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Is the Grass Greener? An Emotional Dilemma

 
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leaving boston



Joined: 26 Jul 2006
Posts: 11
Location: Rhode Island

PostPosted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 1:19 pm GMT    Post subject: Is the Grass Greener? An Emotional Dilemma Reply with quote

I read a recent article in The Wall Street Journal profiling a young couple (in their thirties) in New York who were well paid professionals but struggling with long hours at work and the need of double incomes to keep up with living expenses. Their decision: make a leap of faith and move to North Carolina. The story sounds like a typical: grass is greener on the other side. According to the story, they found they could live off of one salary and start a family. (I don't have the link to the article).

If economies were the result of rational decision-making, then we would all be looking at towns where we could get the most for our money. My wife and I have had a few discussions on why we feel attached to a place. In this case, I feel that moving out is a no-brainer. In her case, this is where her family, friends and job are.

As a first generation American, I believe in the benefits of following opportunities (may parents immigrated to the US with eighty dollars and a strong work ethic). My wife; however, is a third generation Bostonian. As you're reading this maybe you'll fall in one camp or the other. Does it make sense to wait it out; who knows how long you'll wait, or taking the sting of moving and building something from scratch?
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AgentGrn



Joined: 28 Sep 2006
Posts: 82

PostPosted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 4:23 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think there are more factors that the opportunity. Some of it depends on your values too. It's not all about money.

If you want to start a family, can you afford to do it on one salary? Secondly, can you do it comfortably on one salary? There is always that little chance that your wife will want to stay home with the baby and not want to go back to work. That requires some serious coin in Boston.

Where are you both in your careers, and as a couple, where is the best place to be to advance as a family? If you're both in some MA power careers (biotech / finance), then does it really make sense to leave?

My wife an I moved to Denver for a year to follow a job some two weeks after we were married. We found that starting out from scratch was a tremendously difficult endeavor. My job disregarded me as the "new guy from the acquisition" and wouldn't give me a shot to rise up. My wife found a great job, but it wasn't particularly demanding of her skills. It was also pretty tough for either of us to get any friends outside of work. We moved back, and practically kissed the ground coming over the NY border.

If you're going to greener pastures, make sure you're _both_ on the same page. If you're not in sync with this, it will put a ton of strain on your marriage ... and doing it for a building isn't worth it.
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leaving boston



Joined: 26 Jul 2006
Posts: 11
Location: Rhode Island

PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:19 am GMT    Post subject: the grass is greener, but you still have to water it. Reply with quote

It's all about values, and money is only one of them. I think psycology is the larger obstacle and there are alot of emotional rather than purely rational decisions.

When I told my wife why it made sense to move, I told her that it would be a sharp sting, but it was better to take a sharp sting rather than a dull, lingering pain. It doesn't stop when the moving truck is unpacked. We're in the process of trying to make new friends and reaching out to other couples who seem interesting. In fact, last night we had dinner with a couple from our daughter's music class. It was a wonderful dinner and they shared a very similar backgroud: they also left Boston.

At work I felt like a fish-out-of-water for my first few months. I spent a week just trying to figure out e-mail, faxes, purchase orders, and all the other things that came naturally at my other job. It felt like things were going in slow motion. I still feel like an outsider but I'm looking into joining the softball team and getting tied in socially.

My daughter has adjusted well. She's only 18 months old which was one of the reasons we wanted to leave Boston, sooner than later. Our family is young, and our roots are still growing, but I can only imagine how tough it is to move a family who has school age children.

I know the clock is ticking: if my wife doesn't feel happy and we don't start spreading some roots, then she'll want to head back to her home town. We have a lot of work ahead of us.
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hasan00
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:42 pm GMT    Post subject: Personal Experience Reply with quote

Making a move is a hard decision and you have to balance the equation well. I used to live in Cambridge and however, not forced to, but moved to Dallas in 2001. I still own a MFH there and hoping to sell it in the next couple of months. My wife lived in Boston for 10 years before moving with me.

For us, it has been the best thing we ever did. We live in 4200 sq. ft 2 year old house in a gorgeous community. The price we paid $350K and this house is expensive than 98% of the houses. We can do well with my single income. Initially, we were quite sad but as time went by, everything fell in place. May be we have been fortunate.

