Great article on the terribleness of DC area driving

[SlimKlim]

^ I think that's basically what's going to happen to us. Lauren is starting her new job soon which is based about 20 minutes south of Hburg. She'll start out working from home and drive down there a couple times a week, but if her career starts to grow we'll most likely move down there and buy a house. I like the idea of living in Lexington or a few minutes outside of Charlottesville. I just can't stomach tying myself to a $2000+ mortgage payment for a townhouse up here when we could spend $1200-1400 for a bigger, better single family elsewhere, especially when there's an opportunity to maintain a NOVA-like income, without the NOVA part.

[HAULN-SS]

I don't doubt that you can find good incomes in different places, but how many options do you get? I think RJ was referencing golden handcuffs talking about being hooked into a certain income level, but it's some other, shittier kind of handcuff where you're making OK money but don't have too many options to change jobs, etc.

[.RJ]

Once you get some level of experience (say, 10 years?) where you're a bit more established I think you have a lot more freedom in moving around and making it a financially appealing decision - i.e. taking a 20% pay cut but a 30% cost of living decrease. At least, I'm going to tell myself that for now.

[SlimKlim]

That was the reason that I decided to come to this area. I figured if I got a job up here and lost it for some reason, that I'd be in a hot job market and would be able to find something else pretty quickly. I did lose my job, and I did find another one in 6 weeks, so it was definitely the right decision.

I think after a few years, once you've gained some experience, you're in a better position to get out of the career incubator. Earning a good income and living out in the sticks in western VA will allow us to sock up money like crazy and go above and beyond the standard emergency fund, so if we do lose our income, we have a nice comfortable window to find something else. And with more money and time on our hands, we can apply for jobs all over the country and simply pick up and move if we absolutely had to. Whereas earlier this year when I was out of work, I had maybe 2.5 month's worth of cash before I was royally fucked.

[Jewels]

Well, I took a pay cut from what I had been making, but since I'd been on unemployment for 2 months, it was like a raise. Rex actually had a bit of a raise when we first moved out here, because Harris was paying ridiculous salaries at the time. Then sent them all packing less than a year later. When he took the job at JMU he took a pay cut. But the benefits outweigh the pay cut. He attends grad school at no cost to us, so he's finishing his Masters on JMU's dime. Oh and he's got up to 3 hours a week of time to work on his school work during work hours. He's got state pension after 5 years, which is supplemented by our own IRA and my 401K. Also, he rarely works more than a 40 hour work week. Its not uncommon during the spring and summer for his boss to tell him to go home around 3pm on a Friday cause nothing's going on, and its pretty outside. For us, the big advantage is the 40 hour work week thing. It allowed for Rex to put his family before his job, without his job being in danger.

[Mike]

I am the other one who picked it all up and moved across the country. My wife and I both grew up in the DC area, we wanted to eventually buy a house in an area we liked, and realized that wasn't going to happen. As RJ joked/alluded to, I made a fancy spreadsheet. It has something like 30+ metrics that are available for most cities. I plugged in a pretty exhaustive list of possible cities, assigned each item a plus or minus, and that pretty much narrowed us down to 10 possibilities. From there, we got it down to about five, we visited the highest scoring one (Portland, OR), fell in love, and didn't need to visit the rest. The house we've bought in Portland would have cost double in Arlington. The people are infinitely nicer here, the summer weather blows DC away, the outdoors are fucking unreal... I can't tell you how many lengthy conversations I've had with random strangers on random shit. Heck, I've even met about a dozen of my neighbors after only a month in the house (random people from blocks away even stock by when they see our VA tags)! I think I met a total of seven neighbors in about a decade of life in Arlington. It's just completely different. People here work to live as opposed to live to work. If the sun is out in the winter, EVERYONE BAILS ON THEIR JOB AND ENJOYS IT. Rush hour starts around 3 is completely over at 5:30. It's just... so awesome. Everyone owes it to themselves to at least try living in another place. I'd be really sad if I never had. As I joked/alluded to RJ above, he talked about moving across the country for the longest time and then bought a place in Reston. Don't do that.

