Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
i guess i haven't put that much effort into the job search and living because i do have the option of living with my mom while school is out and be able to actually go to job interviews in person and be able to do my research in person aswell.....is this not a good plan? not quite sure but any input would be much appreciated....
Staying at your mom's house definitely gives you options not available to everyone who is considering relocating.
Tolerance for uncertainty and risk-taking varies between people, and even within a person over the course of a life. When I was in my early 20s, I was far more willing to simply take off somewhere and then figure out how I was going to get by after I arrived. Now that I'm in my mid-40s, I wouldn't consider such a thing. Now I want to know up front that I will have a comfortable home and an income source. Any changes I make also impact my husband and 4 cats, who weren't around when I was first casting about for where to live. (At that time, I had no husband and just one cat, and she was extraordinarily adaptable.)
If you're at a good time in your life to explore a new place, and you even have a friendly home to stay at while you're doing it, that sounds like a good plan to me.
I have not used the COL calculator, but I will say that I have done some research on salaries on Salary.com and the salaries posted on their site are WAY off base. I'm not sure where they got their data from, but their salaries are way overstated, in some cases 1.5 - 2.0 times what real salaries in the area are. I work for one of the best employers in the area with very competitive salaries and our pay rates didn't even land on their salary scale in some cases!! I wouldn't say their data is reliable.
I am 26 and moved to Burlington late last year because I was supposed to be living in Montreal. I had a job lined up with an online business, but they dropped the ball on helping me acquire a work visa (I am originally from America and not a dual-citizen). I am also not an ex-patriot, basically at the time Canada's dollar was amazing and I needed better income. But I also wanted to stay near my girlfriend (attends college in MTL) and close to the many friends I've mad in Canada over the years. I had a former roommate in Philadelphia who graduated from UVM and I called them up. They had only positive things to say about Burlington, except that the job rate in Vermont was terrible.
Could not be any truer. It took me almost Four months to Find ONE GOOD JOB, even with a college degree and years of online business experience. That seems to be one of the major issues in B-Town. There are plenty of places hiring part-time counter workers, but no big paying salaries. I make ok money now working in web analytics, but it's really only good for Vermont. If I had the same salary in Philly, I'd be just getting by. If I had this salary in NY/NJ I'd be bar tending at night to make ends meat!
Reasons to move to Burlington, VT:
-Good Public Transit
-A small but entertaining downtown (good pubs, food, decent music scene, though too many jam bands for my taste)
-Friendly locals
-Best Reason: 1.5 hour drive to MONTREAL...so if you have nothing to do on a Saturday night, just drive or Greyhound it to MTL!
-GREAT local beer
-In walking distance to everything
-UVM girls
-Many NY/NJ exiles, which I like, being from NJ originally
Reasons to NOT live in Burlington, VT:
-It's Vermont, if you leave Burlington it's like South Carolina, only colder
-No cultural variety, it may be the whitest city in the country
-Rent/Utilities are not cheap yet not expensive (though I choose to live alone, making it a bit harder)
-Locals are friendly, but also a little "off" - Maybe it's the long winters, or the lack of things to do during those winters, but everyone I've met who's lived here for more than a decade seem to be kinda nuts (nothing personal against long time residents, this is my personal experience)
-It's F-ing COLD in the winter (and I lived in Montreal for a short time, though there you are underground/indoors more)
-UVM girls
-Lack of any 7-11/Wawa/Quick Check type 24/hr store
-Many Boston exiles (sir, there's only one "A" in "car")
-Lots of drugs (but if that's your thing, move it to the pros)
-It gets old...FAST
To sum it all up - If you want to live kinda out of the way but have the virtue of public transit (city bus, greyhound, amtrak, airport), and a fun city atmosphere, and you are not looking to strike it rich, but live decently, and you like good beer and freezing cold, Burlington may be the place for you.
It has drawbacks, though it beats the hell out of the south Philly neighborhood I used to live in, then again that may not be saying much - some parts of Beirut look nicer then certain parts of Philadelphia. Oddly enough, I plan on moving back down that way (at least to a place like Philly/Brooklyn) in a couple of years...My two main concerns are salary (not enough money to keep me in Burlington for years) and the fact that I won't be able to handle too many of these winters.
