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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]01:35, what school pyramid or are you going private?  Schools are what give me pause in PGC.[/quote]

1:35 here.  And I missed the part where OP said that she was commuting to Arlington/Foggy Bottom amidst all the humble-bragging about buying a house without your parents' help.

What led us to PG County was that DH works there, and a commute from anywhere we could afford in Virginia would have been terrible.  Of course, we could have bought in certain parts of Alexandria, but I began to realize that the schools there weren't even very good, so why was I looking at these old ugly houses?  Then we started looking at the Bowie/Glenn Dale area.  I realized that for 400k we could buy a house that would cost at least 800k on any other part of the beltway.  So I did a calculation in my mind- what would that 400k difference mean?  For our financial situation, it meant we would be paying taxes on a 400k house instead of a 800k house, have an easy commute for dh, be paying a mortgage on 400k instead of 800k, etc., and put our 1 dc in private school.  It meant that I could stay home if I want to at any point.  For health reasons it is unlikely that I will have another dc, so that was another factor to consider.  The elementary school where we bought is a 6, last year was a 7, which is fairly impressive for the # of FARMS kids in the school.  I also will apply for the lottery for the French and Montessori schools near the house.  I also researched the crime in the area we bought, mostly petty, theft, and theft from vehicle.  We went to the neighborhood at all hours of the day.  I knocked on a bunch of neighbors' doors and introduced myself and chatted with them.  DH asked people he worked with about living in that part of the county.  I asked questions on city-data.  It took a long time, and it was sort of an absurd amount of research that I didn't feel I needed to do when looking in VA. [/quote]

Hear hear. PG County is a great place to live. We love our local elem school but are even happier that we won the lottery for the Montessori program. Our kids will go to that program through 8th grade and then hopefully get into the science/tech program at Eleanor Roosevelt, which is a great school. No compromises for us, just more diversity and lower cost of living. Our hundred year old 2200 sq ft house cost under 300K in 2009.[/quote]

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