Possible move to MT (Billings, Bozeman: rent, jobs, high school)

[jeffdogg34]

Hi Everyone,

My wife and I are considering moving to Montana in the next year. Let me start off by saying this is not something we are taking lightly, and are doing as much research as possible before moving forward. We currently live in NC (I am from the East Coast and my wife is from Kansas). We have visited Montana on serveral occasions, and fell in love with the people and all the state has to offer.

Our biggest concern with the move is our careers. My wife is a high school Math teacher, and I am an Network Administrator. Our visits to MT have been around the Bozeman area, but we haven't had the chance yet to explore other areas of the state. My wife and I are both 30, and we are looking for a place to settle down and raise a family. I would prefer to live at least near my place of employment as opposed to commuting a long distance to work. Does anyone have any suggestions for towns\cities for us to look at? Would we have trouble finding jobs in our career fields? We definitely want to have landed jobs before moving out there.

We don't need all the amenities of a typical large city.... but would like to have a few shopping centers close by for the basic stuff. Thanks in advance for any suggestions you might have!

[francej16]

Did you come from Craigslist?

if so I was the one that referred that individual to this forum. you can get a lot of info from here

Hubby and I moved here from Nevada (Livingston which is outside of Bozeman)

My husband is also network administrator and works for the only big company in Livingston. Bozeman is very nice. clean air (no industrial)

Honestly can't tell you about jobs in Bozeman or schools but plenty of shopping lol

check the bozemanchronicle.com for jobs (I understand RightNow is a very large company there w/your job opportunities

and check printingforless.com for Livingston IT

(my husband says one of PFL's vendors is possibly looking for IT help.. if you need he will check into it for you)

If you are looking for a smaller town to live in (we have 2 grocery stores Albertons' and Town and Country, some of the BEST restaurants you will ever try, banking, bars, ..basically a little of everything in this town)

But if you gain an interest in Livingston you would probably want to try for a job at PFL (the commute to Bozeman through the pass in winter is HORRIBLE)

As for your wife here in Livingston we have Park High School .. My son is a sophomore there.. he says the student body is around 500-600... it is a smaller high school than we are used to LOL.

There is also Belgrade which is on the other side of Bozeman about 15 minute drive to Bozeman and it is steadily growing (though I don't really care for Belgrade)

Livingston is only 25 miles away.. we get there very quickly because we have not traffic on our freeways and the speed limit is 75

[collectivecow]

I live in the Bozeman, MT area. IT jobs are VERY hard to come by out here from what I've seen.

[GEORGIAINMT]

I'm a teacher in Laurel, about 15 miles from Billings, which is the largest "city" in Montana at a little over 100,000 people. I don't know about jobs for you as I'm not familiar with that field, but I know that in Montana finding teachers who are certified in math is pretty hard to do. In fact, we have some new high school math teachers in our district this year. She may want to look up the Montana Office of Public Instruction website for more info, although I'm sure you know that there won't be many jobs listed this time of year. Best wishes to you!!!