I am 26 and moved to Burlington late last year because I was supposed to be living in Montreal. I had a job lined up with an online business, but they dropped the ball on helping me acquire a work visa (I am originally from America and not a dual-citizen). I am also not an ex-patriot, basically at the time Canada's dollar was amazing and I needed better income. But I also wanted to stay near my girlfriend (attends college in MTL) and close to the many friends I've mad in Canada over the years. I had a former roommate in Philadelphia who graduated from UVM and I called them up. They had only positive things to say about Burlington, except that the job rate in Vermont was terrible.
Could not be any truer. It took me almost Four months to Find ONE GOOD JOB, even with a college degree and years of online business experience. That seems to be one of the major issues in B-Town. There are plenty of places hiring part-time counter workers, but no big paying salaries. I make ok money now working in web analytics, but it's really only good for Vermont. If I had the same salary in Philly, I'd be just getting by. If I had this salary in NY/NJ I'd be bar tending at night to make ends meat!
Reasons to move to Burlington, VT:
-Good Public Transit
-A small but entertaining downtown (good pubs, food, decent music scene, though too many jam bands for my taste)
-Friendly locals
-Best Reason: 1.5 hour drive to MONTREAL...so if you have nothing to do on a Saturday night, just drive or Greyhound it to MTL!
-GREAT local beer
-In walking distance to everything
-UVM girls
-Many NY/NJ exiles, which I like, being from NJ originally
Reasons to NOT live in Burlington, VT:
-It's Vermont, if you leave Burlington it's like South Carolina, only colder
-No cultural variety, it may be the whitest city in the country
-Rent/Utilities are not cheap yet not expensive (though I choose to live alone, making it a bit harder)
-Locals are friendly, but also a little "off" - Maybe it's the long winters, or the lack of things to do during those winters, but everyone I've met who's lived here for more than a decade seem to be kinda nuts (nothing personal against long time residents, this is my personal experience)
-It's F-ing COLD in the winter (and I lived in Montreal for a short time, though there you are underground/indoors more)
-UVM girls
-Lack of any 7-11/Wawa/Quick Check type 24/hr store
-Many Boston exiles (sir, there's only one "A" in "car")
-Lots of drugs (but if that's your thing, move it to the pros)
-It gets old...FAST
To sum it all up - If you want to live kinda out of the way but have the virtue of public transit (city bus, greyhound, amtrak, airport), and a fun city atmosphere, and you are not looking to strike it rich, but live decently, and you like good beer and freezing cold, Burlington may be the place for you.
It has drawbacks, though it beats the hell out of the south Philly neighborhood I used to live in, then again that may not be saying much - some parts of Beirut look nicer then certain parts of Philadelphia. Oddly enough, I plan on moving back down that way (at least to a place like Philly/Brooklyn) in a couple of years...My two main concerns are salary (not enough money to keep me in Burlington for years) and the fact that I won't be able to handle too many of these winters.
I miss WaWa! I was totally burnt on Vermont, until I scored a fantastic job, which keeps me in the state less than 9 days a month and making 10 X the amount some pathetic non profit had the cheek to offer me for the same job.
I find Vermont much more tolerable now, since I'm rarely here and get to spend a lot of time around bright, well-rounded and truly open minded people. I find Vermont and its people rather amusing now, and not nearly as flat as I did before.
I miss WaWa! I was totally burnt on Vermont, until I scored a fantastic job, which keeps me in the state less than 9 days a month and making 10 X the amount some pathetic non profit had the cheek to offer me for the same job.
I find Vermont much more tolerable now, since I'm rarely here and get to spend a lot of time around bright, well-rounded and truly open minded people. I find Vermont and its people rather amusing now, and not nearly as flat as I did before.
While there are many comments and opinions about how Vermont is such an expensive place to live...few references or documentation to back this as fact are ever offered. Personally, I have always felt Vermont is not that expensive and to say, as some have, that's Vermont cost of living is even more expensive than NYC are ludicrious IMHO
I read this letter to the editor today and checked out the links and confirmed for me anyway that Vermont is not all that expensive a place to live. Sure, property tax rates for many towns/cities in Vermont are very high but when the accessed valuation of our homes is factored in when compared to places like Boston or NYC, the total property tax we pay is that that outrageous.
since a link might not work after 24hrs I am pasting the letter below:
Chorus of whines' isn't enough
December 8, 2007
Despite the fearmongering by leaders of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce that the cost of living in Vermont is so high that it keeps workers and companies away ("State Chamber targets 'business climate'" Dec. 5), Vermont stands exactly in the middle of the rankings of the states by cost of living.
