If you're moving out of the DMV area because of the HCOL

[Anonymous]

Boulder, CO

Louisville, CO

[Anonymous]

1) Pittsburgh suburb
2) HHI stays about the same, maybe a little less. Is around 300k maybe would have been 350k in DC

I love my big 4 bedroom home with 2 car garage and new kitchen in a good public school district in a private neighborhood that cost 370,000.
Daycare was half of what it was in DMV, which i didn't expect. Dining out is way less too.

[Anonymous]

I don’t exactly understand moving for lower cost of living.

I see moving to a lower tax state. But for me WFH, two kids in college and one in public school I literally only spend in fixed expenses. Tuition being largest.

My job is WFH but if it changed I be in trouble if moved.

[Anonymous]

I moved a few years ago not *because* of HCOL but that was absolutely a factor in pushing us out.

Chicago, HHI now is $225/yr, we live like royalty here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I moved a few years ago not *because* of HCOL but that was absolutely a factor in pushing us out.

Chicago, HHI now is $225/yr, we live like royalty here.

Oh, HHI was basically the same when we lived in DC, minus some merit raises. I have the same job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t exactly understand moving for lower cost of living.

I see moving to a lower tax state. But for me WFH, two kids in college and one in public school I literally only spend in fixed expenses. Tuition being largest.

My job is WFH but if it changed I be in trouble if moved.

....You *don't understand* moving for lower cost of living -like housing costs? Seriously? You do know that not all areas of the US housing costs as much either in terms of rent or homes for sale as the DMV? Or daycare costs are a fraction of our previous costs. Yes, that is a major factor that pushed us out. Also no state income tax helps too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t exactly understand moving for lower cost of living.

I see moving to a lower tax state. But for me WFH, two kids in college and one in public school I literally only spend in fixed expenses. Tuition being largest.

My job is WFH but if it changed I be in trouble if moved.

DP. We're moving to a smaller city due to lifestyle, less traffic, more open spaces, less hectic pace of life, short commute.

It's a secondary benefit that our housing costs will be half what they are here while HHI will take only a small hit, which will allow us to pay off a home in 15 yrs using 1 salary instead of 30 yrs using 2. We can put a huge chunk of the 2nd salary into beefing up retirement, college savings, and travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t exactly understand moving for lower cost of living.

I see moving to a lower tax state. But for me WFH, two kids in college and one in public school I literally only spend in fixed expenses. Tuition being largest.

My job is WFH but if it changed I be in trouble if moved.

We could not reasonably afford to buy a place where we would actually want to live, in a neighborhood where we would actually want to live, in DC. We had the good fortune to be able to do our jobs remotely, so we moved somewhere - a smaller, but very nice city down south - where we got a wonderful house in a wonderful neighborhood for $330k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1) Where are you going?
2) What is your HHI in the DMV (and what will it be where you are going)?

By HCOL I really mean real estate. That is truly the only think here that I think is ridiculous here. Food is honestly the same here as back home in a relatively lower COL area.

Childcare is relatively high here too, although lower cost options do exist. But I think childcare cost here are among the highest in the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Where are you going?
2) What is your HHI in the DMV (and what will it be where you are going)?

By HCOL I really mean real estate. That is truly the only think here that I think is ridiculous here. Food is honestly the same here as back home in a relatively lower COL area.

Childcare is relatively high here too, although lower cost options do exist. But I think childcare cost here are among the highest in the country.

I also think form a quality of life perspective, it's the cost of childcare plus its scarcity. When I speak to friends in other cities, even cities where childcare costs just as much as it does here or more (like NYC, San Francisco, LA, Seattle) they are always surprised by the hoops we have to jump through just to get a spot in a daycare. You see that other places but only with certain, very in demand centers that offer special services like bilingual education or that are attached to prestigious institutions. We sat on waitlists for months just to get a spot at a regular, decent daycare that was reasonably close to one of our offices. That's unusual.

There are a lot of things about the DMV that not only cost more, but are more stressful. Services in this area are weirdly limited in ways that you don't run into in other cities, partly because of how many people abandoned the city for the suburbs in the 80s and 90s. DC never really built up its service infrastructure when people started moving back in. We got lots more bars and restaurants, but not necessarily more daycares, dentists, and auto body shops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Where are you going?
2) What is your HHI in the DMV (and what will it be where you are going)?

By HCOL I really mean real estate. That is truly the only think here that I think is ridiculous here. Food is honestly the same here as back home in a relatively lower COL area.

Childcare is relatively high here too, although lower cost options do exist. But I think childcare cost here are among the highest in the country.

I also think form a quality of life perspective, it's the cost of childcare plus its scarcity. When I speak to friends in other cities, even cities where childcare costs just as much as it does here or more (like NYC, San Francisco, LA, Seattle) they are always surprised by the hoops we have to jump through just to get a spot in a daycare. You see that other places but only with certain, very in demand centers that offer special services like bilingual education or that are attached to prestigious institutions. We sat on waitlists for months just to get a spot at a regular, decent daycare that was reasonably close to one of our offices. That's unusual.

