, there is a large gap between the rich all bundled away in Alamo Heights, Olmos Park, etc and the rest of the population. The crime there is also relatively high compared to what I've experienced while living in Houston and parts of Southern California. I've had my car broken into at least twice, witnessed a robbery at a gas station, and saw my friend get pistol whipped in the face and pulled out of the window of his car by would-be thieves. So, if you're thinking about moving there, buy a gun and stay in well-lit areas.
And reader kabocox says
This just tell's me that your firm doesn't know how to hire people. There are plenty of talented people in Texas. Heck, there are plenty of talented homegrown people in the Litte Rock, AR area. If your company can't find them, don't blame the area. I personally believe this applies to all of the US. There are plenty of trainable college grads in most major US cities. If you think the talent/gurus are much better in a tech hot spot, then you are willing to pay a premium for equal talent, not better talent. I'd think that most businesses that move to area's where the cost of living is lower end up hiring more people not to do the same amount of work. They hire more people because its cheaper and can get more done if the organization is properly run.
Tink2000 wrote in with comments on a few of the places picked out in the article, specifically Idaho Falls and the state of Alabama:
As someone who lived in Idaho Falls, Idaho, I strongly advise against it unless you think man-made falls are cool and love a few of the Temple at night, and like the idea of living in a city that has nothing around it for miles except scenery, where the tallest building is nine stories tall and it's a hotel.
I lived there for a year and pretty much loathed every moment of it. Of course, I came there from Atlanta, Georgia, so ... it was a bit of culture shock for me.
If you're going to live in Montgomery, you might as well consider Huntsville as well. Although it might be slightly harder to get a job there as everyone has some sort of technical background for the most part, it's a fairly agreeable city and not at all representative of the rest of Alabama.
Burdell wrote to agree with that analysis of Huntsville verus Montgomery:
As someone who lives in Huntsville (born and raised here) and also does some business in Montgomery, I'd have to agree. I'm not aware of a whole lot of tech jobs available in Montgomery; there's always demand in Huntsville (especially as another 7-12 thousand Army and contractor jobs come to Huntsville in the next few years). I don't know how the cost of living compares (Huntsville is a good bit lower than the Atlanta area though). The "metro" areas around Montgomery and Huntsville are about the same size IIRC, but Huntsville has a lot more "outside" influence (German rocket scientists in the 1950s and people from all over the world since).
Huntsville can be an odd place sometimes; mixing rocket scientists and rednecks has interesting results.
(See also everphilski's description of Huntsville as an interesting, affordable place to live.)
Reader Hoi Polloi isn't quite so happy with Huntsville:I had to travel to Huntsville a few times for NASA work. It got barren pretty quickly when you drove anywhere and it was brutally hot. People who lived there said it was too hot in the summer to do much of anything and the lack of any pedestrian features (like sidewalks) encouraged a lot of the waistlines I saw. One local even said he felt safer visiting Boston than being in downtown Huntsville after dark. Most of the jobs and companies down there are dependent on government which means that they are at the mercy of politics. The focus on the military also means there is little variety in the types of jobs available.
Not everyone's stab at rating places seemed entirely sincere: reader nick_davison decided to stick up for Iowa rather than the hellish coastal regions:
It's the coolest place ever. I'm in California and it's awful here. We have to walk up hill both ways and the hills are steeper here (the land's scrunched up by our daily earthquakes). And hot? Like you wouldn't believe. Don't believe that stuff about coastal areas being cooler — it's hell here. No one should ever move here because, high salaries or not, life's too expensive. Iowa's the place. Des Moines is just super awesome. Off you go!
Further afield, at least for American readers, several comments described the pros and cons of living in poorer parts of the world:
"Good morning, Vietnam!" writes wisebabo:
Reader owlman17 reports from Manila:Well, that's the time here as I post this. Anyway, it's very interesting living in Ho Chi Min (rated the #12th best major city in the world to live in and the best in Asia)*. I've got to say that, in a country that has a per capita GDP less than a tenth that of the United States a dollar goes a long way.
