u/Cold-Priority-2729

Recently moved to CT from Texas. We currently rent in New Haven, but would like to eventually buy somewhere in NH county and have a kid or two.

Something I keep hearing about New England is that it has way better schools than Texas. But surprisingly, most of the schools I look at in CT have similar if not lower ratings (on GreatSchools and Niche) than the ones in the Texas suburb we're moving from. Now I know that Bridgeport schools, for example, are not known for being the nicest. But honestly, the only highly rated school districts I'm seeing in NH county are places like Milford, Orange, Cheshire, and North Haven, which are very expensive places to live compared to Hamden, West Haven, Naugatuck, Ansonia, and so forth. Most of our schools in suburban Texas rank higher than those towns' schools on sites like GreatSchools and Niche.

Now, as I understand it, sites like GreatSchools and Niche make their rankings relative to the state in which the school is already in. So it may not be an apples to apples comparison to say "School ABC in Texas gets a 7/10 on GreatSchools, while School XYZ in Hamden only gets a 4/10" - since Connecticut is generally known for having better public schools than Texas. But honestly, I have no idea how I would even really begin to compare a school from the south and a school in Connecticut.

So I guess what I'm interested in is - are there any folks on here with children who moved from a southern state to Connecticut, and how have you felt the public schools compare?

I started packing up my place to move out a couple weeks ago. I called to cancel my internet before the next billing cycle, and of course they pulled out every move in the book to keep me. They said they would give me a month free if I didn't cancel. I figured what the heck, I'm still packing things for the next 10 days or so, might not hurt to have internet even though I'm off of work (between jobs actually). So I kept it, and then a week later, called and actually cancelled.

I'm now getting a bill for my last month, even though I was supposed to get it for free. I asked when I returned the equipment to the store, but they had no idea. I called and asked and the call agent said they had no record of me being offered that promo. The bill will start incurring late fees tomorrow. And yes, I checked the billing dates. I'm getting charged specifically for the last 8 days I had service, which is the window I was supposed to get for free.

Do I just pay it and move on? Is it worth paying and then doing a chargeback for services not provided? Filing with the BBB/FCC? I'm done trying to call and wait on hold. It's only $40, it's annoying but not the end of the world. Just more out of principle cause I basically paid $40 to use internet like 3 times on my phone while I was packing, and that's pretty dumb.

One other thing I found sketchy: When I called the second time to actually cancel, I got verbal confirmation from the agent that I would be disconnected, but never got any actual email confirmation or anything. When I went to return the equipment, they had no idea that I had submitted a cancellation request. They were able to process it for me anyways, but is it possible I got screwed $40 because a call agent didn't actually process my cancellation in order to help his metrics?

Ugh, I just hate this whole process. So ridiculous. Just let me click a button to cancel online.

>Be the Yankees

>Acquire a young starting pitcher with a lot of promise named Sonny Gray

>Try to change him and make him throw pitches he’s not used to making

>Have to trade him because he’s no longer viable

>Watch him bounce around and have multiple all star seasons with other teams

>See him join your biggest rival and talk about how trash your organization’s pitching development is

>Face him at Fenway Park in prime time

>Get no hit for 7 innings

>Give him his 2000th career strikeout 

>Fall to a 4 game sweep against an incredibly beatable team

Get fucked Brian Cashman. Sonion Gray is him and you guys failed him.

I have a friend who is married to a great woman. They make decent money and the two of them would make awesome parents. They aren’t climate change alarmists, but they are atheist and have adopted somewhat of an existential mindset to life. He and I were talking about the subject and I quickly realized that the things that motivated me to have children (creating an eternal family, raising a large younger generation to support the aging generation, sustaining the growth of civilization, etc) just don’t apply to him.

His line of thinking is essentially - since he doesn’t believe in God or any kind of pre existence, any life that they choose to create is a person that would not have otherwise had to deal with the pain and suffering of mortal existence. Therefore, no matter how necessary it is economically or for the sustained good of human civilization, it wouldn’t be morally correct to force the existence of another being into a world where they would be subject to pain and suffering.

I know I’m probably naive, but as a religious person myself, I just didn’t know how to tackle the natalism argument from this perspective. I’m looking for some input on how to approach it (or recommendations for books/materials that tackle it). I searched this subreddit, but honestly the few times this idea has been brought up, it looks like the posts got deleted due to expressing anti-natalist sentiment.

I'll be moving there this August. If I walk into a bar, are they more likely to be playing Boston sports or NYC sports? Or is there a little bit of both? Is there any college football scene? Which of the main 4 pro sports are most popular around there? I know the World Cup is probably taking over everything right now, so I'm just talking about outside of that.

Would love recommendations of restaurants/bars to go to for watching NFL, MLB, and college football.

Moving to the New Haven area soon, and I've already seen from this subreddit that we should avoid Mandy, Farnam, and Pike. But are these usually property owners or property management companies?

It seems like most online listings just name the property management company, rather than the owner itself. For example - Caplan, Seabury, Nexus are some of the ones I'm seeing. Is it possible that a property could be owned by a sleazy slumlord like Mandy but managed by one of those other places?

This summer, my wife and I (early 30's, two dogs, no kids) will be moving from Texas to New England (specifically, from the suburbs between Austin and San Antonio, to New Haven County in Connecticut). We've lived in Texas for 6 years now and for the most part we've loved it, but I got a job that would double my salary and come with a lot more upward mobility, so I couldn't turn it down. My wife works remotely and her salary will remain unchanged.

