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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, are you interested in living in the city itself or a suburb?

Like several of the other posters, I grew up here (in a NoVA suburb), so the crazy COL always seemed normal to me. I moved into DC after college and lived the dirt poor nonprofit worker lifestyle. I love living in the city, and my now-DH and I decided early on that it was worth the trade offs. He makes about $125K. I was only making about $45K (again, nonprofit), and I became a SAHM after we had a child. You really have to know what sort of trade offs you are willing to make? We live in a 2 bedroom, 1,000 SF condo. We don't have a yard, but on the other hand there are tons of kids and parks around us, and with less than a 5 minute walk to the metro (and we only have 1 car), we pretty much consider the whole city to be our backyard. Even without the metro we can walk to the zoo, library, grocery shopping, 5 or 6 playgrounds and parks, and about 200 restaurants. Our condo is not fancy and our local school is average, but we love our fun, walkable neighborhood, and DS spends his days having fun at museums, parks, the zoo, etc. By DC standards we don't make a lot of money, but we love our lifestyle.

[b]What is comes down to, OP, is what sort of lifestyle do you and your family want? What are your non-negotiables? What are you willing to sacrifice?
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Btw, don't listen to the snarkers who hate living here. No place is perfect of course, but DC is a great place to live if you are looking for that lifestyle.  :) [/quote]

Sounds nice, but still waiting for you to name something we don't have, and for a quarter of the price.  The salary bump is not close to the differential.  I would understand if our HHI were going to quadruple, or even double, but it won't, so I am genuinely trying to understand what makes this worthwhile.  Some of you must be in jobs that simply don't exist, or not in adequate numbers, elsewhere - but if you're not a wonk or a lobbyist, why?

[/quote]

Okay, so now OP is getting snarky!!

OP - I grew up in the midwest. I'm in my mid-30s recently married and no kids (yet).  I make a lot of money, I've travelled a ton over the past 15 years, have been able to eat at amazing restaurants, drink at cool bars, go to museums, talks, parks, and have a lot of really awesome vacation spots within driving distance.  On top of that, I've been able to meet really interesting people from a variety of places and in a variety of careers and have an amazingly cool and diverse group of friends.  In contrast, my friends who stayed in the midwest have all been married 10 years, are friends with the same people we went to high school with, haven't seen the world, all have the same type of job/are stay at home moms, have kids in elementary school, don't really do anything on the weekends, and are quite frankly boring (and many of them have told me that they are bored).  So despite the high cost of living here, I feel that I live a great life in DC that I could not get in the boring midwest.

As for salaries, most people in DC are NOT "wonks" as you say or lobbyists.  Yes, we have an overabundence of lawyers and consultants here, but we also have a lot of people who get crappy staffer, non-profit or Fed salaries, too.[/quote]

LMAO.  Since you're on DCUM, I'm assuming you want children one day pp.  When your first DC turns 1, don't forget to come back and tell us how exciting your life is then.[/quote]
My kid is 2. We're constantly doing exciting activities around the city, visiting museums, and having a great time. So yes, it's possible to have a kid and take advantage of the city and *gasp* even have an exciting life.[/quote]

Eh, your kid is 2.  [b]When your kids reach elementary school, your free time will revolve around their schedule[/b].  [/quote]Different poster here.  But that happens everywhere!  It's not any less likely in Ohio or Montana than in DC.[/quote]

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