My advise, if you can, take the big step and if it doesn't work out, you can always return. And remember I am one of those much disliked "sellers".
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JCK



Joined: 15 Feb 2007
Posts: 559

PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 7:03 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

A lot depends on your job. Some jobs can be found anywhere, others are specific to certain areas or cities.

Both my wife and I have jobs that either would be difficult (or impossible) to find outside of a few cities, e.g., NYC, Chicago, Boston, LA, SF, perhaps a handful of others. In any case, none of these places is much less expensive than Boston.

As another example, an electrical engineer friend of mine says that the Boston area, plus a few west coast locations, are the only places where his skill match up with jobs.

So it's often not just a question of where you can get the most house for your money.

Certainly we could find employment in other cities, but we'd have to sacrifice a lot. Hardly seems worth sacrificing a good job in exchange for a few more square feet of living space.
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hasan00
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 7:17 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

JCK,

You are right. Job is one of the most important factor to consider. In my case, I am in IT and Dallas is one of the top cities for IT jobs availability. I am lucky that it worked out just fine for me.
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leaving boston



Joined: 26 Jul 2006
Posts: 11
Location: Rhode Island

PostPosted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 2:45 am GMT    Post subject: How Much are you Worth Reply with quote

JCK, I agree, nobody would want to move to a place where there aren't any jobs, but what do you do that ties you to Boston?

In my area of work, I felt like a dime a dozen in Boston. I was competing with the best and the brightest, but still scraping by. It might seem counter-intuitive, but if there's scarcity of a skill, it might serve to your advantage. I'm an architect and I'd rather be in a city with few architects and huge growth potential, than many architects and modest growth.

My wife felt like her job was so specialized - only a sprawling medical campus like Longwood would have a demand for her skills. After we moved, she got a job offer after her first interview. We both ended up cutting our living expenses and getting raises at the same time!

Boston is a brand name that you can use once you're out of Boston. Both of us had worked on projects that made history: I worked on the Big Dig and she worked on the Human Genome. People in Boston could care less about those projects, but outside of Boston - you might seem like someone's hero.
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RMG
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 5:50 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have lived in other parts of the country, such as The Bay Area of CA and the metro Phoenix area. I loved both areas. Good weather, open spaces, etc.

I am originally from the Massachusetts area where I spent most of my first 25 years. I have to say that I like it, however, I just happened to land a great job here and moved back about 7 years ago. Almost all my wife and my family live around here, not to mention dear, old friends. I'm now 40.

My point is, if it weren't for my job and family and friends, there is no way in hell I'd live in this over-priced area. I've always found the people to be parochial, territorial and cliquey too.

Again, if it weren't really for the people dear to me, I would have left this God-foresaken, weather-beaten, crowded, rude, expensive area long ago.

May-September is OK. I guess.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 3:58 am GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Boston is a brand name that you can use once you're out of Boston.


Bingo!

Once I get laid off, I'm packing and leaving.

For now, the salary's good and goes a long way as a renter, with flat rates for much of the past five years. At the same time, as friends move away, my connections to my background, old classmates and colleagues, tend to fade as well and it becomes easier to close shop and start over elsewhere.

Years ago, I thought I'd be here my whole life, with the occasional overseas (plus transcontinental assignments), but now I realize that that's unrealistic and impractical.
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 1:08 am GMT    Post subject: Boston Reply with quote

Since the topic is psychology lets talk about what it means to be a New Englander and how hard it is for a lot of us to stay away. I left in 1992 when there was a horrific recession in New England (do you remember), and moved to Minneapolis where there was no recession at all and I found a good job within two weeks. When I left N.E. it was good riddance, I never thought I'd be back, the cold weather, the cold people, the old towns and cities, it felt so liberating to just drive away. After about a year despite my good job and the relative ease of making friends I wasn't happy, something was missing. Was it the ocean, the mountains? I decided to move to Seattle where they have both. Again I found a decent job quickly however the people are much like New Englanders in there standoffishness and there is absolutely no beach culture at all. The weather if anything is worse, the entire region is sun-starved. I lasted three years then moved to Atlanta. It was after settling down here in a beautiful area with "friendly" people (and a much worse than Boston commute) that I realized that I really missed New England. It's not about the money or the size of the houses or the supposedly friendly people, there is something about N. E. that you can't find elsewhere at any price. I live in Boston now in an 1100 square foot condo and am happy again. Took me a while to find out the grass ISN'T always greener elsewhere.
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