However, even with the increased salary, I can't help but feel like our quality of life will decrease. For example:

• Housing/Cost of Living: In Texas we owned a home with a nice big yard for our dogs and a garage. Our total monthly mortgage payment after taxes, insurance, etc. was still under $2,000/month. In Connecticut, we'll be renting and paying $3,300 a month for a similar-sized house with no garage and a smaller yard. We'll also be paying state income tax in Connecticut, which we didn't have to do in Texas. And if we ever decide to try and buy a house there, the property taxes are even higher in CT than they are in Texas. In short, our money just doesn't seem like it will go as far.
• Crime: The town in Texas we live in has virtually no violent crime and very few unsafe areas. In contrast, southern CT has a bunch of ZIP codes with really high crime rates (according to crimegrade.org). The people on r/newhaven honestly make it sound like a 3rd-world country, even though I'm sure that's exaggerated. The areas of CT that have low crime are incredibly expensive to live in and seem to be well outside any young, middle-class person's budget.
• Schools: Since we hope to soon have kids, public schools are a consideration for us. I've always heard that the schools are amazing in New England. However, when looking on GreatSchools, the only highly rated schools in Connecticut seem to be in suburbs and higher-income areas. The more affordable areas (like for instance, New Haven County) all have pretty poorly rated schools, particularly high schools. Meanwhile, the schools in Texas (as long as you live close to one of the major metro areas, like we do) are generally very highly rated on GreatSchools.
• Parks/Infrastructure: This might just be because we live in a newly developed area of Texas (our town barely existed before 2000), but everything here is just so clean and new and nice. Roads are well-painted and have bike lanes, potholes are promptly filled, and sidewalks and parks are clean. Every public park we've been to here is spotless. In the brief time I spent exploring CT while interviewing for my new job, I noticed the roads were in pretty rough condition, and most the parks I passed by were littered with trash. Everything just looked really old, which I realize is normal in New England and not necessarily a bad thing, but there were just so many run-down streets and storefronts and abandoned areas.
• Climate: I know everyone on Reddit seems to hate hot weather, and while the summers here are definitely brutal, it's really only like 3 months of the year that are unbearable (mid June to mid September). The other 9 months of the year are great. In New England, it feels like we'll only be able to enjoy the outdoors from mid May until mid October. Maybe we'll have to learn how to ski or something.

There are two things we're excited about and we feel will be clear improvements:

• Healthcare: This is the one where I do generally feel like moving to New England will be an improvement, since Texas has pretty poor health outcomes for the most part. But my wife and I are both generally health people without the need for specialized care (knock on wood, I know). So it just doesn't factor in as importantly as the things mentioned above.
• Politics: Texas politics are just batshit insane at this point. We're definitely excited to live somewhere with leaders who share more of our cultural values, although I will say, we get a good mix of people and mindsets in the Austin suburbs, so it's not like we're surrounded by MAGA in our neighborhood.

Anyways, I guess I'm just spewing this out in the middle of my workday because I'm nervous and overanalyzing everything. I feel like we're gonna move to Connecticut, live there for a couple years, and realize we liked it better in Texas. I already know the median Redditor hates Texas and loves blue states, so I imagine I'll get a lot of bias on here, but I think people often forget that many of the Texas stereotypes (like crazy politics, bad schools, poor healthcare) are substantially offset by living in one of the major metro areas like we have.

I'd really like to hear from people who have lived in both Texas and New England who can give me an honest comparison of the two, including the good and the bad.

We bought a house in 2022 (in a seller's market) and then sold it today (somewhat of a buyer's market here in Texas). We used the same realtor both times and she was amazing, even though we were on the more difficult side of the market both times. Obviously she got a decent payday from us both times, so I don't feel like we owe her anything more, but we were thinking of writing her a thank-you card and dropping it off at her office. Would it be appropriate to include a gift card or something as well, or would a thank-you card alone go a long way?

I just passed my defense and will be graduating with my PhD in August, after which I start an AP position at a SLAC. I could buy the regalia for ~$900 or rent for around ~$250. I'm excited about academia and pretty confident I'll stay in it, but being at a SLAC, I won't be graduating any PhD students or anything.

Is there any need for the regalia if you're teaching at a non-R1 school? If I decide to rent now and buy the regalia a few years down the road, do most institutions allow their alumni to do that even 5-10 years later?

I've heard the area between Boston Post Rd and I-95 is pretty rough. What about north of Boston Post or south of I-95?

Or do I just need to fork out the money for rent in Milford?

I want to see the nutrition facts on their frosted brownies, but the app doesn’t have it. It seems like there are a lot of bakery items where I just can’t see the nutrition facts.

I’m about to start applying to places to rent in Connecticut. Mostly SFH’s and townhomes, not giant apartment complexes with corporate landlords. Do I need to keep all my rental applications to a 14 day window to avoid more than one ding to my credit score? Or do they just do soft checks?

Just to preface, I am going to ask the title company this same question later this week. But I’m trying to make sense of it myself before then.

We are selling our home and we are set to close on Monday, June 1. Our mortgage payments are automatically billed on the first of every month.

Obviously the principal, insurance, taxes, etc will work themselves out at payoff regardless of what I do. If I still make that payment on June 1, wouldn’t the interest paid just be a dead loss for us? Each monthly payment consist of about $800 of interest.

I just got a brand new CX-30 sport at a great price and I love it. The only negative thing I’ve heard about it (and new Mazdas in general) is that they use up a lot of battery power, and the Mazda batteries aren’t the greatest. I live about 5 miles from where I work (10 ish minute drive), so I make two 5-mile drives every weekday. I still run other errands with it and sometimes drive longer distances on weekends. But will this short commute make me cycle through new batteries every 6 months or something? I can intentionally take a longer way to work each day but that just feels silly.