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It's a bitter feeling to work 40 hours (plus) a week while others work far less than that and still expect to have things that you do......
I agree. And I'll add that it's a bitter pill to work 40+ hours - often 50 hours - a week for decades, saving and planning, and others who have worked far fewer years and hours still expect to have the things you do. Not only do some of them expect to have them - right now - they expect you to give it them out of your own pocket basically!
There is something seriously wrong with this country's economy if working hard cannot provide that.
Moving is not necessarily the answer. I've moved cross country several times and it costs thousands. There is no cheap way to do it. I've tried liquidating all my furniture and stuff so everything fits in a pickup and I've tried moving my existing stuff with the cheapest moving companies. No particular way is better than the other. If you go the first route you have to buy new furniture and stuff. Eventually it comes out to the $3K or so it costs to use Mayflower. You can't drive fast when you've got a pickup full of stuff so it costs you a good $600 at least in gas, motels & food to actually make the trip.
Also you have to arrange housing - that means a few hundred in app fees, a couple thousand possibly in deposits, electric/utility hook up, etc... The hundreds/thousands travel to scope out the area beforehand or after arrival stay in a motel / store your stuff while you're looking.
The biggest cost of moving is losing your social support. If you have a kid and you move away from Grandma than you are going to be shelling out BIG bucks for child care.
Last edited by redguard57; 02-15-2016 at 05:22 PM..
There is something seriously wrong with this country's economy if working hard cannot provide that.
Moving is not necessarily the answer. I've moved cross country several times and it costs thousands. There is no cheap way to do it. I've tried liquidating all my furniture and stuff so everything fits in a pickup and I've tried moving my existing stuff with the cheapest moving companies. No particular way is better than the other. If you go the first route you have to buy new furniture and stuff. Eventually it comes out to the $3K or so it costs to use Mayflower. You can't drive fast when you've got a pickup full of stuff so it costs you a good $600 at least in gas, motels & food to actually make the trip.
Also you have to arrange housing - that means a few hundred in app fees, a couple thousand possibly in deposits, electric/utility hook up, etc... The hundreds/thousands travel to scope out the area beforehand or after arrival stay in a motel / store your stuff while you're looking.
The biggest cost of moving is losing your social support. If you have a kid and you move away from Grandma than you are going to be shelling out BIG bucks for child care.
You have to do what works best for you and your family. Every case is different. But one thing is certain - if you can't afford to live somewhere in the manner you're living in now - SOMETHING has to change. You may have to live in a multigenerational situation. You may have to move out of town or out of state. You may need to take on a second job. You may need to cut back seriously on some other expenses. You may need to move somewhere as a family - mom, dad, you, your kids. Who knows? Every situation is different as I said.
Recently my parents and I all moved to the same town - them from out of state and my husband and me from about 40 miles away. Oh, and we also moved his elderly mother with us as well. Not all living in one house, and not all at the same time, but it was a concerted event that played out over about three months. And right after we all got settled, my daughter and her husband moved here from out of the country as well.
We all picked a region and town we liked and that's where we moved. Cost of living played a very important role in this, as did proximity to family. My brother and his wife are planning to move here within a year or two as well, from WAY out of state. My younger brother is also considering moving here.
So it can be done. But this is just one example of families working together to simplify and better their lives together.
There is something seriously wrong with this country's economy if working hard cannot provide that.
Moving is not necessarily the answer. I've moved cross country several times and it costs thousands. There is no cheap way to do it. I've tried liquidating all my furniture and stuff so everything fits in a pickup and I've tried moving my existing stuff with the cheapest moving companies. No particular way is better than the other. If you go the first route you have to buy new furniture and stuff. Eventually it comes out to the $3K or so it costs to use Mayflower. You can't drive fast when you've got a pickup full of stuff so it costs you a good $600 at least in gas, motels & food to actually make the trip.
Also you have to arrange housing - that means a few hundred in app fees, a couple thousand possibly in deposits, electric/utility hook up, etc... The hundreds/thousands travel to scope out the area beforehand or after arrival stay in a motel / store your stuff while you're looking.