The key is how to make it. If you can make it by working for a major foreign corporation here (read: oil company) and get a Western salary, you will live like a king. Unfortunately local opportunities to make that kind of money are otherwise almost nil. Even if you can speak Vietnamese you will find that even a very high salary here (doing a job like coding) in not much relative to the U.S. Also you may find yourself thought of being overqualified; I do very high end media and some people here told me they were afraid to contact me after seeing my CV because they thought I'd charge a fortune.
While you can make a good living here teaching English I doubt that would appeal to the skilled professionals that make up Slashdot's readers. No, the best job is one in which you can work "at the end of a wire," that is live here but work for some U.S. company via the internet. The internet infrastructure is just sufficient to do that (which is one reason why I can't live in Cambodia). Internet telephony here is good (at least from my location). If your job is portable so you don't have to physically see your clients more than once or twice a year then this might "work" for you!
the way, the cost of living here is not going to be one-tenth that of the U.S. unless you live like a native. Instead if you insist on all the perks of the U.S. it's probably about half the U.S. cost of living (more if you want a car!). On the other hand, wealth is relative; compared to the natives you WILL be very rich and will be treated as such. That has its own perks. ;)
This recent study (which, to my traveled eyes cannot possibly be true) was based on a bunch of factors including how much (or little) the average person "impacted the environment." Since Vietnamese people are still very poor they don't impact the environment very much which led to a inflated score. Still Ho Chi Minh City has its charms; zero violent crime (it's a police state), pace of life (you can actually meet people and develop friendships), scale of the city (more like one giant neighborhood than a forest of skyscrapers). But act soon, things are changing fast and in 5 years it'll be unrecognizable.
Not everything's rosy on distant shores, though; phantomfive briefly describes life in El Salvador, and adds adds a few caveats about life in Central America, including a fairly tough psychological challenge:In other third world countries where these tech jobs are being outsourced to, $USD400-$600/month is very high. I live in Manila, and the minimum wage is roughly less than $USD 6.00 daily. Those who work in outsourced tech-support call centers make $300 monthly and they're very happy about it. I had a short web-design stint making about $450 monthly and I was really really happy about it, to say the least. Single people here could live like kings on that.
[...] I would like to mention, COCKROACHES FLY!!!! I just tell you that to lessen the shock that we all feel when we see one of those monstrosities flying straight at us. They don't fly well, but the shock of seeing that the first time is something that can give you nightmares. And don't drink the water. Get bottled water from a reliable company. You might even want to test your bottled water. I am serious with this one, get bottled water. For a while I was purifying my water with chlorine, then I found out that the town water had LEAD in it, and I was drinking lead. I found out that no one in that town drank the water. So boiling water and stuff isn't good enough. Get the bottled water. Also, the two most important things that will keep you from getting mugged: learn to pay attention to your surroundings, what is going on, etc; and secondly, learn to look in someone's eyes and understand what he is feeling/thinking.
Many thanks to the readers (especially those quoted above) whose comments informed this discussion.
go to preferences>homepage and set it to to go away...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
And in other news, Slashdot continues to rehash itself... again...
(this is the how-many-th Backslash recently?)
Its a shame though that those silicon valley workers dont' stay in the bay area. Instead, they move into the Central California Valley, dramatically increase the price of housing and the cost of living and those of us who live and work in the Central California Valley have to deal with the outrageous prices of everything. Best yet, most of the commuters live in the bay area during the week and only come out to the central valley on weekends. I think those living and working in the central valley need to kick the commuters out and tell them to never come back!
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
I was working at a nice place in central Wisconsin getting paid ~$60,000 and paying about ~$5000/yr for rent (2BR, garage, washer/drier in the unit, fairly nice place). Some people pay $3000/month for rent? That just seems crazy.
I Live in Lynchburg and you can do pretty well here. I work in the city and then live in the outer parts. ; )a yer/index.php?id=9f72b0fbe5bde711a0696cac5b339a5e
http://www.thesecondchancemovie.com/_site/mediapl
http://www.lynchburgva.gov/
Many small towns are pretty close to medium sized cities as well, so the comments about not being able to spend your money after your rent is kind of silly. I live just outside Milwaukee, WI (grew up in Waukesha, which was recently ranked the 36th small city in the US). Besides the fact that Wisconsin is one of the best states in the country for outdoor activities (hiking, boating, fishing, camping, biking, etc), close to Milwaukee you also have professional sports teams, theater, festivals, malls, and a lot more. We also have Chicago relatively close in case we need even more to do. The only major negative is the winter weather.
