Opting out of coast madness to live a low overhead life

[Anonymous]

This is a follow up to that Atlantic article that was discussed on here recently ("The Secret Shame of the Middle Class.") She's basically saying the author should have left the NYC area for a fly over state. Applies to us schmucks in DC too, I guess. What do you think?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/low-overhead-life/480612/

[Anonymous]

She's right. I live it and live it well.

Her article is better than the other one that was full of whine. She gets it.

[Anonymous]

Very interesting! It makes me wish I could move.

[Anonymous]

I will do this asap after my big law gig is over. I look at friends in IT, engineering or HR and just don't understand why they stay. The marginally higher income doesn't cover the higher costs.

[Anonymous]

I think her article qualifies as a humble brag!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will do this asap after my big law gig is over. I look at friends in IT, engineering or HR and just don't understand why they stay. The marginally higher income doesn't cover the higher costs.

Same here, although not big law. DH is establishing his career right now as he just finished grad school and is in a new field. Once he has a few years of experience, we're going to head to cheaper pastures.

[Anonymous]

We considered this kind of move but could never pull the trigger. DH and I both grew up in Podunk east coast towns then lived in NYC. We decided we wanted something in the middle for our kids. We are not high earners but were able to establish a lovely middle class life here by moving to the burbs and buying a $400k SFH in MoCo. Our neighborhood isn't the cutest but schools are solid, neighbors are friendly, our commutes are decent, jobs are stable, and we have plenty of money left over for other things.

[Anonymous]

My parents left the DC area for a small town in a couple of hours away when my sister and I were in preschool. Having grown up there, you couldn't pay either of us enough to go back. Even though we lived there for over a dozen years, we always felt like outsiders - if your grandparents hadn't grown up in the town you were "new" and often "different" and that wasn't a good thing. Diversity was very limited (one Jewish family, no Muslims, a few Asian families) and the general mindset was that anything over a 30 minute drive away was a huge trip so virtually no one went to the nearest big city more than once a year, if that.

I am profoundly grateful that my father was transferred to a new city 30 years ago. The house they bough there for $215k was a stretch, but has more than tripled in value. The house that I grew up in was sold for $140k and in the past 30 years has increased in value to about $165k. The difference in real estate appreciation alone makes a huge difference for my parents' retirement. There are definite downsides to living in an expensive urban area, but there are upsides as well.

[Anonymous]

So it turns out you can get richer simply by moving to where people are poorer. That is horrifying. And some might find it insensitive to praise the virtues of living a middle-class life in a region beset by deindustrialization and poverty, where the low cost of living is enabled, in part, by the difficulty so many have in scratching out a living.

I think she is forgetting that big cities have poverty too. I'd wager it's easier to be a fast food worker in <I-forgot-the-name>, Indiana than DC.

We are planning to leave the area in a year or two because we hate the crowds and stress and want to be closer to family. The fact that our purchasing power will increase even if our income goes down is just icing on the cake.

But you all should stay here.

[Anonymous]

My DS has lived on the west coast all 23 years of his life. He will be attending grad school in the midwest in a town that has a much lower COL than here. He has a five year commitment there and it will be interesting to how he adjusts.

[Anonymous]

It's all about perspective and where you're coming from. Lots of NYC friends have opted out of the NYC/North Jersey/Long Island/CT madness and have settled here in DC and LOVE the cost of living, esp. real estate. But then I know DC folks who are moving off to Houston bc the DC COL is too much and they can get more house in Texas.

[Anonymous]

I think it would take about a week to remember why I moved to the big city.

[Anonymous]

Once you leave a high cost of living city you can never go back. I can never return to London because I got off the property ladder, and houses appreciated so much that I could never afford to buy there now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She's right. I live it and live it well.

Her article is better than the other one that was full of whine. She gets it.

+1

Smaller city living is the way to go. Or inner ring suburbs of a smaller city.

Better cost of living than top-tier cities and more amenities and education than small towns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents left the DC area for a small town in a couple of hours away when my sister and I were in preschool. Having grown up there, you couldn't pay either of us enough to go back. Even though we lived there for over a dozen years, we always felt like outsiders - if your grandparents hadn't grown up in the town you were "new" and often "different" and that wasn't a good thing. Diversity was very limited (one Jewish family, no Muslims, a few Asian families) and the general mindset was that anything over a 30 minute drive away was a huge trip so virtually no one went to the nearest big city more than once a year, if that.

I am profoundly grateful that my father was transferred to a new city 30 years ago. The house they bough there for $215k was a stretch, but has more than tripled in value. The house that I grew up in was sold for $140k and in the past 30 years has increased in value to about $165k. The difference in real estate appreciation alone makes a huge difference for my parents' retirement. There are definite downsides to living in an expensive urban area, but there are upsides as well.

Did you know: there are cities that aren't "small towns" and also not NYC, LA, SF, DC and BOS?

Yep. You can live in a diverse city of even a few million people and have a dramatically lower cost of living. Some are liberal, some skew conservative.

You're welcome.