To move or not to move?

[Anonymous]

I know this is a very personal decision, but I'd love to hear from others who have been faced with whether or not to move.

DH and I have good jobs in the D.C. area and make enough money to live fairly comfortably. We own a home and have money in savings. We have a 1yo DD. While we are "making it" in D.C., we often find ourselves stressed and busy just due to the generally competitive environment here. We recently experienced major loss in our lives and are now re-evaluating how we'd like to raise our family and live our lives.

On the one hand, I can easily picture our family staying in this area for the long-term. On the other, I'm tempted to pack everything up and move to a less expensive area with a slower pace of life. We do not currently have job offers in another area, but both of us have jobs that can be flexible.

As I stated above, I understand this is a very individual decision and there isn't a right or wrong, but I'd just love to hear about other's experiences/perspectives.

[Anonymous]

We're moving this summer. My husband got a good job somewhere else and I can try to find something in the area. Cost of living is so much lower that I could even work part time or volunteer, if it comes to that. I'm going to miss the diversity and culture and fun events but I am really looking forward to not sitting in so much traffic, spending more time with my family and having a slower pace of life. I don't want my kids to constantly have to rush everywhere (mine are 3 and 5 and aren't even signed up for activities outside of school because I hate the idea of over-committing ourselves). We'll give this new location a few years and re-evaluate but it does feel like a big sigh of relief to have made our decision.

[Anonymous]

We're moving. Timeline is about a year due to job contracts (we can both work in the other city but my husband has some contracts that he needs to be up here for right now). Our kids are three. We make enough to be comfortable, but not enough to never worry. We're moving to the beach where the cost of living is lower, the pace is slower, and our commutes will be basically nothing. There are pros to being here, but we're both just tired of it. We did a pros/cons list of here versus there and we both agreed that that's what we wanted for our family. Funny thing is, every realtor and builder we talk to says they've just been working with someone who is moving there from DC.

[Anonymous]

I could have written this! Although, we have not experienced a job loss, the birth of our child this year has caused us to really think about moving home to be close to family.
We both work for the government and have several years in (me 18) (him 14) and the idea of raising our only child close to family in a lower stress area has us really considering packing it all in and heading home (both from the same town and have tons of family there.)
I can't even tell you how we are struggling with this decision.

[Anonymous]

We moved, and then moved back when we found we missed the diversity and the challenge of DC.

Where we were living in the Midwest, we had to choose between living in a college town (preferable) with a horrible commute or living closer to jobs but without the kinds of folks that are drawn to college towns. We chose the shorter commute and hated it. Maybe we would have liked it more in the college town, but ended up coming back to DC instead.

[Anonymous]

We would love to move and have considered it. We are comfortable but realize it is really skewed when you perceive 200k are insufficient to live. I worry about this a lot. I need a year or two in my job and I will be in a good spot to jump. My industry is unstable right now and we are nervous about the economy, so there is that to consider as well.

[Anonymous]

I have a good friend that recently moved and they were back in 6 months.

Reasons given:

The job environments were not interesting or challenging so both parents felt they would be professionally unfulfilled.
Didn't feel they were meeting people they could relate to.
The mom specifically said to me she was the only woman in her (large) workplace who was a working mom. She didn't like this. (I wouldn't either.)

This is an anonymous forum, so let's just keep it real. In a small-town, the people are statistically less likely to be well-educated and progressive in politics, if you care about such things. Women are less likely to work with kids, if you care about such things. People are likely to have had their kids younger, if you care about such things. This does not mean they are not all lovely people and it wouldn't be a great way of life. It just is what it is.

But those are the kinds of things I would be thinking about.

[Anonymous]

Dual income family with a one year old here too. We really fantasize about moving to a lower COL, lower stress area, but DH's family is here and we'll probably stay to be close to the extended family network. We make enough to live comfortably, but are buried under a mountain of student loan debt, are frustrated with our older house (in the city, so commute isn't an issue) that we aren't willing to get into more debt to renovate, and DH especially really struggles with the competitive professional environment here. It's insane how high income we are for the quality of life we have. Not even letting myself think about the DC charter lottery process yet...

If we didn't have family here, and especially if we had jobs where we could work remotely, I would move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a good friend that recently moved and they were back in 6 months.

Reasons given:

The job environments were not interesting or challenging so both parents felt they would be professionally unfulfilled.
Didn't feel they were meeting people they could relate to.
The mom specifically said to me she was the only woman in her (large) workplace who was a working mom. She didn't like this. (I wouldn't either.)