I'm sure many other cities like Minneapolis/St. Paul, Cleveland, Pittsburg, etc are similar in that they have small communities around them that give you all the benefits of inexpensive living combined with the benefits of city life within 30 minutes.
Those types of small towns are the ones to focus on if you're looking to relocate. How many people really relocate JUST to relocate anyway? Don't you normally move to a specific job or family?
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
So northern michigan where I have beautiful vistas and views is not worth living in the shithole called southfield?
Sorry but a crapshack in southfield,mi is $250,000.00 a Beautiful home in northern MI costs less than that on acerage.
not all places make sense... Detroit = crazt land.
Given:
;-)
Job A: $50,000/year, $10,000 annual rent.
Job B: $100,000/year, $40,000 annual rent.
So, Product X, where X is a car, xbox360, etc., costs the same in both locations. In Job A, you have to work longer to be able to buy X, despite things like rent.
Also, despite rent, you net 60K a year from Job B vs 40K a year from Job A.
Also, the weather is always nicer in the bay area, but that doesn't mean we want you moving here and further increasing the population
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
The small towns immediately surrounding NYC have become rediculously expensive to live in. Even those living an hour and a half away from Manhattan are seeing their real estate values skyrocket. Pretty soon, to see a real drop in your cost of living, you'll have to live 2+ hours away (and probably in NJ, ugh). I don't know about the rest of the country, but there's no cheap small-town living near NYC.
Developers: We can use your help.
1. Get tech job
2. Move to Idaho Falls
3. Buy rifle or fishing pole
4. Become Mormon (optional)
5. ?
6. Profit!
Like taxes and tax rates? Some states have taxes on all kinds of things, while others have next to none.
I don't know. I moved out of San Diego, CA a couple months back to go back to my home state of Colorado.
I make more than I did when I lived in CA. So instead of that theoretical 40/60 quoted above, when I moved it tipped in the other way.
I was surprised to not see any Colorado cities on that list. You can make a very respectable living in IT out here, the cost of living is lower than CA by a longshot, life is at a much more reasonable pace...oh..and we have JOBS.
If you have a brain, you can get a job in Denver without issue. In fact, my old employer is talking to me again, they want to hire me back on, due to the fact they are having a hell of a time finding people who are qualified. We've got a lot of fiber coming into this state, we've got a ton of tech companies, defense contractors, you name it.
And its only growing.
My in-laws have just done exactly that and apparently a lot of people in Texas are getting seriously pissed at all the Californians coming in, buying huge homes after selling up smaller places in CA and pushing up the Texan cost of living for people who're still paid no more.
;)
It's mostly because they bring their 'fruits and nuts' politics along with them.
So how do you feel about tax differences in these areas? Any comments from people in Alaska (no income or sales tax) or New Hampshire (only tax on dividends/interest and no sales tax)?
Slashdot is becoming like a man starving to death... since he can't get any nutrients from outside he has started to "cannibalize" himself by the process of wasting. This isn't much like this pathetic re-hash we see nearly daily anymore.
I mean, honestly, what is being covered in this thread that wasn't being covered yesterday?
So long slashdot, it use to be an interesting place.
I can see some specific products having a neutral regional pricing, but I can also see other products having a higher regional pricing in an area like the Bay Area, especially items tied closely to fuel costs or transportation or Kalifornia's often more highly regulatory laws. And then there's taxes, which absolutely vary by location and are often lower in states with smaller populations.
My gut instinct is that the market works pretty well to neutralize any easy ability to arbitrage the higher wage regions into a higher net income unless you're young, single and live a more unusual lifestyle. The same is probably true for accomplishing the reverse.
Prop 13. Seriously. That's the key.