Ironically, I didn't leave NoVA for the traffic. I commuted three miles each way by bicycle on a path for the past 7 years. When you live in a place that has everything and that you love, you don't need to be affected by traffic. Arlington is an amazing place, but the area and workplaces are brought down so much by the asshole/get rich/I'm important mentality. You can try to avoid it, but you can't.

It has been a challenge without friends or family, but it is slowly coming together. We've rekindled a few long lost friendships, found friends of friends, friends of family, etc.

THE spreadsheet: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai7eMc0DpJ-ydEhfZXI3OGYyX3p4QTRNVl95RGlJQ3c&usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... sp=sharing</a><!-- m -->

[Jewels]

I am the other one who picked it all up and moved across the country. My wife and I both grew up in the DC area, we wanted to eventually buy a house in an area we liked, and realized that wasn't going to happen. As RJ joked/alluded to, I made a fancy spreadsheet. It has something like 30+ metrics that are available for most cities. I plugged in a pretty exhaustive list of possible cities, assigned each item a plus or minus, and that pretty much narrowed us down to 10 possibilities. From there, we got it down to about five, we visited the highest scoring one (Portland, OR), fell in love, and didn't need to visit the rest. The house we've bought in Portland would have cost double in Arlington. The people are infinitely nicer here, the summer weather blows DC away, the outdoors are fucking unreal... I can't tell you how many lengthy conversations I've had with random strangers on random shit. Heck, I've even met about a dozen of my neighbors after only a month in the house (random people from blocks away even stock by when they see our VA tags)! I think I met a total of seven neighbors in about a decade of life in Arlington. It's just completely different. People here work to live as opposed to live to work. If the sun is out in the winter, EVERYONE BAILS ON THEIR JOB AND ENJOYS IT. Rush hour starts around 3 is completely over at 5:30. It's just... so awesome. Everyone owes it to themselves to at least try living in another place. I'd be really sad if I never had. As I joked/alluded to RJ above, he talked about moving across the country for the longest time and then bought a place in Reston. Don't do that.

Ironically, I didn't leave NoVA for the traffic. I commuted three miles each way by bicycle on a path for the past 7 years. When you live in a place that has everything and that you love, you don't need to be affected by traffic. Arlington is an amazing place, but the area and workplaces are brought down so much by the asshole/get rich/I'm important mentality. You can try to avoid it, but you can't.

It has been a challenge without friends or family, but it is slowly coming together. We've rekindled a few long lost friendships, found friends of friends, friends of family, etc.

THE spreadsheet: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai7eMc0DpJ-ydEhfZXI3OGYyX3p4QTRNVl95RGlJQ3c&usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... sp=sharing</a><!-- m -->

When can we come visit, and can we bring Hannah?

[*insertusernamehere*]

OHMYGOSH, that spreadsheet is a headache!! I don't think I would ever break down the data that far, props to you! I definitely think the family and friends part is whats killing me the most when I think about it and its just SO FAR. All of what you said about people I've heard before, for both Oregon and Washington. Sounds like the place for me haha

[davej]

I am the other one who picked it all up and moved across the country.

moved 1/2 way down the country (if that counts for anything) for all the reasons Jewels & RJ mentioned. the cash is tough to give up, but a solid work/life balance can do wonders, especially when that didn't exist before.
do miss family, but they visit and are ~5 years to retirement and looking to come down this way.

I was interested in some other markets, Charlotte, Austin/DFW, Phoenix, but then you're looking at planes to visit family and that sucks with kids.

[SlimKlim]

I feel like I've managed to miss the brunt of the asshole issue you guys are talking about. I definitely got it at AOL. That was a pretty caustic work environment where everyone was only interested in getting themselves ahead, and wouldn't hesitate to throw anyone under the bus for any reason if they thought it might benefit them. We also never really made friends with anyone in our first apartment complex except Kaan, who we already knew.

