big family relocating to LA, are we nuts?? (San Francisco, Torrance: renting, how much)

[nobunagana]

Originally Posted by seain dublin

Sorry, just from the questions you ask you know little to nothing about LA, first off you don't need A/C all year round(July, Aug, Sept), second you don't seem to know the area at all.

If you were single, or a married couple with maybe one kid(and preschool age at that), I would say go for it.

And your wife wanting to work in the entertainment industry sounds nice but without connections most likely not going to happen.

When you have kids(and you have a lot of kids) you have to put their interests first, moving kids away from their friends and activities is a lot to ask.

The only opportunity I see for your kids is to be able to play outside more. Not really a reason to move.

Thank you for your honest reply and opinion, I want to hear things like this to challenge this idea. Not because I am looking for reasons not to or that I don't want to, but to make sure we can be as prepared as possible and know our reasons and priorities.

It is true that I know fairly little about the area other than what I learned from online research. That's why I posted here

As for our kids, while moving away from friends is hard, I believe that giving them new experiences and diversity growing up isn't bad. They will make new friends and have more experience than your average kids who grows up in the same suburb their entire life. I don't believe in putting only their interests first either, I believe in taking the entire families interests into account and maximizing everyone's chances of realizing their potential. Chicago tech is okay, but not as many opportunities as LA area. Same goes for the entertainment industry. How can I teach my kids to work hard to pursue their dreams if we don't do what it takes to pursue ours?

[Ceece]

It's difficult to speculate on anything unless you have a job offer and know where work will be and how much $ it will pay. No telling if a lower COL area will be somewhere you can reasonably live, etc. And the idea of working while the kids are in school may be kind of a pipe dream, if she is working at all there will do doubt be $ spent on daycare or some type of assistance, needed unless she's working from home (no music or entertainment industry stuff) and never going to risk being stuck somewhere when school gets out. Especially if kids are in different schools or are responsible for being somewhere for their activities.

My honest opinion is that $150k a year would give a fine life to a single, a nice one for a couple, and really doable with a baby. But add 4 kids and all the associated costs and your standard of living is not going to be all that great. I wouldn't do it.

[macandapples]

I can't pm you, but we have several developer positions open at my company(tech). Feel free to send me a message, I'll point you in the direction.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by nobunagana

I am reaching out to people here for advice because it is not as easy to find info about kids sports via online research as it is a lot of other info like housing, etc (without starting to contact specific teams/clubs).

As others have said, there are multiple opportunities for kids in sports that are not school related.

I work north of Chicago and live even farther north, so Chicago crime has not been a concern in our daily life.

My parents were raised there (Evanston area), came out here in their 20s and never left. Their extended families remain in the Chicago area. What are you hoping to find here--other than better weather--that you don't have there?

I fully expect it to be totally crazy for about 6 months, but we are used to crazy with 4 small children at home.

Not to discourage you, but a 12 year old is not a small child. Middle school kids will have a tough adjustment with a major move like this.

[Cryptic]

Originally Posted by nobunagana

- We have 4 kids (ages 5 to 12) who we'd like to keep in sports (gymnastics, tae kwon do, football, etc).

I would recommend trying to learn about whether a community you are interested in has a "real" public recreation center. Needless to say, costs of sports activities at public rec are far cheaper than at private facilities. The possible difficulty from when I used to live vaguely in Los Angeles (north Orange County) is that some towns act as if children don't exist and thus don't have "real" recreational centers.

[Fran66]

OP, how much do you have in savings? In other words, how much do you have to fall back on? It is something to consider.

I lived in Southern CA for 47+ years. I've been retired and in NM for the past 9.5 years. And everyone so often, I get so homesick, I swear I'm moving back to CA. But then either I get a grip on reality or I run into another CA transplant, who lived in Southern CA for many years and has lived here for 10-20 years and who sets me straight. And the reality is this:

It's expensive to live there -- and for what? There are way too many people. Way too many cars. Traffic is terrible. CA is in a drought that is bad and which it may not (may not) pull out of for a long time to come, and it is a BIG DEAL -- it is not something to just ignore. Oh, and if you've never lived through a fairly bad earthquake, you ain't seen nothin' yet. (One of the main reasons I left Southern CA. I got real tired of them. Bad ones don't happen often, but you never when one is going to happen. But then there are the relatively small ones.) And last but not least is: good weather all the time can become very boring. [I love -- really love -- the mild change of seasons in NM.]

But the worst are the expense and the traffic. What good are all the great things to do in Southern CA if you can't get to them?! Traffic gets REAL tiring VERY quickly. Just how often do you think you're going to get to the beach, during the summer OR the winter, from where you want to live? And even if you get to the beach, good luck on finding a parking place.