There are a lot of things about the DMV that not only cost more, but are more stressful. Services in this area are weirdly limited in ways that you don't run into in other cities, partly because of how many people abandoned the city for the suburbs in the 80s and 90s. DC never really built up its service infrastructure when people started moving back in. We got lots more bars and restaurants, but not necessarily more daycares, dentists, and auto body shops.

This. I moved away from DMV a few years ago. It was shocking to me that daycares don't have waitlists and enrolling in summer camp is not a competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Where are you going?
2) What is your HHI in the DMV (and what will it be where you are going)?

By HCOL I really mean real estate. That is truly the only think here that I think is ridiculous here. Food is honestly the same here as back home in a relatively lower COL area.

Childcare is relatively high here too, although lower cost options do exist. But I think childcare cost here are among the highest in the country.

I also think form a quality of life perspective, it's the cost of childcare plus its scarcity. When I speak to friends in other cities, even cities where childcare costs just as much as it does here or more (like NYC, San Francisco, LA, Seattle) they are always surprised by the hoops we have to jump through just to get a spot in a daycare. You see that other places but only with certain, very in demand centers that offer special services like bilingual education or that are attached to prestigious institutions. We sat on waitlists for months just to get a spot at a regular, decent daycare that was reasonably close to one of our offices. That's unusual.

There are a lot of things about the DMV that not only cost more, but are more stressful. Services in this area are weirdly limited in ways that you don't run into in other cities, partly because of how many people abandoned the city for the suburbs in the 80s and 90s. DC never really built up its service infrastructure when people started moving back in. We got lots more bars and restaurants, but not necessarily more daycares, dentists, and auto body shops.

This. I moved away from DMV a few years ago. It was shocking to me that daycares don't have waitlists and enrolling in summer camp is not a competition.

Doing these types of things in the suburbs is even stressful now, there is so much demand and not enough supply.

We had to get out; not saying where we went, because I don't want highly stressed DC residents to follow us and stress up the area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Where are you going?
2) What is your HHI in the DMV (and what will it be where you are going)?

By HCOL I really mean real estate. That is truly the only think here that I think is ridiculous here. Food is honestly the same here as back home in a relatively lower COL area.

Childcare is relatively high here too, although lower cost options do exist. But I think childcare cost here are among the highest in the country.

I also think form a quality of life perspective, it's the cost of childcare plus its scarcity. When I speak to friends in other cities, even cities where childcare costs just as much as it does here or more (like NYC, San Francisco, LA, Seattle) they are always surprised by the hoops we have to jump through just to get a spot in a daycare. You see that other places but only with certain, very in demand centers that offer special services like bilingual education or that are attached to prestigious institutions. We sat on waitlists for months just to get a spot at a regular, decent daycare that was reasonably close to one of our offices. That's unusual.

There are a lot of things about the DMV that not only cost more, but are more stressful. Services in this area are weirdly limited in ways that you don't run into in other cities, partly because of how many people abandoned the city for the suburbs in the 80s and 90s. DC never really built up its service infrastructure when people started moving back in. We got lots more bars and restaurants, but not necessarily more daycares, dentists, and auto body shops.

This. I moved away from DMV a few years ago. It was shocking to me that daycares don't have waitlists and enrolling in summer camp is not a competition.

Doing these types of things in the suburbs is even stressful now, there is so much demand and not enough supply.

We had to get out; not saying where we went, because I don't want highly stressed DC residents to follow us and stress up the area.

Same!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t exactly understand moving for lower cost of living.

I see moving to a lower tax state. But for me WFH, two kids in college and one in public school I literally only spend in fixed expenses. Tuition being largest.

My job is WFH but if it changed I be in trouble if moved.

....You *don't understand* moving for lower cost of living -like housing costs? Seriously? You do know that not all areas of the US housing costs as much either in terms of rent or homes for sale as the DMV? Or daycare costs are a fraction of our previous costs. Yes, that is a major factor that pushed us out. Also no state income tax helps too.

Seriously. Does PP not understand that those "fixed expenses" are higher in a HCOL area (literally what the "H" stands for)? I live in a 45-year-old house that is in a good neighborhood and is "affordable" at "only" $750K. I don't know where we're going yet, but it's definitely not here long-term, though more because my spouse is exhausted by the traffic, rat race, and UMC people in general. The challenge is finding somewhere civilized with jobs that is not horrifically expensive.

[Anonymous]

We moved from the DC area to Austin. Kept the same salaries, and kept our DC-based jobs. Daycare is half the cost. We have a great 2400 sq foot house for 380k (bought before the current boom) with 1/3 acre and great schools within walking distance. No waitlist for daycare, no waitlist for aftercare, no waitlist for summer camp. I can avoid the traffic bc everything I need is nearby. Awesome hiking. There are disadvantages to living in TX for sure, but we don't regret moving for a second (other than leaving friends behind).