At what point did you throw in the towel because DC is just too expensive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've been here two years. I've never made as much as I do now, and felt as poor as I do here. We are seriously considering moving. We like it, but it seems like you need to be making very substantial sums of money to be comfortable.

I'm confused as to why you didn't realize this before you moved here.

I knew DC was expensive. I wasn't moving from some podunk town in Idaho where a 5 bedroom house costs $100K. We came in figuring we could buy a place we liked for about $700K, in the end, it ended up being more like $1M to get into the right neighborhood. There were some expenses that caught us by surprise - for instance, unskilled labour here is much higher cost (lawn service is $250 vs $100 or so where we came from) and our car insurance rates are quite a bit more, as were our home owners, and home repairs here are 3x what we've experienced in other markets. We assumed the market for daycare was similar (I admit that was dumb) but found that anything convenient meant a few hundred more a month. I also found that metro, unlike where I came from, was not actually a cost-effective transportation option relative to driving, but that increased my gas and vehicle depreciation expenses. None of these things on their own really make much of a difference - an extra $100 for lawn service, an extra $300 for daycare, an extra $100 on gas, whatever - but eventually it adds up and before you know it, you are talking about an extra $1000 or $2000 a month, and that starts getting to be real money. Its not that we are struggling, its just that our overall purchasing power / quality of life has decreased with the move, despite the higher salary.

[Anonymous]

Oh, there went my empathy out the window!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, there went my empathy out the window!

I wasnt looking for empathy. I'm not poor, just not as well off as I once was.

[Anonymous]

OP - how much money do you make here and how much money could you make somewhere else?

My DH and I have talked about moving away, but haven't gotten around to doing calculations on if the pay cuts we'd have to take would be equal to the diminished cost of living or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've been here two years. I've never made as much as I do now, and felt as poor as I do here. We are seriously considering moving. We like it, but it seems like you need to be making very substantial sums of money to be comfortable.

I'm confused as to why you didn't realize this before you moved here.

I knew DC was expensive. I wasn't moving from some podunk town in Idaho where a 5 bedroom house costs $100K. We came in figuring we could buy a place we liked for about $700K, in the end, it ended up being more like $1M to get into the right neighborhood. There were some expenses that caught us by surprise - for instance, unskilled labour here is much higher cost (lawn service is $250 vs $100 or so where we came from) and our car insurance rates are quite a bit more, as were our home owners, and home repairs here are 3x what we've experienced in other markets. We assumed the market for daycare was similar (I admit that was dumb) but found that anything convenient meant a few hundred more a month. I also found that metro, unlike where I came from, was not actually a cost-effective transportation option relative to driving, but that increased my gas and vehicle depreciation expenses. None of these things on their own really make much of a difference - an extra $100 for lawn service, an extra $300 for daycare, an extra $100 on gas, whatever - but eventually it adds up and before you know it, you are talking about an extra $1000 or $2000 a month, and that starts getting to be real money. Its not that we are struggling, its just that our overall purchasing power / quality of life has decreased with the move, despite the higher salary.

To the extent that I had any sympathy for you after your first post, it is gone now.

You bought a $1M house in your early 30s. The $700K one would have done just fine (millions of us think so) but not you - to get into the "right neighborhood," you NEEDED the million dollar house.

Lawn service: I am 52yo and mow our lawn myself. It is a quarter-acre and mowing it is a good workout, saves me a gym membership when I factor in gardening and walking the dog.

Daycare - you make whatever choices you make. Sorry, if you want convenience then you pay for it.

Cry me a river, OP. Are you for real?

[Anonymous]

Grew up here, still live here, you just get to used to it.

It's like generational poverty but with money instead of without. You get so used to making enough to live pretty well and have a little savings that you just get used to it and see it as a way of life. My siblings all still live in the area as do my parents but we all complain how expensive it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've been here two years. I've never made as much as I do now, and felt as poor as I do here. We are seriously considering moving. We like it, but it seems like you need to be making very substantial sums of money to be comfortable.

I'm confused as to why you didn't realize this before you moved here.

I knew DC was expensive. I wasn't moving from some podunk town in Idaho where a 5 bedroom house costs $100K. We came in figuring we could buy a place we liked for about $700K, in the end, it ended up being more like $1M to get into the right neighborhood. There were some expenses that caught us by surprise - for instance, unskilled labour here is much higher cost (lawn service is $250 vs $100 or so where we came from) and our car insurance rates are quite a bit more, as were our home owners, and home repairs here are 3x what we've experienced in other markets. We assumed the market for daycare was similar (I admit that was dumb) but found that anything convenient meant a few hundred more a month. I also found that metro, unlike where I came from, was not actually a cost-effective transportation option relative to driving, but that increased my gas and vehicle depreciation expenses. None of these things on their own really make much of a difference - an extra $100 for lawn service, an extra $300 for daycare, an extra $100 on gas, whatever - but eventually it adds up and before you know it, you are talking about an extra $1000 or $2000 a month, and that starts getting to be real money. Its not that we are struggling, its just that our overall purchasing power / quality of life has decreased with the move, despite the higher salary.

