Advice on Tenafly, NJ (Elizabeth, Passaic: salons, real estate, leases)
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Nexis: Since I like to live below my means, I am planning to rent a small 3-br house or a townhouse for $2.5k per month or less. I think I should be OK with $190k/year, assuming the worst case that my wife won't be able to find part-time work.
Avoiding snobby people is not high on my priority list, but i) keeping my commute time to less than 1.5 hours each way, and ii) making sure that my son is going to a top school are.
As someone with a PhD from one of the top engineering schools in the country, I consider my son to be very bright. I just don't want the school to be the limiting factor in his education.
Nexis: Since I like to live below my means, I am planning to rent a small 3-br house or a townhouse for $2.5k per month or less. I think I should be OK with $190k/year, assuming the worst case that my wife won't be able to find part-time work.
Avoiding snobby people is not high on my priority list, but i) keeping my commute time to less than 1.5 hours each way, and ii) making sure that my son is going to a top school are.
As someone with a PhD from one of the top engineering schools in the country, I consider my son to be very bright. I just don't want the school to be the limiting factor in his education.
This post tells me you're going to be just fine in Tenafly.
zhelder: you are entitled to think that I am snobby, but I think that I am not.
I drive a 1991 Acura Integra that I bought for $2k. In fact, I get ridiculed by my co-workers from time to time because of the crappy car.
If my son does not do well in school, I just don't want him to blame me for not sending him to a good school.
OK, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Tenafly is one of the best school systems in the country. You'll have no worries there.
Just remember, that just because you have made tremendous accomlishments academically and financially does not guarantee that your children will achieve the same degree of success, whether they attend school in Newark or Tenafly. Will those factors be likely to help? Sure. Will they guarantee success? No.
Some time ago, my dentist, a man with an extremely successful practice who lives in a wealthy town in the area, was talking to me about how his son failed chemistry in high school and had to go to summer school for it. Part of me wanted to yell at him, "How on earth does a wealthy, successful dentist's kid fail chemistry?" But these things do happen.
Good luck with your move. Tenafly is a very nice town.
I don't know how long the commute to wall street will be (midtown is not that bad because the palisades/local road approaches makes crossing the GWB a snap, but, that far south might be a different story), but, you can definitely afford the town (anywhere in the region except maybe Alpine, really) on 190k and the public schools are top-notch. Also, as the kind of person who values education (is well educated themselves, wants the best for their kid, wants to be surrounded by other well-educated people) and feels comfortable driving a beater despite their 6-figure income, you will fit very well into the town as a whole.
I'd say that you should actually DO the commute a few times, and if it's tolerable to you than go for it.
@Nexis: my to-be-coworker who lives in Tenafly claims that the commute to work in midtown Manhattan is about 1 hour, or slightly less than that.
That's true, but that's to Midtown. It's another half-hour to the Financial District. And the 166 is the only bus that goes to Tenafly; there's no bus over the GWB without transferring in Englewood.
I would say don't do the commute from Tenafly to Wall St, but you can try it and see if you could live with such a long commute every day.
Do you plan on driving into New York every day? Does driving bother you? It bothers the hell out of me, especially with the morning rush traffic, so I recommend moving to one of the towns with a train station. River Edge or Oradell or the Fairmount section of Hackensack. Emerson, Westwood, or hillsdale if you're willing to wait even longer.
If you hate driving like me the train is heaven, super-smooth ride (no potholes, no jerking stop and go in traffic, no sharp turns), wonderful view, quiet, air conditioned, and no traffic jams. Gorgeous scenic ride while you're still-above ground in NJ. They're trains so there's multiple big cars so you don't always have to sit next to random strangers. You're going to get where you're going at the time you expect every time.
Plus it's cheaper, especially if you consider the cost of parking in NYC. NJ transit offers monthly passes which from what I understand are cheaper.
Supposedly they are planning on re-opening the train line into Tenafly, though with the cuts and the economy they may not any time soon. And said train line would connect to the Hudson-Bergen light rail, so you'd have to take that to get to the PATH.
I really recommend the train. I don't know who the hell wants to deal with the traffic in the mornings everyday; I don't know how this driving-only thing got stuck in the North NJ culture.
Last edited by Peanuttree; 08-11-2011 at 08:57 AM..
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