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I moved to Fl with my parents when I was 18. I am now 34 and married with twin 16 month old sons. We are thinking of moving back to Long Island to be closer to our extended family and friends. I have an MBA and my husband is going to school for IT. We are concernd about the cost of living on Long Island however we are not sure how much stock to put in that given that we are young and educated. We never quite felt at home down here and truly miss the Island and our connections there. The boys have about 10 cousins their age on the Island and none down here. Any advice from someone who took the same leap would be greatly appreciated!
Not knowing what your present reliable income level is (nor your expected future income-earning capacity in the years ahead), if your parents or extended family will help you financially initially (at least until your husband is also working full-time & taking in regular income), what kind of housing situation you are willing to settle for or accommodate (i.e., an apartment building or complex, a garden apartment, rental or condo apartment, single-family home, a legal apartment or unit in a multi-family home [i.e., a home designed for & legally allowed to serve as a multi-family home], a trailer or mobile home, a bungalow or cottage or so-called "tiny home"), what you consider to be an acceptable outlay for monthly rent + utilities + transportation or if you will instead buy your housing (and then, if so, how much can you put down on said house, what monthly mortgage payment you can handle, how much in property taxes you can handle), outlays for transportation costs (after all, most persons "live out of a car" living in Long Island at-large, so all the car-related maintenance & usage costs come into play . . . and then, if you commute into New York City or elsewhere on Long Island by LIRR train, then how much can you handle in monthly LIRR costs), and so on. Without this info, we would just be throwing out figures or making assumptions that may not apply to you.
Another question: Do you or would you already have a job position lined up in the Long Island or NYC metro area and will it compensate you sufficiently to handle the higher cost-of-living of the most expensive metro area in the U.S. (the greater NYC Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area or CMSA)? And can your husband expect to, in the foreseeable future, acquire a suitable job position as well, after his schooling is done, and at a sufficient compensation level?
And if you have to go out to work each weekday or whatever days of the week, who is going to take care of your children? If your family or extended family won't or can't, then you have to pay for daycare or childcare . . . so you have to figure that cost into the equation.
Or, for that matter, will one or both of you wind up working out-of-your-home (whether as self-employed persons, or as telecommuters for some enterprise of whatever type, or both) instead of working outside your home? Obviusly, that can effect other cost outlays (i.e., being at home, you can take care of your own children instead of paying for childcare or daycare; and being at home most of the time can cut down on the need to expend money for more-frequent car usage and eliminate daily commuting costs).
And must you live in Nassau or Suffok County only? Or can you live in nearby Queens or Brooklyn (e.g., Flushing, Forest Hills/Rego Park/Kew Gardens, Fresh Meadowns, Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck, et al)? Living in the city can enable you to walk, bike, or use public transit most of the time and can therefore can cut your living costs notably. Then you can use a car (whether an owned car or a rented Zipcar, for instance) to go out to Long Island to be with your extended family &/or friends out in Long Island.
It may be better to wait until both you & your husband are BOTH ready & able to work full-time and therefore bring in two incomes (and hopefully at least upper-middle-class-level incomes) to be able to afford & handle living in the NYC-LI CMSA.
The plan is that we make a decision within the next year regarding what to do and if we decide that we would want to make the move, we would start to look for jobs and not move until we have something lined up. We would rent a house until we could find the right one to buy. We do own a home down here and would likely keep it and rent it out. We are lucky to actually have equity in our house, so we don't want to let that go. Ultimately we would want to move right before the boys would start kindergarten-if that is the decision that we make
I moved to Fl with my parents when I was 18. I am now 34 and married with twin 16 month old sons. We are thinking of moving back to Long Island to be closer to our extended family and friends. I have an MBA and my husband is going to school for IT. We are concernd about the cost of living on Long Island however we are not sure how much stock to put in that given that we are young and educated. We never quite felt at home down here and truly miss the Island and our connections there. The boys have about 10 cousins their age on the Island and none down here. Any advice from someone who took the same leap would be greatly appreciated!
Best place to live, if you could afford it. I have friends (family of 5) who left to NC and came back and now are struggling. Not to discourage you, but I would make sure you both have a job. As you know the job market is tough everywhere.
Everyone here will give you all sorts of numbers, figures, ect...and argue how much you need to live here., your needs, living in your means, ect... Only you know. The main cost is housing. 2 boys, I'm sure you will need at least a 2 br apt. Again, pending on your needs, between $1200-$1800 per month. If you plan to purchase, I'm using a very ruff avg. (everyone here will have there own figure/opinions) $350k for a basic ranch. Taxes on avg. 7k +/- Again, that varies.
The plan is that we make a decision within the next year regarding what to do and if we decide that we would want to make the move, we would start to look for jobs and not move until we have something lined up. We would rent a house until we could find the right one to buy. We do own a home down here and would likely keep it and rent it out. We are lucky to actually have equity in our house, so we don't want to let that go. Ultimately we would want to move right before the boys would start kindergarten-if that is the decision that we make
Or first find out if it is less costly to rent an APARTMENT than to rent a whole HOUSE (or vice versa) and go for the cheaper option. Then, while renting said apartment, use your free time to find a suitable & affordable home to buy (but in the meantime, try to keep your monetary outlays to a minimum). Electric, gas, water, etc. etc. etc. costs of renting a house would likely be considerably more than renting an apartment (e.g., you might spend $300 to $400 per month paying electric & gas on a house-- if not more in some months --because you have that much larger of a home to have to expend utilities upon . . . whereas an apartment likely won't have as high a monetary outlay for monthly utilities). And living in the apartment is only temporary (until you find a home to buy out there).
Income would be the first thing I'd think about considering your husband is still in school for IT, which in itself is competitive - especially with all the young graduates looking for jobs every year. It depends on total income. We have twins as well and finances are a burden with, first diapers and related stuff, then daycare, etc. It's essentially a 2nd mortgage until they're 5 (free kindergarten, at last). You mention you're planning on doing it next year when they're just ~2.5 but then say you'd move just before kindergarten - which is when they're 5. Timing is off there.
No-I said we wanted to make a decision in the next year, but not actually move until right before they go to school. We would not actually move until after my husband graduates. Sorry for the confusion
If you move to Long Island, where I grew up, you better think about how your going to accumulate two college funds of 75-100K each and 500-700 K of retirement funds while your paying 12-18K of property taxes, 8.75 sales taxes, fuel taxes on home heating oil, 25-28 cents KWH for electric as well as the highest cost in the country for almost every other basic necessity. Oh almost forgot plan on going out to eat in LI ???????
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