To the extent that I had any sympathy for you after your first post, it is gone now.

You bought a $1M house in your early 30s. The $700K one would have done just fine (millions of us think so) but not you - to get into the "right neighborhood," you NEEDED the million dollar house.

Lawn service: I am 52yo and mow our lawn myself. It is a quarter-acre and mowing it is a good workout, saves me a gym membership when I factor in gardening and walking the dog.

Daycare - you make whatever choices you make. Sorry, if you want convenience then you pay for it.

Cry me a river, OP. Are you for real?

I'm not OP.... You can shit all over me, not over OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've been here two years. I've never made as much as I do now, and felt as poor as I do here. We are seriously considering moving. We like it, but it seems like you need to be making very substantial sums of money to be comfortable.

I'm confused as to why you didn't realize this before you moved here.

I knew DC was expensive. I wasn't moving from some podunk town in Idaho where a 5 bedroom house costs $100K. We came in figuring we could buy a place we liked for about $700K, in the end, it ended up being more like $1M to get into the right neighborhood. There were some expenses that caught us by surprise - for instance, unskilled labour here is much higher cost (lawn service is $250 vs $100 or so where we came from) and our car insurance rates are quite a bit more, as were our home owners, and home repairs here are 3x what we've experienced in other markets. We assumed the market for daycare was similar (I admit that was dumb) but found that anything convenient meant a few hundred more a month. I also found that metro, unlike where I came from, was not actually a cost-effective transportation option relative to driving, but that increased my gas and vehicle depreciation expenses. None of these things on their own really make much of a difference - an extra $100 for lawn service, an extra $300 for daycare, an extra $100 on gas, whatever - but eventually it adds up and before you know it, you are talking about an extra $1000 or $2000 a month, and that starts getting to be real money. Its not that we are struggling, its just that our overall purchasing power / quality of life has decreased with the move, despite the higher salary.

To the extent that I had any sympathy for you after your first post, it is gone now.

You bought a $1M house in your early 30s. The $700K one would have done just fine (millions of us think so) but not you - to get into the "right neighborhood," you NEEDED the million dollar house.

Lawn service: I am 52yo and mow our lawn myself. It is a quarter-acre and mowing it is a good workout, saves me a gym membership when I factor in gardening and walking the dog.

Daycare - you make whatever choices you make. Sorry, if you want convenience then you pay for it.

Cry me a river, OP. Are you for real?

I'm not OP.... You can shit all over me, not over OP.

Whatever. If you are the one who posted about "needing" to get into the $1M house, the lawn service expense, etc., then you are ridiculous and could use a slap into reality.

[Anonymous]

I could do much better under normal circumstances and be happier in a cheaper city, but the jobs are here. I could get a job elsewhere, but getting laid off in Richmond, for example, in my line of work--there won't be that many openings. I get laid off in DC, there are hundreds of jobs/companies I could apply to. It really boils down to that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I could do much better under normal circumstances and be happier in a cheaper city, but the jobs are here. I could get a job elsewhere, but getting laid off in Richmond, for example, in my line of work--there won't be that many openings. I get laid off in DC, there are hundreds of jobs/companies I could apply to. It really boils down to that.

+1

we had already gotten pretty deep into planning to move to a cheaper city...when we were faced with this reality. My husband's job wasn't willing to let him work remotely, and the job industry for his field is practically nonexistent in the target city. Could he change fields? Sure, but he wouldn't be happy. So, we stayed here - warts and all.

[Anonymous]

Many other places are definitely cheaper, but whenever I research new places to move, I realize that other places have their share of problems too. For example, Illinois has very high property taxes (my sister bought a much cheaper house, but her house payment is quite a bit higher than our--plus she's now underwater because values dipped so much there, even though we both bought in 2008). California and Oregon have very high income taxes. In some cities, you will pay just as much as you do here for a house in a close-in, walkable neighborhood (the only other option being living in an inexpensive 4,000 square foot house in a characterless suburb). Or the neighborhoods I like have terrible schools, so we'd have to either have to pay for private school or move to the aforementioned characterless suburb, which may be very far away from the city center. Or the weather sucks. The list goes on.