The biggest cost of moving is losing your social support. If you have a kid and you move away from Grandma than you are going to be shelling out BIG bucks for child care.
I think the fundamental problem is that our economic system and society have created an unnatural system for obtaining shelter. Every other animal builds its own shelter, but most people pay someone else through their own labor to do so, and have become convinced it's the only way to do so. Luxuries have been deemed "necessities" and so people would rather live precariously from paycheck to paycheck, or in overpriced rentals, than to live without the luxuries they have become convinced they require. And in some places the law has colluded with business to make it illegal to build your own home or to not buy their luxury items and services.
There is something seriously wrong with this country's economy if working hard cannot provide that.
Moving is not necessarily the answer. I've moved cross country several times and it costs thousands. There is no cheap way to do it. I've tried liquidating all my furniture and stuff so everything fits in a pickup and I've tried moving my existing stuff with the cheapest moving companies. No particular way is better than the other. If you go the first route you have to buy new furniture and stuff. Eventually it comes out to the $3K or so it costs to use Mayflower. You can't drive fast when you've got a pickup full of stuff so it costs you a good $600 at least in gas, motels & food to actually make the trip.
Also you have to arrange housing - that means a few hundred in app fees, a couple thousand possibly in deposits, electric/utility hook up, etc... The hundreds/thousands travel to scope out the area beforehand or after arrival stay in a motel / store your stuff while you're looking.
The biggest cost of moving is losing your social support. If you have a kid and you move away from Grandma than you are going to be shelling out BIG bucks for child care.
Even on two teacher salaries, which people complain about so frequently as being too low, it is doable. In the DC area you can get an apartment for $1800/month and day care for 1 child for $1200/month. But the two teacher salaries, if median for the DC public schools, will add to $150k annually. So childcare plus rent is only 24% of gross. Not too bad, really.
$1K per month for rent is very cheap. In San Francisco, my daughter's 3bd/1ba apartment, a 3rd floor walk-up in a 106 year old building that hasn't been well maintained is $6,000 per month -- and it is hand-to-hand combat for tenants to find apartments to rent, with employees of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple, Intel etc willing to pay over asking price on apartments just to get their application looked at.
If $1k per month for rent is very cheap, why don't we just legalize Japanese-style cubicle living?
There is something seriously wrong with this country's economy if working hard cannot provide that.
Moving is not necessarily the answer. I've moved cross country several times and it costs thousands. There is no cheap way to do it. I've tried liquidating all my furniture and stuff so everything fits in a pickup and I've tried moving my existing stuff with the cheapest moving companies. No particular way is better than the other. If you go the first route you have to buy new furniture and stuff. Eventually it comes out to the $3K or so it costs to use Mayflower. You can't drive fast when you've got a pickup full of stuff so it costs you a good $600 at least in gas, motels & food to actually make the trip.
Also you have to arrange housing - that means a few hundred in app fees, a couple thousand possibly in deposits, electric/utility hook up, etc... The hundreds/thousands travel to scope out the area beforehand or after arrival stay in a motel / store your stuff while you're looking.
The biggest cost of moving is losing your social support. If you have a kid and you move away from Grandma than you are going to be shelling out BIG bucks for child care.
It would not be the first time... anything from the Great Depression to the Dust Bowl...
People who work hard found themselves in dire situations...
Thankfully now there are things like unemployment.... my friend was on it 2 years... each time it was about to end he got extended... 40,000 people in my city receive rent assistance... the Gas and Electric company offers low income discounts... free cell phones, free medical...
In reading these posts it would seem we are worse off than before any of this help was available...
I know the reasons, but formica counter tops are NOT "functionally obsolete." 1 bathroom, small closets border on "functionally obsolete" even though they're quite functional in and of themselves. but just because there's a white 1990s tile kitchen floor, or formica counter tops, or the floor plan isn't "open" - no, those elements don't meet the criteria for "functionally obsolete" and it is ridiculous for people to get so hung up on those elements that they're willing to go another $100k in debt just to get $3000 worth of cosmetic elements.
Am I reading correctly that you are stating a kitchen remodel including changing from a "non-open" to "open" floor plan could be done for $3,000?
If you added a zero you'd at least be in the right ballpark...
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