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Hey y'all So, some quick back story- I'm currently living in bugfuck nowhere in an attempt to get my life together. I'm currently in a long-term, serious relationship and we're getting ready to buy a house and move in together. The main issue is that I'm basically a huge child and have never learned how to do this. Basically, our plans look like this: I work here for at minimum a year, saving money, building a nest egg and getting ready to move. Right now we're thinking Pueblo Colorado. He finishes his apprenticeship (he works as an appliance repair person), also saving money. We either get enough to put a down payment on a house, or we rent. We're hoping to get a house, but understand that that's not always in the cards, and are okay with renting and saving until we're at a better place to be able to afford a home. Now, I'll admit I'm not super good at math, so my budgeting tends to be more towards the safe sides of things- I estimate it will take me roughly 3000 dollars to move from where I am to Pueblo, but I'd like to have a safety net of 7000 dollars in case something goes screwy. My SO makes more money than I do, so he will be probably saving the majority towards a down payment on a house. I've also estimated that we'll need minimum 20,000 for a down payment small house with the current market, after taxes. I'd estimate that we'd both have to make roughly 35-50,000 per year to live comfortably/pay all our utilities/food, which would mean probably 9/10$ per hour at a job. I can work either sales/retail or IT repair, while my SO is hoping to keep working as an appliance repair person. The city isn't set yet, but we're both hoping to move to Colorado in some area. We'd rather not do Denver, for obvious reasons. Other suggestions are welcome. So basically, I'd really like it if y'all would look over my plans and tell me if there's something obvious I'm missing, or if there's something screwy with my math. I'm not super good at being an adult person and haven't ever done this sort of thing before- all my previous moves were either with family or to an apartment in the same city.
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Jul 29, 2017 07:30
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| # ? May 7, 2024 08:08 |
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Congrats on working on getting your life together! 1. You should not buy a house with someone you haven't lived with first. You should rent first. 2. Is 35-50k per year per person or as a couple? Because $10/hr is 20k/yr (there's approx 2000 hours in a work year). 3. The reason you don't like Denver is not obvious. Is it too expensive? 4. How much money do you currently save per month? $300/month will get you to 3600 after a year, and doubling that to $600/mo will get you to your $7000 goal mark (in a year). This assumes you don't dip into these savings for unexpected expenses. 5. If you move somewhere far, you are going to lose your local support network. This doesn't mean you shouldn't move, but you'll need to account for that -- how often do you visit family? How far will they be? Do you have a lot of friends here that you'll miss? What resources will you use to find a job? Are there jobs where you want to move? What about the culture/entertainment? Have you visited this city before and liked it? Basically, this is just "research the city to make sure you won't move and find yourself hating it 3 months into a 12-month lease". A big thing people struggle with is leaving behind family/friends (especially if they're too far to visit regularly or they have difficulty making friends with the locals). 6. This is premature (since you aren't planning to move for at least a year, but you're asking for advice now so) but you should have a budget, before moving, of your expected monthly expenses in the new city -- there's cost of living checkers online for this sort of thing, and make sure you have enough money that you aren't super hosed if it takes you a while to find employment again. Better yet, get a job there before moving, if possible.. 7. I understand you're not good at math but calculators exist for a reason.
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Jul 29, 2017 10:20
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I have a friend in Pueblo, she is one of the most capable and sweetest and overall just greatest human beings around. The best job she could find in Pueblo in 2017 was helping to decommission old nerve gas bombs at $10/hr. Yeah like from WWI. Seriously. She loving hates it. Do not voluntarily go to Pueblo under any circumstances, it's loving awful. I have no idea why you got that lovely dot on the map in your brain but try to excise it as quickly at possible. *To contribute something positive: it's generally quite easy to move to Colorado and make a decent (unskilled) living, but the easiest way to do it is to go somewhere with a tourist scene. There's always tons of jobs at the mountain resorts (year round nowadays) and in various tourism/food service gigs at every town that is on the way to anything, much easier to get up to $15/hr or so while you figure out where and what's next. Pryor on Fire fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jul 29, 2017 |
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Jul 29, 2017 14:59
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Thanks for the replies. Colin Mockery posted:Congrats on working on getting your life together! 1. Noted, renting first it is. 2. as a couple. 3. I used to live in ABQ and that was too much of a big city for me. Also Denver is a little above our pay grade atm. 4. I am going to be saving as much as I can after I take care of bills/living expenses. Right now that comes out to around 500$, best case scenario. The next few months it will be less, because I am a dumbass who broke my glasses and I also need to buy some work clothes for my job. 5. I am on... complicated terms with my family. I love them, but I handle them best in small doses. They're being very generous right now and allowing me to keep my stuff with them for the time being while I get my life in order. As for friends- most of mine live overseas, or back in ABQ. This isn't a huge problem, because I also like to go out and meet new people on the regular. I used to live in Colorado when I was younger and liked it then, but I lived in the Durango/Ignacio area. I'd like to move back there but I haven't been able to find much information on the general work culture in that area again. I've also been considering Colorado Springs, as my job could transfer there without much issue. I don't have many needs as far as culture- I like to go to the zoo or aquarium when I have a little extra spending money, but for the most part I just enjoy social things that I can do at home, like inviting friends over for video games or DnD. (Yes, I'm a big ol nerd). 6. I've made an excel spreadsheet that I'm attempting to use for budgeting, but I'm mostly just terrified of forgetting something important and not budgeting for it. 7. Yeah, I know. Pryor on Fire posted:I have a friend in Pueblo, she is one of the most capable and sweetest and overall just greatest human beings around. The best job she could find in Pueblo in 2017 was helping to decommission old nerve gas bombs at $10/hr. Yeah like from WWI. Seriously. She loving hates it. Do not voluntarily go to Pueblo under any circumstances, it's loving awful. I have no idea why you got that lovely dot on the map in your brain but try to excise it as quickly at possible. Taken into consideration, thank you. What's the best way to research what the general quality of life is in a new city, short of living there?