This is an anonymous forum, so let's just keep it real. In a small-town, the people are statistically less likely to be well-educated and progressive in politics, if you care about such things. Women are less likely to work with kids, if you care about such things. People are likely to have had their kids younger, if you care about such things. This does not mean they are not all lovely people and it wouldn't be a great way of life. It just is what it is.

But those are the kinds of things I would be thinking about.

12:05 here. I totally agree with this too. My urban, progressive parents moved us to a small town when I was a kid, and I hated it, they hated it, and we all left as soon as possible and never looked back. IF we moved, I would be very, very selective about where we moved to. In the vein of keeping it real, I like living in a diverse, progressive bubble and being able to make assumptions about people's politics and values. Yes, that makes us the "coastal elite", but I DON'T want my kids growing up hearing the racist, bigoted crap I heard as a child. Plus we have addiction issues in our family tree, and if you don't think the heroin epidemic is real, I know PLENTY of middle class high school friends that have destroyed their lives with opioids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a good friend that recently moved and they were back in 6 months.

Reasons given:

The job environments were not interesting or challenging so both parents felt they would be professionally unfulfilled.
Didn't feel they were meeting people they could relate to.
The mom specifically said to me she was the only woman in her (large) workplace who was a working mom. She didn't like this. (I wouldn't either.)

This is an anonymous forum, so let's just keep it real. In a small-town, the people are statistically less likely to be well-educated and progressive in politics, if you care about such things. Women are less likely to work with kids, if you care about such things. People are likely to have had their kids younger, if you care about such things. This does not mean they are not all lovely people and it wouldn't be a great way of life. It just is what it is.

But those are the kinds of things I would be thinking about.

12:05 here. I totally agree with this too. My urban, progressive parents moved us to a small town when I was a kid, and I hated it, they hated it, and we all left as soon as possible and never looked back. IF we moved, I would be very, very selective about where we moved to. In the vein of keeping it real, I like living in a diverse, progressive bubble and being able to make assumptions about people's politics and values. Yes, that makes us the "coastal elite", but I DON'T want my kids growing up hearing the racist, bigoted crap I heard as a child. Plus we have addiction issues in our family tree, and if you don't think the heroin epidemic is real, I know PLENTY of middle class high school friends that have destroyed their lives with opioids.

Yep. The casual, overt, accepted racism and sexism in these places is real and unless you've lived in a place like this, you'll think it's not true or say it's not true.

It's very, very true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a good friend that recently moved and they were back in 6 months.

Reasons given:

The job environments were not interesting or challenging so both parents felt they would be professionally unfulfilled.
Didn't feel they were meeting people they could relate to.
The mom specifically said to me she was the only woman in her (large) workplace who was a working mom. She didn't like this. (I wouldn't either.)

This is an anonymous forum, so let's just keep it real. In a small-town, the people are statistically less likely to be well-educated and progressive in politics, if you care about such things. Women are less likely to work with kids, if you care about such things. People are likely to have had their kids younger, if you care about such things. This does not mean they are not all lovely people and it wouldn't be a great way of life. It just is what it is.

But those are the kinds of things I would be thinking about.

I'm the first PP who is moving this summer. I agree with this a lot which is why we chose an area of the country where we're more likely to find like-minded people and where being a working mom is not unusual. I can think of several of places, west coast, northeast, etc where the pace of life can be slower without having to give up the social aspects that we enjoy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a good friend that recently moved and they were back in 6 months.

Reasons given:

The job environments were not interesting or challenging so both parents felt they would be professionally unfulfilled.
Didn't feel they were meeting people they could relate to.
The mom specifically said to me she was the only woman in her (large) workplace who was a working mom. She didn't like this. (I wouldn't either.)

This is an anonymous forum, so let's just keep it real. In a small-town, the people are statistically less likely to be well-educated and progressive in politics, if you care about such things. Women are less likely to work with kids, if you care about such things. People are likely to have had their kids younger, if you care about such things. This does not mean they are not all lovely people and it wouldn't be a great way of life. It just is what it is.

But those are the kinds of things I would be thinking about.

I'm the first PP who is moving this summer. I agree with this a lot which is why we chose an area of the country where we're more likely to find like-minded people and where being a working mom is not unusual. I can think of several of places, west coast, northeast, etc where the pace of life can be slower without having to give up the social aspects that we enjoy.

