Hellobee Boards

@MrsMcD: $200k could actually, physically, be peanuts. It could happen.

@MsLipGloss: Bahahaha. I'm totally trying to envision this...

We are living in a high cost of living area making commensurate salaries, but are living on a fraction of our income to pay off our student loans. We would honestly love to live somewhere cheaper since we know how to live on so little now, but my parents live in LA which is even more expensive...Sigh. We're thinking about relocating there at some point because they want to be full-time grandparents but refuse to live anywhere else. Oy.

@MrsMcD: exactly!

We live here because my family is all in MA and NYC. It's honestly the only thing that keeps me here. I'd move to an area with cheaper cost of living in a heartbeat if my family did not live here.

@gingerbebe: Can you move in with your parents?

My in-laws want to be full time grandparents also and are trying to convince us to move in with them... they have a lovely house in LA with 5 bedrooms... 1 acre lot with a huge back yard (their neighbors have actually built other houses in their back yards). They will eventually leave the house to us if that happens (aka they wouldn't split the house among all their kids but they would split all other things). We are not sure... they said well without a mortgage I could be a stay a home mom too! They really want their grandkids near them. Haha.

@Raindrop: My parents' house is way too small BUT they keep trying to sweeten the pot. The last offer was to sell their home and give us the proceeds to buy a home down there while they move into a senior apartment. I'm not sure how much their house would net in a sale and even then, I'm not sure if we could afford the mortgage anyway with our current student loan payments, but it was shocking that they even offered.

There are more job opportunities here and the pay is higher to offset with the cost of living premium. There's racial and economic diversity in daycare he goes to so he'll grow up understanding that everyone has a different position in life and hopefully help with him understanding how lucky he is. There's museums and zoos and beaches and close to NYC for big big city experiences and he's close to family.

Living in the city is everything I ever dreamed of as a kid.
My mother didn't drive, was a SAHM and my father worked a real blue collar job to give us everything he could. While I appreciate everything they did for me, I was always wanting more. I wanted to meet new people and try new things, I wanted to be able to hop on a train to anywhere whenever I wanted. I wanted to walk out my door and have everything available to me.
I love it!

I know we'll have to leave soon, when J starts school and especially if we decide to have another baby because our income just won't stretch that far. But I think we'll be the couple that sells the house when we're empty nesters and move back to a city apartment.

I love my city, but there are only two reasons to me why it is really worth living here. The first is that DH's and my families are both nearby. The second (possibly more important) is that DH and I both have good jobs here, which is tricky for us because we are both in pretty specialized fields, so we definitely can't just go anywhere and easily find a job.

I will admit that whenever we talk about retiring, we think about other areas of the country and not here.

Although I have dreams of leaving NYC, I know that we never will (unless the sea levels rise really quickly )

--This is my hometown. My family is here. Most of my close friends are here. DH also has a lot of family here (his family is originally from here though he was raised in the South).

--It's incredibly diverse. I live in a neighborhood where there are too many countries to list here that are represented. I love the diversity. There are a lot of people who look like me in my city. It's important for me that LO grows up in a place where she is not the only one of her kind, not othered into some sort of exotic creature. Not the only one in her class, in her school (though this can happen in the city, too).

--I don't drive. This is actually a pretty BIG one for me. There are only a few places I could live in the country anyway because I don't like being in cars. I try to avoid them like the plague. I won't find a public transportation system like ours anywhere else in the country.

--DH has tenure. He is doing his dream job and will basically be guaranteed that dream for life. Teachers are being laid off across the country and he's pretty set.

--As a creative artist, NYC has one of the best scenes for arts & culture. There's so much that I was exposed to and that LO will be exposed to that she wouldn't get elsewhere.

I live in NYC. I recently watched House Hunters International. The broker from Paris told an American couple: "Life isn't about space; life is about happiness." Lol. I do think NYers see the city as an extension of their apartments. We get outside A LOT, and this makes the indoor space more manageable. When it's 55 degrees out in March, I still always see people having dinner/coffee outside, etc. So if you are willing to deal with a small space, the other costs of NYC aren't so overwhelming.

@blackbird: I know what you mean. Cornfields. So many cornfields.

DH and I grew up in the Boston area, and we miss everything about it except the absurd cost of real estate. Family, friends, the beach, the mountains, the diversity, the cultural experiences, the food(!), the high quality public education. We have a good life right now in Iowa, and we are trying to love it. I think the biggest challenge for us right now is that many of the people we meet do not have the global perspective that we are used to. It makes it difficult to connect with people. Things I do love about Iowa are the ease of living, the low cost of living in a beautiful home in a beautiful neighborhood, the safety, and how friendly people are.

I can't pretend we wouldn't jump at the right opportunity to move back to the east coast, but in the meantime we are trying to be happy where we are.

I need a lot of stimulation and love the diversity a big city offers. We're in the middle of no where right now on vacation and spent forty minutes last night trying to find ice cream. At home I could have ice cream with in a hundred yards. It's the simple things.

@mrsjazz: we've never lived in bigger than 550 square feet and now we're moving to 850 and it seems HUGE.

We live outside of Boston. DH grew up here and I moved here in grad school for an internship and stayed on. We debated leaving because of the cost of living, but I work in a really specialized field. I can easily find a job in only select areas of the country - Boston, San Francisco, or in the Research Triangle part of NC. SF is WAY more expensive, and NC is pretty far for us with no friends or family. My parents are close-ish at 3 hours away and all of DH's family is here.

I could maybe find a job somewhere else, but without a lot of jobs in my industry in that area, I'd be stuck there forever. If I got laid off it would catastrophic because there would be nowhere else to work.

I also love a lot of things about Massachusetts. Close to the beach, close to the mountains, close to Maine and not too far from NY. I also love the liberal culture. I love that this state supports gay marriage and government sponsored healthcare (including IF benefits). I wouldn't feel comfortable in a place where most people didn't support gay rights, or where I'd get asked all the time if I've found Jesus. Or where carrying guns was the norm - I am vehemently anti-gun. So anyways, I fit in here. It sucks that it's expensive, but it's hard to pick up and move your life.

Do you mean 200K as in income a year being peanuts or 200K being peanuts when it comes to buying a home?

200K would be a great salary where I live but you couldn't even find a 1 bedroom condo for 200 K.

I live somewhere very expensive. Its a place where people come from all over to vacation, the weather is great, tons to do. But for me, I live here because I was born and raised here. It is incredibly frustrating to make decent money and still be a renter because its too expensive for us to buy a home that we would actually be happy owning. I love my job and all my longtime friendships and up until a couple years ago my entire family lived local but now as my family keeps moving out of state to live in more affordable places that is something my husband and I will be considering once we start our own family.

We live in suburbs of Boston, but I'm originally from Midwest. Went to college out here, and then met DH, and stayed because he is from around here. I love being near the ocean, mountains, close to all different states, and it just seems like there is so much more to do here than where I am from. Sure, if we lived in Midwest we could get a house for like 300,000 cheaper (!!!) but I'm sure salaries are lower as well. There will also be more opportunities for LO and future LO's here as well. Another point DH brings up often is if we live in an expensive high cost area now, pay off our home in 20-30 years, we will have a nice chunk of change to move somewhere like SC or NC or another lower housing cost area to retire.

I grew up in a small boring town and left for big (expensive) cities as soon as I graduated HS. I love the diversity and entertainment and of course, economic possibilities. For me, that's worth more than having my money go further in a less expensive city. We currently live in a fairly expensive city, especially compared to neighboring countries, but my husband's job brought us here.