And don't underestimate taking the children away from the only home they've ever known and their life-long friends. Especially the 12-year-old.

My suggestion is this: if you own a home in Il, don't sell it; rent it out. Then rent in CA for a year or two. And see if you really want to live in CA permanently. I think you'll be very surprised.

[seain dublin]

Originally Posted by nobunagana

Thank you for your honest reply and opinion, I want to hear things like this to challenge this idea. Not because I am looking for reasons not to or that I don't want to, but to make sure we can be as prepared as possible and know our reasons and priorities.

It is true that I know fairly little about the area other than what I learned from online research. That's why I posted here

As for our kids, while moving away from friends is hard, I believe that giving them new experiences and diversity growing up isn't bad. They will make new friends and have more experience than your average kids who grows up in the same suburb their entire life. I don't believe in putting only their interests first either, I believe in taking the entire families interests into account and maximizing everyone's chances of realizing their potential. Chicago tech is okay, but not as many opportunities as LA area. Same goes for the entertainment industry. How can I teach my kids to work hard to pursue their dreams if we don't do what it takes to pursue ours?

You're welcome, and thank you for being open to listen to things that may not be what you want to hear.

Why not come out and visit with the whole family first? And not just do touristy things, look at areas to live?

Originally Posted by Fran66

OP, how much do you have in savings? In other words, how much do you have to fall back on? It is something to consider.

I lived in Southern CA for 47+ years. I've been retired and in NM for the past 9.5 years. And everyone so often, I get so homesick, I swear I'm moving back to CA. But then either I get a grip on reality or I run into another CA transplant, who lived in Southern CA for many years and has lived here for 10-20 years and who sets me straight. And the reality is this:

It's expensive to live there -- and for what? There are way too many people. Way too many cars. Traffic is terrible. CA is in a drought that is bad and which it may not (may not) pull out of for a long time to come, and it is a BIG DEAL -- it is not something to just ignore. Oh, and if you've never lived through a fairly bad earthquake, you ain't seen nothin' yet. (One of the main reasons I left Southern CA. I got real tired of them. Bad ones don't happen often, but you never when one is going to happen. But then there are the relatively small ones.) And last but not least is: good weather all the time can become very boring. [I love -- really love -- the mild change of seasons in NM.]

But the worst are the expense and the traffic. What good are all the great things to do in Southern CA if you can't get to them?! Traffic gets REAL tiring VERY quickly. Just how often do you think you're going to get to the beach, during the summer OR the winter, from where you want to live? And even if you get to the beach, good luck on finding a parking place.

And don't underestimate taking the children away from the only home they've ever known and their life-long friends. Especially the 12-year-old.

My suggestion is this: if you own a home in Il, don't sell it; rent it out. Then rent in CA for a year or two. And see if you really want to live in CA permanently. I think you'll be very surprised.

All your posts make you sound very bitter. Besides not being very truthful.

If you live in CA for 47 years than you experienced a couple of strong earthquakes, you make it sound constantly. You make it sound like it's once a month.

We don't know when anything is going to happen. You better be more concerned about this country and what China is up to than earthquakes.

Plenty of people (myself included) are out and about(this has already been discussed with you) taking advantage of all Southern CA has to offer, not stuck in the house, or can't go anywhere because there is so much traffic. Yes, people sit in traffic at times, guess what? They do that in Boston, NYC, Atlanta, and Dallas, even Albuquerque has traffic issues and VERY high crime for a city that size.

A very strong El Nino is predicted this winter. With actually TOO MUCH rain coming.

On a side note, renting out your home and trying to be a long distance landlord is not a good idea. Unless you have people you know well as renters, the OP doesn't need to be out in CA and get a phone call your house in IL has been gutted or trashed.

[radiolibre99]

I'm wondering what could LA offer someone already in a pretty dynamic big city? Chicago is not s Podunk town with no opportunities. But to move to LA with several children at only a 150k salary is pushing it a bit. It's doable but would you be ok with having your standard drop to get the quality CA weather? If you were single or had just one kid one wife then yeah by all means LA is yours but a big family will require adjustments that you might not be used to. If you don't mind completely changing your outlook on things then you could do it.

[jamills21]

Originally Posted by radiolibre99

I'm wondering what could LA offer someone already in a pretty dynamic big city? Chicago is not s Podunk town with no opportunities. But to move to LA with several children at only a 150k salary is pushing it a bit. It's doable but would you be ok with having your standard drop to get the quality CA weather? If you were single or had just one kid one wife then yeah by all means LA is yours but a big family will require adjustments that you might not be used to. If you don't mind completely changing your outlook on things then you could do it.

No lake Michigan.

[radiolibre99]

Originally Posted by jamills21

No lake Michigan.

Yes, Chicago is cold.