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there is money to be made in the south, you just have to be in the right career.
Yup- just like in the North. I wouldn't move to GA if I was a Wall Street trader, and I wouldn't move to NYC if I was in the production homebuilding business.
there is money to be made in the south, you just have to be in the right career.
I'm eventually planning on moving south, maybe N. Carolina or S. Carolina. Now I recently saw condos in Myrtle Beach going for as low as 60k. I was thinking of buying it outright and just paying taxes, living a cheaper simpler life, but I still have to work. I'm in IT and I heard that market isn't thriving in the South yet. So I bought up here and am more on a 5 yr plan.
What are some good careers to get into down South, besides tourism of course? I was told by some B&B owners in Wilmington, NC that alot of small businesses like your typical mechanic, etc.. go under alot. You don't see that reputable longevity that you see up North. Like going to the same mechanic for 30 yrs. I am considering owning a small business if I move south.
You don't see that reputable longevity that you see up North. Like going to the same mechanic for 30 yrs. I am considering owning a small business if I move south.
I think if you really look into it, you're not going to find that "reputable longevity" as much as you think up North either. If you're planning on opening your own small business, the key is doing proper demographic study to make sure that the market will support your product- that's just as important in the North as it is in the South. Myrtle Beach isn't really a good example to base anything on, as it's a touristy town, just like Seaside or Wildwood. It still needs basic services, but the population flucuations need to be considered in your business model.
Nah...I don't dream about it- I make it. I don't want to start another NJ bashing thread (or get accused of being an NJ basher again...), but please don't think that "the South" is a bunch of barefoot hillbillies all sitting around dreaming of moving to NJ- I'd say that nothing could be farther from the truth.
I don't dream about it either. You either have what it takes to make good money or you do not, no matter where you are.
It's going to take a major catastrophe of some kind to get this state to change its ways. God knows what that will mean, but since there are so many levels of dysfunction, no one solution will fix it all. One of the things I've noticed in this thread is that the NJEA is blamed for a lot more than they're liable for with regards to the education mess.
In New Jersey our school districts tend to be very top heavy with extremely high salaries for superintendants, principals, vice principals, etc... $100,000+ is not an uncommon annual earnings figure for any of the folks in the 600+ school districts in this state. There are plenty of superintendents in the state making more than $125K a year who head up school districts with only one or two schools! Not to mention the support staff that goes along with the superintendant's office.
The key thing however, is that these folks are management and are not represented by the NJEA in any way, shape, or form. That's not to say that they aren't a powerful lobby because they are-otherwise they wouldn't be where they are. The power of superintendants lies with the idea that "home rule" is best for education. For example: folks who live in Essex Fells in Essex County (96% white with a median family income of $175K) send their kids to West Essex High School, which is composed of students from Essex Fells, North Caldwell, Fairfield, and Roseland, which, while not as wealthy, have a similar ethnic makeup.
What do you think those people would say if it was announced that New Jersey was going to a county education system with one superintendant per county (which is how many states operate), which would save two, three, maybe ever four thousand dollars per student, resulting in a major property tax reduction? You can bet that they'd be incensed about the fact that now their children would be lumped into the same school system (albeit in totally different schools) as children from East Orange, Newark, Orange, Irvington, Maplewood, and Bloomfield. Of course, if you live in Essex Fells, you're easily affording the $20K a year in property taxes, so you don't really care, but the middle class family living in Roseland or Fairfield could really use that break, though they probably won't get it due to the fact that they're generally not nearly as influential as the folks living around Fells Road.
It's the same story with the police, fire departments, public works, and the list goes on. People will scream until they're blue in the face about property taxes, but will fight consolidation to the death because they don't want to be lumped in with "those other people." Eventually however, I believe that the state will have no other choice but to break up the 560 some odd little kingdoms in order to simply allow folks to live.
My wife's sister is a school teacher. She makes a 10 month salary of approx 40k. Not thats not alot of money for living in NJ. It's not the teachers bankrupting the state. The superintendents make entirely too much, put the blame on them.
My wife's sister is a school teacher. She makes a 10 month salary of approx 40k. Not thats not alot of money for living in NJ. It's not the teachers bankrupting the state. The superintendents make entirely too much, put the blame on them.
Amen-my fiancee is in a similar boat. She's making $43K while her superintendent makes in excess of $150K. If you take the number of operating districts in New Jersey (non-operating districts exist on paper because they send students to other districts, but have no superintendent) - 592, and multiply that by an average salary of $110,000, you get just over 65 MILLION DOLLARS! Of course, that does not take into account their benefits packages, salary for their support staff, the annual costs of running their offices from paper, to mortgage debt/rent, to simply keeping the lights on.
My wife's sister is a school teacher. She makes a 10 month salary of approx 40k. Not thats not alot of money for living in NJ. It's not the teachers bankrupting the state. The superintendents make entirely too much, put the blame on them.
I don't think it's that the superintendents "make too much"- $125k isn't all that much money (especially in NJ), and I wouldn't be willing to do what the typical superintendent is a decent-sized school district has to do for a living for that salary. The problem is that there's just too many of them.
As Badfish said, though, I'd say it's too late to turn the boat around, because you'll never get enough support to do so. It's kinda like the guy who eats and eats until one day he realizes that he's 900 lbs and he becomes the subject of a TLC "The 900-lb Man" documentary- at that point it's too late, but if he had stopped eating so damned much when he was only 300 lbs, maybe he would have had a shot of getting back to normal. If you look at most state/local goverments, they're all 300 lb fat guys, but NJ's is definitely the 900 lb oddity that is eventually going to just fall over dead.
I don't think it's that the superintendents "make too much"- $125k isn't all that much money (especially in NJ), and I wouldn't be willing to do what the typical superintendent is a decent-sized school district has to do for a living for that salary. The problem is that there's just too many of them.
Exactly-given a proper support staff a superintendent could easliy oversee an entire county school system. If you had 21 counties with each superintendent making $150K, you come up with a paltry 3.1 million for salaries-even after adding in assistant superintendents, support staff, and a satellite office or two for large counties like Ocean and Burlington, I bet you could come in at well under half whatever the total number is now.
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