According to the respected Council on Community and Economic Research (C2ER, as it likes to refer to itself) in Arlington, Va., (C2ER News) Vermont ranked 25th on the cost of living scale for the second quarter of this year with a composite index of 99.1, putting it nine-tenths of a point below the index for the United States as a whole and on par with Minnesota (ranked 27th) and Washington (26th). Texas was No. 1 with an index of 89.3, and of the continental 48 states, California had the highest cost of living, with an index of 137.3.
Some of the cost components of the C2ER survey are interesting. For instance, the cost of groceries and housing in Vermont are only slightly more expensive than the national index, coming in at 101.2 each. And the cost of health care and utilities are real bargains in Vermont, scoring 90.7 and 84.7 respectively.
Another way to look at Vermont's economy is provided by www.salary.com which has a Cost of Living Wizard that allows you to compare the cost of living in major cities, as well as the salaries that are paid for the same job in two cities.
For instance, a person living in the Washington, D.C., metro area would find that on moving to Burlington, the cost of living would be 41 percent lower than DC. The wizard shows that if a person in the DC metro area had a salary of $35,000, she would have to earn only $20,605 in Burlington to afford the same standard of living.
The wizard also shows that employers in Burlington typically pay 9.9 percent less than employers in the DC metro area, meaning that someone with a $35,000 salary there would be paid $31,522 in Burlington for comparable work.
So, in fact, Vermont is actually an economically attractive place to be for both employers and workers, but, of course, if the chamber wants to do its part to help keep young Vermonters here and also attract other workers to the state, its members should stop trying to stampede the Legislature with a chorus of whines and start paying higher wages.
Wally Roberts
Williamstown
The important fact that you seem not to realize is when you have condos in a town of about 10,000 people you dont expect the price to by a condo to be close to 200,000 dollars and the average house in town costs about 170,000 dollars and if you have 10 acres or more with a house it will cost at least 500,000 dollars and it could cost close to a million dollars. Taxes are also above the national average and outside of Burlington, Montpelier, Hartford, and Brattleboro alot of towns and citys are very small.
The NY/NJ exiles are a good reason not to come here. Chittenden county is basically jersey north at this point. OK if you're a trustafarian, bad for everyone else.
The important fact that you seem not to realize is when you have condos in a town of about 10,000 people you dont expect the price to by a condo to be close to 200,000 dollars and the average house in town costs about 170,000 dollars and if you have 10 acres or more with a house it will cost at least 500,000 dollars and it could cost close to a million dollars. Taxes are also above the national average and outside of Burlington, Montpelier, Hartford, and Brattleboro alot of towns and citys are very small.
The other issue not mentioned is salaries. Who cares about the cost of living in a place that's all service jobs?
I am a 25 year old male who moved up here 2 years ago from CT to be with my girlfriend of many years who is from VT and just graduated from UVM. I find it to be very cheap to live here. I rent in Burlington and absolutely love it here. I'll admit I dont know much about home ownership and living in the more rural areas and mostly know about living expenses in Chittenden County. Electricity in Burlington is very cheap. I pay about half of what I did in CT. Electricity in Burlington is generated from a wood chip fired power plant and is owned by the city. I have Burlington Telecom a city owned fiber optic network of tv, internet and phone service and all three are available for $99 a month. My car insurance is 60% less than CT. Heating costs in Burlington are very cheap with natural gas from VT gas. I pay half of what I did in CT and its much colder here. Renting in Burlington can be expensive because of the college students but affordable apartments can be found. I am an automotive technician and make good money here as there seems to be a lack of trained technicians here. I can say that most people who complain about it being expensive here are working very low end jobs such as cashiers, waitresses, etc. Every area has its pros and cons but I find Burlington to be a very affordable. Like I said i dont know much about the cost of living outside of Burlington but thought I would share my experience here.
I find your reply very helpful, since we are thinking about moving to burlington. Anything else you could tell us about the lovely city would be very helpful. Thank you in advance.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
not quite sure but any input would be much appreciated....
Also new to Burlington
