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I moved to Valdosta, GA for about 6 months. There's an AFB and a state college here so they pump money into the town. The surrounding areas are extremely rural so people needed to go to Valdosta to shop and for entertainment. It's not a bad town and the cost of living was less than $1000/month. But there wasn't a ton of things to do and I really missed home. I plan to move again but definitely shrunk my bubble to maybe VA up to ME. So no more than 6-8 hours from home
I'm going to assume the salaries given were gross not net, however, they still should have a decent amount left over. I bought pre bubble and my mortgage (including tax and homeowners) is only $500 a month less than that but we're not making anywhere near $154K. I have 2 kids (paying for college for 1, other still in jhs.) We're not living like kings, but not at the precipice of struggling, either. At least not for now.
Everyone's mileage varies.
I still think it's extremely hard for someone with 3 kids to try to save enough money for a basic house right now on that income. We spend 33k on childcare, 35k on piti for a basic 4 bedroom house in suffolk we bought post bubble, add another 10k or so for car insurance, gas, etc, another 12k on utilities, add food/clothes/medical, 100k net goes pretty easily without much extras. If you want to have savings, vacation, retirement saving, 529s, add some more. In all reality, the very basic cost of living is extremely high.
Catlover, I think it's good that you like to plan ahead and there's nothing wrong with brainstorming some ideas. From my understanding, the commute from those PA areas are impossible during bad weather. It's not like your husband could work from home and you know whether it's Bloomberg, DeBlasio or Mickey Mouse running the show, NYC schools rarely close. Most principals are not that understanding when teachers come late to work. Remember we discussed the idea of a home daycare and I tried to tell you that it is harder than it appears? Now that you are having children of your own, you are starting to see how fast you run out of room with all that "stuff" that comes along with babies and how they are expensive little critters to maintain. Still I wish you well, offer you my congratulations and I hope that you are feeling ok. If you did move to PA, you could look into PA cert. for yourself for that "extra" income, but it seems to be the same frustrating job market there as here, and PA cert. is not a straight and direct path from a NYS cert.
My husband & I are late 20s & early 30s, and bought our house in Levittown 5 years ago. I've always loved Long Island and vowed I'd never leave, but I'm really getting tired of the corruption, no increase in his (nyc teacher) salary in a long time, bills going up, no sense of community in this neighborhood at all, and traffic/congestion.
We live ok and manage to save a bit, but now that I'll be a stay at home mom in 2 months after I give birth, starting to wonder how much we'll really be able to save. We're really considering moving to northeast PA where he'll commute to his job in the city. Nicer/cheaper house, lower taxes, lower bills, and better quality of life for our future kids. I just feel like this isn't the LI I knew growing up. It seems like everyone is stressed by the COL and it's causing people to become much more rude.
We're going to have to either build an extension or trade up once we have our 2nd kid. We're really not liking the idea of starting all over on a more expensive mortgage. I'd have to work FT in the city in order for us to do this once our kids would be school aged, but even then, I hate the thought of getting home late in the evening and hiring a babysitter to stay with the kids a few hours after school. I know, I know, so many people do it, but I don't want to miss out on valuable time with our kids growing up. If we move to PA, I'll be able to work a PT job on the side with tons of money to spare.
My breaking point was hearing about PSEG and how corrupt they are with charging us astronomically more than LIPA.
I'm surprised you're giving up on Levitt so quickly. Presumably it should be the ideal place for a family like yours with 2 kids someday. Home prices, taxes and COL are not as expensive as other NYC-metro suburbs. It's also not far out in Suffolk. And the solution out of this is to move to PA? If you were unhappy with your QOL in Levitt, what more in PA?
I'm surprised you're giving up on Levitt so quickly. Presumably it should be the ideal place for a family like yours with 2 kids someday. Home prices, taxes and COL are not as expensive as other NYC-metro suburbs. It's also not far out in Suffolk. And the solution out of this is to move to PA? If you were unhappy with your QOL in Levitt, what more in PA?
Levittown has one of the higher taxes in Nassau. $11k for a ranch is extremely common.
Levittown has one of the higher taxes in Nassau. $11k for a ranch is extremely common.
Right but on a cash basis, $11K looks about what you can find in most suburan NYC areas.
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