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Jul 29, 2017 22:19
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Even "inviting friends over" is dependent on where you live, though it's good (financially) that you don't have expensive tastes. For your video game/D&D comment, for example: do you think you'll be able to find like-minded friends who would want to start a D&D campaign with you? Would they live near you or be willing to drive to visit (or be within driving distance for you to go to them)? It does sound like this won't be much of a problem for you, so that's good. Budget-wise, have you been tracking your spending so far? A "misc" category should cover anything you forget about (that's the whole point of it), but if you record everything you buy for a few months, you should have a good idea of most stuff. Here's some important stuff not to forget about : healthcare health insurance car insurance/maintenance gifts (if you're a big gift-giver, for Christmas/birthdays and stuff) vacation (saving up each month) clothes debt payments It's not a huge deal to mess up your budgeting on occasion, honestly -- that's the point of an emergency fund and the misc category (and you should also have a discretionary "fun stuff" category that you can pull against too). It's better to not forget things, but it's not something you need to be terrified about. You should expect to make a few mistakes and that's okay. quote:What's the best way to research what the general quality of life is in a new city, short of living there? I've never done it before personally so I'm just speculating, but here's what I would try in your place: Physically visit the town, if possible -- drive over and walk around, look at the stores, buy some food, try to strike up a conversation with some locals and see how they feel about the town. Maybe mention thinking about moving, and see what they think about it. Or, without going anywhere in person, see if you can find some local message boards or whatever, maybe check out the local newspaper, etc, start looking for job postings online in that location (or within driving distance of that location), both in your field and in general (to see how the job market is). But after reading Pryor on Fire's post, I think you might be approaching this from the wrong direction. What, exactly, are you looking for in a place to live? Small town and not too expensive? Anything else, or did you basically pick Pueblo semi-randomly? It might be better for you (when you're ready to actually move) to look for a decent (whatever that means to you) job first and move to a nearby town that meets your preferences once you get the job.
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Jul 30, 2017 06:59
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Sociopastry posted:Taken into consideration, thank you. What's the best way to research what the general quality of life is in a new city, short of living there? Sociopastry posted:I'd estimate that we'd both have to make roughly 35-50,000 per year to live comfortably/pay all our utilities/food, which would mean probably 9/10$ per hour at a job. I can work either sales/retail or IT repair, while my SO is hoping to keep working as an appliance repair person. -Smaller cities(bigger cities typically have higher COL.) -Living in the suburbs of a city(just have a firm idea of how long of a commute you can tolerate, and remember that long commutes are somewhat less hellish if you can use public transit) -Living in a cheap geographic area(aka 'the midwest'. The south is cheap too, but then you'd have to live in the south.  )Pueblo seems good on the affordability front from a quick googling, at least. No comment on the lovely jobs there, though.  But wherever you go, at least one of you needs to get a job there first, then move. I know your living situation sucks rear end right now, but so does having a bunch of shiny new bills to pay, no local support network, minimal savings, and no job on the horizon. It's better to end up in a city you're not a fan of but have a job in(since you'll be in a stable position to look for jobs in a place you do like) than to have no job in a city you love. e: Colin Mockery posted:1. You should not buy a house with someone you haven't lived with first. You should rent first. Haifisch fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Jul 31, 2017 |
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Jul 31, 2017 05:33
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Great advice, everyone, thank you. I had a long talk with my SO and we've decided to 1.) rent first, 2.) Make sure we have jobs first and 3.) look at smaller towns, because after a bit of discussion we've both decided that bigger cities aren't for us. It's nice to have a lot of things to do within spitting distance, but the hustle and the noise just aren't for us. We're going to start looking at smaller cities in the southern part of the state. I've also signed up for a few message boards for prospective cities to see what people living there generally think.
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Aug 1, 2017 03:22
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well now i know it looks like this thread was a bfc success, but my man, have you tried lsd???
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Aug 1, 2017 04:58
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Not without an lsd line item in the budget. 
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Aug 1, 2017 05:24
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| # ? May 7, 2024 08:08 |
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drat, see, I knew I forgot something. 
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Aug 1, 2017 05:58
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