ON: Suggestions for moving to Seattle?
Quote:
Originally Posted by FindingMyRoost
Hi there, I live in Minnesota and am turning 21 soon. I have yet to move out of the tiny town I have lived in most of my life and have been staying with family for the last 3 years. However, I HATE it here. My friends are long gone and I want to get out. I'm going to be getting my driver's licence over the summer and really want to move to the Seattle area by the end of the year. I have only had one job in the past - I've been working at this gas station for three years, but I did wash dishes back when I was in middle school for the school.
I want to know what some suggestions are for somebody like me who has never lived by them-self before. I have a little over 10k saved up. I do know somebody out in that area, but I am unwilling to move in with their parents (they are 22 and haven't moved out). I've been looking at various apartment websites, but I am really nervous about finding a decent place to live as well as not really being able to check the place out in person. Do I have enough saved up if I want to move later in the year? Am I pressing my luck with only having one job reference?
The last three years I have been dreaming of moving out there, I've just been terrified to leave what I have always known. To be honest, I can picture myself just picking up and getting out by the end of the week - only problem at the moment would be transportation.
I want to know what some suggestions are for somebody like me who has never lived by them-self before. I have a little over 10k saved up. I do know somebody out in that area, but I am unwilling to move in with their parents (they are 22 and haven't moved out). I've been looking at various apartment websites, but I am really nervous about finding a decent place to live as well as not really being able to check the place out in person. Do I have enough saved up if I want to move later in the year? Am I pressing my luck with only having one job reference?
The last three years I have been dreaming of moving out there, I've just been terrified to leave what I have always known. To be honest, I can picture myself just picking up and getting out by the end of the week - only problem at the moment would be transportation.
I packed up and headed "West" from the Midwest when I was a month or two past 21. I had prospects, degree, and tolerable though not rock-solid plans. In today's dollars, I had about $4K with me. I made it work, the story is not interesting in the details to others. Different times, though, in terms of finding work and I was in a field basically giving jobs away to smart, ambitious, qualified people who had verifiable references. I had most or all of that going on.
I'm impressed OP has $10K squirreled away, I could not have put that sum together (equivalent therein) at 20 if it meant the firing squad. Mostly due to student loan debt, in my case, which was thankfully modest (maybe $14K in today's dollars). LOL: I had negative net equity at that point in life.
Problem with Seattle is finding employment beyond subsistence with degree and certain skills plus experience. It's a ruthless conundrum. I believe there is a bi-modality in jobs here: call it "those who will be in service, and struggle continuously" and the other, up and coming techies (mostly) which is the booming sector at this time. If you're in the latter, there is work, they're hiring all comers from all corners of the world, and you will prosper (with speedbumps, see thread from whiner who is in technology and very upset he's living in some downtown closet with a tough commute). I think OP'd kill to live in a downtown closet, with a decent job and ANY commute, in contrast! Depend where you are, what you want from life.
I'd be concerned OP is behind the 8-Ball compared to competition for those elusive "good" jobs. This is what many people indicate these days: college grads in garbage work for years, and it isn't panning out for them to move upward. These forums are full of such stories, enough so that I'm starting to believe it.
My generation, X'ers, will be working longer because we lost some of our nut not once but twice (as did the Boomers): crash of '01, and much bigger crash of '08-'09. The numbers have recovered, since, on investments but it has made everyone cautious and we're doubling-down on working to the bitter end, then collecting Social Security. That may leave less opportunity for the next working generation, I suspect.
OP has it tougher still, there will be social problems to deal with. National debt and more, including schizophrenics in the branches of government hell-bent on creating unsustainable social problems by allowing bums, vagrants, lazy slobs, morons, illegal aliens, and other non-productives to milk the system dry. "Who Cares": these are macroeconomic factors that do NOT stimulate economic growth (= more jobs); in fact the opposite.
Yeah, I'd go for it regardless if I were OP. Give it a try; if it fails miserably, join the US Navy or similar and gain valuable and marketable skills in (something): trade or otherwise.