Prop 13 limits property taxes to 1%/yr. of the assessed value, and limits reassessment to sale or major renovation. My parents are paying 1% of the value of their house as assessed in 1978. Ok.. So what, right? Voter revolt and all that... Kali has income tax, and a geek salary will loose 10% for that and another 1% for a nice car registration... But... Those go to the state. Property taxes fund the local schools and municipalities.
The net effect is that cities and towns in California are hostile to housing. They get a bigger take via sales taxes from strip malls and retail operations. Housing demands services that cost money. This hostillity is obvious when you look at permit fees for new houses. One city I'm familiar with slaps almost $100,000 worth of planning & permit fees on a new single family home. That in turn means that every existing house with a valid occupancy permit is worth $100k in that city, no matter what kind of shape it's in or what kind of location its in. That's why housing is so expensive. You're just paying the city all the taxes up front, while the banks laugh at you paying them APR+% on the taxes. You probably thought it was all those green belts surrounding Silicon Valley, and "smart growth". Nope. Those are just the political tools used to refine the system. The tree huggers are played like fiddles out there. They're just a means to an end. It's the perfect "screw you, I got mine" system too. Utterly unrepairable. No existing homeowner is going to willingly give up their tax protection or their obscene capitals gains. Voting to end prop 13 will never happen. The housing market has to implode first.
I made the move to Texas some time ago... Texas has no income taxes, and steep property taxes. So steep that most Californians show up here thinking they can plow all their equity take into their new house, and have a for-real mansion on acreage. And then they find out what the property taxes will be! The result... You can still buy a house 5 minutes from Dell HQ in Round Rock for just a bit above $100k. Not much of a house mind you... But 3bd/2ba on 1/4 acre, and that's enough for most. One of the local high schools has a jumbotron screen on their football field. Yep... I'm hearing tax revolt noises.
I think this depends on what sort of life you want to live and what sort of climate you want to live in. If you like fast paced surroundings, you'll naturally enjoy a big city more than a small one. Personally, I like where I live (Dayton, OH). It's a decent sized city with a good amount of decent paying jobs, relatively low cost of living, within 45 min to 1 hour of a larger city (Cincinnati or Columbus), and we have just about everything you could want to do within a short driving distance (well, except for anything mountain or ocean related). There's also a VERY diverse culture here. You can't walk down the street without passing at least one hispanic, asian, middle-eastern, or other "foreign" person. The only bad thing about Dayton is the crime rate, but as long as you don't go to the east side of the river downtown, you're generally ok.
Everything I say is a lie. Except that... and that... and that, and that, and that, and that... and that.
It's called income tax. Specifically, Federal income tax. If you make 100k rather than 60k, you pay more than 100/60 = 1.67 times as much tax.
How much more? Well, that depends. Are you married or single? Kids? Do you own your home? Do you give to charity? Way too many variables to give a simple answer.
But the simple fact that the federal income tax is not a flat tax blows the parent's math out of the water.
Oh, yeah. "The weather is always nicer in the bay area"? Really? Quoting Mark Twain: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."
My wife and I agree that we will never live in CA or north of Mason-Dixon, we'd live in a trailer and both work at WalMart instead (opposite shifts, so our kids aren't threatened with public school, etc.) I think I'd actually like Canada, but she can't take the cold.
I make about 3 times the average wage here in east TN, so we're very comfortable (we bough a 2600 sqft house on a golf course for $133K.) We've both lived in large cities over the last 20 years or so: 7-11 here is preferable to (and safer than) pretty much anything we saw in DC, thank you. Admittedly there are zero jobs in my field if something happens to this one, but I've been with the same company for 5 years and have no plans to change unless forced.
I'm starting telecommuting soon, so we can move to NC. The cost of living is higher, but we're moving to a smaller town with a high retired % and an even slower pace of life. I originally came from Asheville, the biggest city in western NC, but the cost of living and pace of life there are skyrocketing since it's become the place all the northerners want to come (and join every committee they can find, and try to turn Asheville into the same expensive cesspool they supposedly moved south and/or west to escape.) It's too noisy, too much traffic, too many people, and not much to compensate if you're not interested in nightlife, etc. Ideally I'd like to live in Mayberry (it's near here, actually, but it's also changed for the worse in the 40 years since the show.)