However, since moving to Time Warner, everyone on my team/floor is pretty laid back and friendly, and they give us a fantastic work life balance. We're on chatting terms with like five of our neighbors in our neighborhood and I haven't really struggled to make friends, although like 99% of the friends I've made since moving up here I met somehow through cars.

On the contrary, something is really weird about my hometown out in the sticks. Some people are extremely friendly but a lot of people are strangely tight-lipped and seem mistrusting. A lot of people say it's because their parents grew up when it was still moonshine country and "don't trust strangers" is hard coded into them.

One thing I have noticed since living up here, is when I accidentally get in someone's way in Wegmans, the older and wealthier they look, the more likely they are to shoot me a nasty stare and ignore my apology.

[Kaan]

On the contrary, something is really weird about my hometown out in the sticks. Some people are extremely friendly but a lot of people are strangely tight-lipped and seem mistrusting.

it probably has more to do with "small town life" and the speed at which your business can be spread around town lol

[SlimKlim]

Yeah maybe. It is funny how everything in rural america seems to be identified by who owns it or who used to own it. "You know, down past Danny Orange's house, the farm the Johnson's boy just bought"

[Apoc]

When can we come visit...

Don't worry Mike, she doesn't actually mean it. :lol:

[Samantha]

I like the idea of living in Lexington

I'm from there. It's good and it's bad growing up there. Prepare for a huge decrease in conveniences. Shopping is literally an all-day (and sometimes overnight) excursion for us. But at the same time, if you do it for family reasons I guess it's pretty awesome. Your kids (if you have/plan to have them) could play outside for days without supervision and no one would nab them. Plus, I made it through 13 years in the public education system there without once being offered drugs or alcohol (but then again, I was a total nerd). I live on 175+ acres of farmland and I have to admit it is amazing being able to step outside at night into total silence (save for the crickets) and be able to clearly see the stars.

[.RJ]

the area and workplaces are brought down so much by the asshole/get rich/I'm important mentality. You can try to avoid it, but you can't.

This is the one thing that I cant seem to get away from around here. I have to really fight to maintain my work/life balance - nearly everyone I have ever worked with always spends too much time at the job.

[Apoc]

the area and workplaces are brought down so much by the asshole/get rich/I'm important mentality. You can try to avoid it, but you can't.

This is the one thing that I cant seem to get away from around here. I have to really fight to maintain my work/life balance - nearly everyone I have ever worked with always spends too much time at the job.

I've realized I got caught up in it and was a very unhappy person living there. Now that I'm in a place that is much less self-important, I've taken a huge chill pill* and been much happier because of it. I actually had a hard time adjusting... had at least one or two conversations with my boss (who grew up in Nova) that "this isn't the east coast... people don't like brazen conflict." :lol:

*My Facebook/MM assholishness is not representative of how I actually conduct myself in person. RJ can vouch for how different I am since I started living here.

[Evan]

$1.2MM or less buys you a house right on the course in Quail Hollow CC (where the Wells Fargo PGA Championship is held...you could set up a catering spread on your lawn and watch the players) or in Longview the other most prestigious private course in the area.

Lol, dude you are living on another planet.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[WRXtranceformed]

I don't doubt that you can find good incomes in different places, but how many options do you get? I think RJ was referencing golden handcuffs talking about being hooked into a certain income level, but it's some other, shittier kind of handcuff where you're making OK money but don't have too many options to change jobs, etc.

:lol: There are other thriving metro areas with plenty of good jobs outside of the DC bubble you know.

Most of the people asking the questions in this thread are pretty young, so I would encourage you to rent for a bit wherever you feel comfortable in the DC area and if your job / life allows you to travel to other places in the US then do it. Go with a friend if you have to if you aren't adventurous. I promise you there is a huge likelihood that you will find another city that you would prefer to "put down roots" in.

For those of us that have left and been successful in doing so, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that you don't realize how much the DC area is not super fun to live in until you are gone and experience something better.

[.RJ]

RJ can vouch for how different I am since I started living here. [/size]

You're still an asshole. Smooches.

[Apoc]

You can do whatever the fuck you want, as long as you own it.