I'm not saying the DC area is awesome--just food for thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Whatever. If you are the one who posted about "needing" to get into the $1M house, the lawn service expense, etc., then you are ridiculous and could use a slap into reality.

You missed the point. I wasnt saying that I am poor or otherwise unfortunate, I was simply saying that relative to other places, all of these things are more expensive, thus, the lifestyle I can afford in DC isnt on par with that I could afford in some other cities. Thats true whether you make $50K a year or $500K a year.

[Anonymous]

OP here, sorry for not responding when I checked earlier no one had posted.

We both lived at home prior to getting married so we started off with no debt, both put in 20% of income plus great company matches. I was getting a commission bonus which went straight to savings. We also sold one car that was totally paid off when we moved here since we didn't need two cars. Since we had just moved here literally after we got married, we took all gifts and put them into CDs. No, we don't come from money, we just tried to sock away as much as we could so we wouldn't live paycheck to paycheck like both of our parents did when we were young. i didn't want that life and here I am. The reality is, we TOTALLY miscalculated how much stuff is here. And until you've gone elsewhere you don't realize that it's all the little things that add up.

Where has our savings gone? Well, a good chunk to the random need a root canal but insurance pays 20% type crap, car repairs that we weren't expecting to be so much with a relatively new-er car. (We bought both cars used and have only had a second car recently). And grad-school which I think is very important. Promotions and pay increases and bonuses were promised and never materialized. Did we spend a little on the anticipation, yes and lesson learned the hard way. Add in a merger that left me out of a job right at the correct time (first child born) and we were down to one income. Me going back to work wasn't a real option because for what I was making, I would be paying directly to daycare.

The CC debt is also random stuff like when DH switched jobs and our HSA got out of wack and we had to come up with a large amount of money for our new high deductible out of nowhere so the cc was the 'easy' fix. When the OB says you have to pay today after not expecting it and you are 8 months pregnant, you do what you have to do.

As far as buying here, we said we'd come for 5 years for 'the experience' and weren't sure which neighborhood to settle in at first so we rented and have been since. It was also the top of the crazy 20 offers on a place time, so we weren't ready to deal with that.

Living beyond our means. Been there, done that and learned. We rented a place just a little too expensive for a year and learned quickly to cut back on everything, having kids and one income cut us back even further. We live in a modest place paying some of the cheapest rent in town- I searched high and low- there is no granite in this place!

Preschool is the cheapest in town and I don't know of any free preschools in NOVA nor do I think we'd qualify. I contemplated applying for tuition assistance but after posting on that and people telling me to get off my lazy ass and get a job, decided it wasn't for us. FWIW, I volunteer a ton at the school and do all the fundraising there so I'm quite involved.

To the person saying move and be worried about job security, that is our main concern. If we move just a little far away, we can afford a house, great schools, etc. Here, we are scraping by with sub-par schools and a child about to go to kindergarten. But, the job security is here. I'm just wondering, I know there are people out there who took the plunge but what was the deciding factor that put you over the edge to try it somewhere else.

Oh, vacations are to grandparents houses, our only luxury is cable and if we could find a way to get sports, it would be cut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've been here two years. I've never made as much as I do now, and felt as poor as I do here. We are seriously considering moving. We like it, but it seems like you need to be making very substantial sums of money to be comfortable.

+100!!! 100k really does not go far here.

[Anonymous]

OP, based on your response above, it sounds like your financial situation is more about the fact that adult life with kids costs a lot and less about the place. Now, I don't know where you live exactly, and rents in this area are exorbitant, but most of the things you cited are not related to your rent -- they are expenses that would have cropped up regardless of where you were living. And I'm one of those people who doesn't love this area, so I don't say that to defend it! I just know that when I was in my 20s, I had NO IDEA how much a comfortable middle-class life costs. Between various insurances, health care expenses, auto maintenance, and so forth (those periodic expenses are the killer), it is dead easy to eat through savings and go into credit card debt unless you make enough money to be one of those uber-responsible types who puts 20% into savings and lives below her means. I don't know if I *could* do that, but I know for damn sure I have never had a high enough income to do that except for a brief period before I had my first child when I was able to save a large chunk of my salary so that I could take some unpaid maternity leave. Exactly how much cheaper would it be to live somewhere else? I honestly haven't looked at rents in other areas in a really long time. If your rent would go from, say, $2500 to $1500, and everything else stayed the same (including income) ... then, I could see moving for a better quality of life. But would income stay the same? My DH is an attorney and at his type of job (small firm), I think his salary would go down so much in a cheaper place that it would be a wash. So, we struggle on ... as do a lot of others.