Very few sidewalks or streetlights in these parts but it's safe to walk in the road most of the time. That pretty much describes it: I'm not sure what people get from a "fast paced" life, but I've never found anything I wanted in it. It's like talking to people who need a "career": I have no interest in management, no desire for promotion that takes me away from software engineering, no need to feel important by making money for someone else. I figured out the Peter Principle long ago, and now I'm mostly interested in enjoying life.
Here's what happened.
I started a small company in LA, CA. Needed to expand, and had a kid.
So, moved out of my 1400 sq. ft. house and 2400 sq. ft. warehouse in LA and moved into a 3200 sq. ft. house and 6000 sq. ft. warehouse in San Antonio (SA).
Costs: SA House, about 1/2 the cost of the LA house. (WooHoo!)
SA Warehouse, same cost as LA warehouse, but in SA I have to pay "triple net" which added another $400/month to the rent. (well, it IS bigger, so ok...)
Taxes: TX has no income tax, but the property tax on my house is almost double the tax on my LA house. In TX, I can afford to buy a house that I can't afford the property taxes on.
TX has no income tax, but add in the CA income tax to the property tax, and I still pay more taxes in TX.
Insurance. I pay more for insurance in TX, and so far I've had three break-ins, vs. none in LA. Statistically, you're more than twice as lilely to be the victim of a crime in SA vs. LA.
Industrial supplies: Much more expensive in SA vs. LA. In some cases, I've been able to buy things in LA and have them shipped to SA cheaper than buying them from SA sources.
Wages: In LA, I could hire people at $7/hour and actually get work done from them. In SA, even at $8/hour I can't get any respondants to my ads, and when I do get people to work here, they tend to quit, show up late or not at all, or steal from me. I had much better employees in LA, and they were easier to find. (it's an unskilled light manufacturing job)
Food: definately cheaper in SA, but it took me a year to get used to the lack of variety and lower quality of food. There's only ONE grocery chain in SA- it's called HEB. Oh, you can also get some food at Wal-Mart and Target now too. Restaurants- about 80% mexican. Don't even think about asian food. If you like burgers, tacos and enchiladas, you'll survive.
Water: Oh my god! In LA, I kept my yard watered and very nice looking. In SA, There's a tax for automated sprinkler systems, and an accelerating rate based on water usage. To keep my yard watered like I did in LA would cost more than $300/month in SA. Consequently, my yard is desert and I still pay more for water than I did in LA.
Attitudes: There's more damn churches here than grocery stores. And I don't mean little neighborhood churches. These are wal-mart sized behemoths, and they usually have signs and parking lots bigger than wal-mart. "I go to ______ church" is the most common thing overheard in conversation. Don't even mention anything scientific in polite company unless you want to be alienated. And oh, you ARE a republican, right?
So, the bottom line is- I get a lot more space for the money in SA, but I pay more for just about everything else, including taxes, and I have to keep my mouth shut most of the time too. Quality of life is much lower- if you use food, entertainment and an enlightened population as benchmarks for quality of life.
Short story is- I can't wait to move back to California.
Every place has a different balance of attributes, as do people. One man's Nirvana may be Manhattan, while another's is Napa Valley. We also change with age. Personally, I started my career living in the city, and as I grew older moved to the suburbs, and now find rural living to be more and more attractive. There is a time and a place for all of us, the adventure is finding it.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Speaking as someone who lived and worked in Montgomery for 2-3 years as a programmer, I wouldn't recommend moving there. The tech jobs are mostly government related (Gunter Air Force Base) and there's an incredible amount of racial tension. If you're single there's little to nothing to do. If you have kids you're going to have to pay for private school if you want them to have a half-way decent education. If you're going to move to Alabama at all (depending on if you can stomach all the Baptists and hardcore Republicans), try Birmingham. More to do, more jobs, better pay, better schools. I've been here for 3 years so far and haven't regretted the move at all.
Here are some quick facts about Colorado for anyone considering moving here:
So, yeah -- lots to offer here. Please stay where you are.the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Of course, if you moved from Middle America, to the "Bay Area", but the "Bay Area" was Milpitas, you didn't move very far. You moved to a place that decided that rather than have a town center with libraries and movie theaters, they would replace that with a grocery store, strip mall and retirement center.