Probably a college town, I'm guessing? If you're willing to share, I'm interested to hear.

[Anonymous]

We did this last year. We moved to a very "cool" (as in hip, it's actually very hot here) city. So many pros and cons.

Pros:

-So much less time at work. Still a lawyer, but I work pretty much 8-5 instead of the 24/7 life I felt I had in DC.
-My commute is so short. Selling our house in downtown DC allowed us to buy in a super close in and very cool area of town. My commute to downtown is about 5 minute. Even before when we were living in downtown DC it took me 30 minutes to get to K street (either walking or metro). So that's almost an hour a day I save. I can't imagine if we had lived further out in DC or in the suburbs.
-We pretty much never worry about money. We make about the same (it's a lot, we are both lawyers and our salaries didn't drop that much) but the COL is just generally so much cheaper. Even making what we made in DC I still worried about private school, etc. Not a concern anymore.
-Generally laid back vibe. People don't ask "what do you do?" as the first question when they meet you. People are friendly. People that work in the coffee places, restaurants, etc. are genuienly nice. It's weird!

Cons:

-It feels far away. If you're a lifelong Northeast person (as we both are) it's weird to be in a totally different environment. No more easy 3.5 hour drives to NYC - it's a whole day of travel basically.
-Flying direct to fewer places. Might seem trivial but we are big travelers and having to connect to a lot of places is tough.
-Feeling "out of the loop." DH's job especially still has a lot of ties to DC/the Northeast and he has to travel up there a lot.
-Far from family. While most of our family was not in DC, they were close by. We know no one here.
-Hard to rebuild community. We had lived in DC a long time and making new friends is hard!

Verdict:
-Knowing what I know now, I would still move. I have SO much more time with DD. I get home at 5:15, we all hang out, have dinner, it's so low stress. I sometimes look at my phone for emails, sometimes I don't. I am not sure we will stay here forever, but it's so nice to be here with DD being so young. There really is no daily grind!

Happy to answer other questions!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a good friend that recently moved and they were back in 6 months.

Reasons given:

The job environments were not interesting or challenging so both parents felt they would be professionally unfulfilled.
Didn't feel they were meeting people they could relate to.
The mom specifically said to me she was the only woman in her (large) workplace who was a working mom. She didn't like this. (I wouldn't either.)

This is an anonymous forum, so let's just keep it real. In a small-town, the people are statistically less likely to be well-educated and progressive in politics, if you care about such things. Women are less likely to work with kids, if you care about such things. People are likely to have had their kids younger, if you care about such things. This does not mean they are not all lovely people and it wouldn't be a great way of life. It just is what it is.

But those are the kinds of things I would be thinking about.

I'm the first PP who is moving this summer. I agree with this a lot which is why we chose an area of the country where we're more likely to find like-minded people and where being a working mom is not unusual. I can think of several of places, west coast, northeast, etc where the pace of life can be slower without having to give up the social aspects that we enjoy.

Probably a college town, I'm guessing? If you're willing to share, I'm interested to hear.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a good friend that recently moved and they were back in 6 months.

Reasons given:

The job environments were not interesting or challenging so both parents felt they would be professionally unfulfilled.
Didn't feel they were meeting people they could relate to.
The mom specifically said to me she was the only woman in her (large) workplace who was a working mom. She didn't like this. (I wouldn't either.)

This is an anonymous forum, so let's just keep it real. In a small-town, the people are statistically less likely to be well-educated and progressive in politics, if you care about such things. Women are less likely to work with kids, if you care about such things. People are likely to have had their kids younger, if you care about such things. This does not mean they are not all lovely people and it wouldn't be a great way of life. It just is what it is.

But those are the kinds of things I would be thinking about.

I'm the first PP who is moving this summer. I agree with this a lot which is why we chose an area of the country where we're more likely to find like-minded people and where being a working mom is not unusual. I can think of several of places, west coast, northeast, etc where the pace of life can be slower without having to give up the social aspects that we enjoy.

Probably a college town, I'm guessing? If you're willing to share, I'm interested to hear.

You're right, a college town, which is one of the reasons we chose it. We're moving to Corvallis, Oregon. It'll be a big shift for us but we were also considering Vermont, Western Massachusetts, Maine, Washington State and parts of California. For me, it being a college town is key to the kind of people we want to surround ourselves with.