They were apparently on a quest to become "Average American City with Bay Area Home Prices!!". If you live/work there, are they succeeding?
And Mipitas smells bad too. Anyone notice?
I think there was a chapter in Peopleware about companies like the one mentioned that relocate from Silicon Valley to San Antonio. An employee's willingness to relocate is generally inversely proportional to their skill. Your best people know they can find another job without relocating, your worst people won't want to risk being unemployed. As a result, the people who open the new location won't be as good as the people at the old one. You also lose a lot culture and experience. You can hire good people at the new location, but it will take them time to get up to speed, and the people teaching them what needs to be done will be the below-average employees who were willing to relocate.
(This is why poor people are generally screwed with sales taxes, as they spend a much higher percentage of their income just to keep going, and therefore get taxed more heavily. Rich people generally get screwed with State taxes, as they get taxed even on the income they're saving. Being your typical left-leaning Brit, I tend to take the line that the rich can afford to get screwed a little.)
However, we've only factored in the costs here. What about the benefits? A State that has more money to play with can have better roads (so you spend LESS on expensive car maintenance), can have better schools and Universities (so you're not limited to sending the kids to some fundamentalist haven so that they're at least capable of adding correctly), can have decent public transport (saving you gas money and usually time), and can have some excellent public museums, public art galleries, etc, which gets you direct access to stuff only the world's megarich can even think of affording.
So, if taxes are spent by Government wisely (yeah, like that happens!), the net cost can end up being lower than the hidden and not-so-hidden costs of living in areas with lower taxes or no taxes at all. This does, however, require wisdom. High taxes that don't benefit anyone at all are simply a drain on the pocket.
(And, yes, I deliberately said anyone, not just you. If high taxes produce a good schooling environment, then it doesn't matter if it doesn't benefit you directly. Better educated kids will produce a better quality workforce. What does it matter if you're a richly-paid genius, if the rest of the company can't figure its way out of a paper bag and goes under? The brighter your co-workers, the more profitable the company and so the better your job security. Oh, and the better your pay.)
So, to correctly factor in the REAL cost of the taxes, you must factor in the real cost of what those taxes buy you, both directly and indirectly. Let's say your income is I, the total direct tax over the same time is T1, the total average indirect tax is T2, the total direct benefit to you because of superior infrastructure and/or superior facilities is B1, and the total indirect benefit is B2, then your actual salary S is calculated as follows: S = I + B1 + B2 - T1 - T2.
B1 and T2 are extremely hard to calculate. B2 is virtually impossible to know. However, without knowing those values, you cannot say how the real cost of living compares to your effective salary.
Is this the end of it? Uhh, no. Each State, each county, has an effective rate of inflation which is dictated by the change in the price of those goods that have a floating value across the country. Gasoline is an example of something subject to local inflation. When businesses move in, there are more people with disposable income, so prices will rise to what the market will bear and local inflation goes up. When businesses move out, there are fewer people buying, so to conserve profit margins prices must rise and local inflation goes up.
This is why you do not want to be in an area that is undergoing a boom OR a bust. It's expensive. You want an area that has a fairly stable economy and is growing at a fairly steady, gentle pace. How steady and gentle? Well, it needs to grow faster than the population, but not by very much.
You also want an area with superb social welfare. No, I don't mean people get paid for doing nothing - that's what politicians are for. I mean you want to ensure that those who are unemployed are retrained and th
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Given:
/gal), or meals (Family of four dining out at a good restaraunt for $25 v $40), or the extra two hours you have as available family time because you don't have a commute (priceless), or that after you pay your mortgage you increase equity in your house but with rent you're only increasing equity with someone else's house (My neighborhood has seen an average of $40,000 increase in the past three years.), or the cost of movies ($5 v $8).
Job A: $50,000/year, $10,000 annual rent.
Job B: $100,000/year, $40,000 annual rent.
Should be more like:
Given:
Job A: $50,000/year, $10,000 annual motgage.
Job B: $100,000/year, $36,000 annual rent.
Given Job A only gives you $40,000/yr vs. $60,000 with Job B.
Assuming you spend the remainder of your salary with 5% sales tax at job A you can spend $38,000 with 8.5% (Bay Area Taxes) taxes at job B you can only spend $54,900.
With Job A you have utility costs of $1,000/year and job B has costs of $3600.
With Job A you pay $100 registration for two cars for two years. With Job B you spend $500 per year.
So now you have $36,990 with Job A and $50,800 with job B.
We still haven't factored in the costs of Gas ($2.79 v $3.20
By my account that leaves only $12,500, and you still don't own your home. (In my case the home equity will have made up the difference between the two salaries.)
For the gas and meals I figured two cars with 12 gallon tanks filled up once per week and once per week dining out, and once per week for movies. If you dine out or drive more than I do the differences are even closer.
You are being sold a bill of goods. When your 'employer' sends you to West Gopher where the median salary is $10/hr you better be prepared to spend the rest of your life there because any other employer is never going to give you a 100% raise to come work in a place with sidewalks and mass transit. Assuming of course you actually get sick of doing fun things like cow tipping and hanging at the DQ.
This is a typical Forbes "Isn't it great to find a place that pays third world wages in the US!!!" column.
Many of the places people want to live is the same way. I live in a particular area of town where everyone want to live, so prices are very high. OTOH, there is a bunch of land not far from where I live that is completely undeveloped, and has remained so for a very long time.
Certainly herd mentality leads to some irrational decisions. Several years ago I knew of one company that wanted to move from Texas to california. They had a good real estate deal in texas, all the workers they needed, and extremely good connectivity. More importantly, they had electricity. Cheap. And reliable. You see Texas does not connect to the eastern or western power grid, so it is not so easy to finagle the interconnects and cut off supply with phantom transactions.. Likewise, a hiccup in the middle of nowhere, for instance ohio, is not going to take down entire regions.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
'Cause as your income goes up, so does your tax rate. Sure you can deduct the interest, but the $45k that isn't is taxed at about 5% net (after deductions,exemptions and such) and the $85,000 is taxed closer to 15-18%. Add to that the local real estate taxes - which are usually not just a percentage of home value, but a increased percentage of home value in bigger cities (.6% in rural areas, vs 1.5-2% in populated areas), and the differential keeps dropping.
OF coursem you do have the home-value nest egg. As long as the market doesn't flatten or tank. Remember kids, there's an 8%-9% fee on the front and back end of every house purchase, taxes each year, and maintenance, and if you should hit a flat spot or just the long term average (about 6% annual appreciation), it's just a christmas fund account that you can live in.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I live in Florida, where the state income tax is 0%.
.4 miles
.1 miles
... and so on.
I live neither in the boonies nor in a big city.
I live in Bradenton, pop. 60,000, a 1-mile walk from
downtown, a 3-mile bike or car ride from a mall, 30
feet from the nearest art/crafts gallery (my wife's),
and 25 feet from my office.
Nearest launch ramp for my little sailboat: 1.5 miles
Nearest salt water launch ramp: 7.3 miles
Nearest award-winning little theater: 1 mile
Nearest bar:
Nearest live music coffeehouse:
Nearest more-or-less major museum: 1 mile
Nearest major art museum: 6 miles
Nearest hard-core slum: 16 miles
Nearest area full of too-rich idiots: 9 miles
I've lived in big cities (born in L.A., spent early
adult years in SF), medium-sized cities (mostly
Baltimore), and now Bradenton. It's nice here.
Humid? For sure -- on hot,humid days you go to the
beach or the fishing pier or out on your boat.
Hurricanes? More notice than you get for eartchquakes!
I think real estate is high here -- and it is, compared
to a few years back, but you can still find old houses
in our neighborhood (where it's legal - even encouraged -
to open arts-oriented home businesses) for well under
$220K. I know one for $115K - need lots of work, but hey!
So even if houses are high here compared to - say -
rural Georgia, it's cheap compared to most big cities.
Jobs? Lots of low-wage ones. And a fair number in the
$30K - $60K range. I won't say it's tech mecca, but all
the guys I know in the local LUG seem to be earning a
decent living.
It all depends on what you want. We enjoy having urban
amenities (although on a small scale) while living
someplace where you might run into the police chief or
mayor in a restaurant and you know your city council
being personally. (Sadly, mine's an idiot -- but then,
some friends and I have a fair chance of putting up our
own candidate and replacing him with someone better
on a budget of maybe $1000 or $2000.)
And that driving thing... 95% of the time there's no
need for us to go more than 10 or 15 miles unless
we're going to the Tampa airport, and that's mostly
me, for job-related travel.
- Robin
Apparently the people of Texas aren't familiar with the game. People from California have been doing this for years all over the western states, even before the latest housing boom. It's just too bad we can't send them back.
There's some stuff that's not included in your compensation that you should account for. You're putting more into social security, so you'll get more out when you retire if it's still around. Any 401(k) money your company contributes is usually a % of salary, so that's higher too. You're also getting paid more for your vacation and sick time.
You should be satisfied in that you don't shit blood, like they do in non-US countries.
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Living in a rich nataion you could afford to get a Butt Wand. http://www.poopreport.com/Consumer/Content/Bottom
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I just left working at a telecom company in Houston for a job in Cedar Rapids a couple years back. Best move of my entire life.
Pay is good or great really. I make more here than I did in Houston. Granted I was a little underpaid there but with the cost of living being so much lower here than Houston (where others claim its already low) that makes it great.
People are actually friendly. I mean, "southern hospitality" is cool at first but its actually pretty empty and shallow because its all show.... compared to the people here who are sincere when they ask you how you're doing and you can actually get to know people because they're sincere and not just looking to make a buck off you.
Income tax does suck, but the lower property tax and lower sales tax is great. Plus insurance is much better prices outside of the big city.
And gas prices are better too because we have subsidized ethanol fuel here. Which contributes to the cleaner air here. (then again, comparing anything to houston's pollution is an easy win).
In the Midwest there are seasons, it's awesome. If you've never lived in a place where there are seasons (aka, near any coast) then you have no clue how being outdoors can be a pleasure. Sure shoveling snow can be a pain but for the absolutely beautiful spring and fall, its well WELL worth it.
Crime is all but non existent here. As I understand, the street I live on has had like 3 robberies in the last TWENTY YEARS. I about had that many in my house alone in Houston in the last 4 years.
Education here vs in Texas is un-freaking-believable. In TX schools are pretty much day cares until the kids get out to high school where they're too busy doing drugs and commiting crimes (if not suicide) at an alarming rate to even show up to school.
That and the crime comment means a lot to me considering I have a baby girl now and I do care that she lives in a safe place where education is done right and I don't have to know as soon as I turn my head she'll be kidnapped, raped, and/or killed.
Of course traffic is non existent here. Takes me 15 mins to drive across the entire city of about 200,000 people.
Job is great. I haven't worked at a professional tech job where the minimum dress code was anything less than Khakis and a polo ever. And where I work you can wear shorts and a t-shirt every day of the week. Or, hell, you can even telecommute and work in your underwear at home. And its not just my job, lots of them around here allow that.
Its not an exciting place to live. And the restaurants sucks unless you drive to Des Moines... (of course we do something Americans have mostly forgotten about.... cooking our own food, its cheaper and tastes much better most of the time.)
And believe it or not, I'm far from the only one at my work place who has moved to the area from other big cities in other parts of the country.. and neither I or any of them have many real complains about the better quality of life here in Iowa.
Anyway... the point being... I actually enjoy life here. I just had to throw this all in considering the previous joking comments about Des Moines and Iowa in general. That said, you can all go back to the Iowa farm/corn-field/redneck jokes and thinking all of the Midwest states are absolutely worthless for jobs and quality of life.
WTF? I had to leave Boulder because it's too expensive! It's one of the most expensive towns to live in Colorado, especially on the Front Range (it's one hour from Denver)
When I saw the red dot on the map, I thought they were referring to Fort Collins, as it was named the Number 1 city to live in under 50K population. I almost spat coffee on my monitor when I read 'BOULDER'.
No sig for you! Come back one year!