u/mcbobgorge

I've lived in NELA for the past 10 years and recently got an offer for a role in Malibu, near Pepperdine. It is a dream job, and while the pay is great ($130,000), I still can't afford Malibu rent ($4k for a 1bed!).

So it seems like my options are either Calabasas/Agoura Hills, which are too suburban and far from everything, or Palisades/Santa Monica, which are better but still require a 30-40 minute commute.

I guess I'm kind of shouting into the void here because there is literally a mountain range/ocean blocking me from living anywhere else. How do people do it? Maybe I am somehow missing something?

A few years ago I left suburban NH to take a job in Imperial County, CA (along the border).

I did a shitload of research because this is basically the biggest move you can possibly do in the lower 48 (both culturally and gerographically lol).

One thing I failed to consider was jury duty. Lots of factors at play but in 10 years I was only summoned for jury duty twice in NH, and both times I was dismissed. NOT THE CASE HERE IN EL CENTRO, where for a variety of reasons I seem to get summoned at a ridiculous frequency.

I think it has to do with CA laws in addition to the federal court being very busy in the area. Regardless, it isn't a big enough factor to influence a move, but it would have been nice to know lol.

What are some other random quirks of certain areas that people don't think to research, or that locals don't realize are atypical?

Another example- unless you're from New England, you probably don't realize that NH has the cheapest alcohol in the country, because the state-run monopoly forces liquor prices down. As far as I'm aware it is a pretty unique system.

Most people base their moves on where they want to live + where they can get a job, and so the economic data isn't really a priority. The median wage in Portland isn't super relevant to me if I already have a job lined up, because that job is in a specific industry and so the broader data doesn't really help with negotiation. MAYBE I could use the median wage to get a feel for the cost of living, but even then there is often a disconnect between the two.

However, I think one fun way to understand a lot about a city is to compare median income per capita vs median income per worker. Now if you're a betting man, you might assume that every city is going to have a higher per worker income vs per capita, because kids and retirees drag the average down. But this is not the case

For example in Miami, the per capita income is somewhere in the $80k range, while per worker income is about $20k lower, in the $60s. This is because there is a super high portion of people coasting on fat retirements and not working.

Compare that with a city like El Paso, which has a large military population (more dependent spouses and children) and you see the opposite effect- income per worker is about $15k higher per year.

> So why does this matter?

I think you can learn a lot about a place from metrics like this. It means that Miami has a lot of free time per capita, it means that there are a lot more single income households in El Paso, it means that people are probably going to be less down to earth/frugal in Miami.

But you probably already knew that, so let's look at another metric- Unemployed Rate vs. Labor Force Participation Rate.

What if I told you Cleveland had an unemployment rate of under 3%? Better than you might expect for a city that has been on the decline for so long- and well below the national average of 4.3%.

But unemployment rate doesn't tell the full story of a city's labor market, because some people just give up on getting a job- and they aren't counted. If you instead look at the labor force participation rate, you can see that Cleveland's rate, at 59.2%, is 2-3% lower than the national average.

Compare that to Austin, which has a higher unemployment rate than Cleveland (3.4% vs 2.9%), but a staggering 69.8% LFPR- 10% higher Cleveland, and you can see how the unemployment rate is not a great barometer for the strength of a city's labor market.

> Some other examples:

Mean vs median income is a good measure for income inequality in a metro area (you can also use the gini coefficient although the data can be a bit rough at the city level).

Median household income vs. median family income can tell you a lot about the makeup of a city that average household size can't. Chicago and Houston have nearly identical average household sizes- (~2.5 people). But in Chicago, family income is 44% higher than household income, compared to 21% in Houston.

What does this mean? In Chicago, there are tons of single people living alone that pull the median household income down because they are single earners, yet they are wealthy enough to live independently. The only reason household size is the same is because the families that do exist are larger.

In Houston, there are far more actual families- hence the smaller gap.

> TLDR Stats are fun and you can look at stark differences in what seem like two near identical stats to learn about cities. A lot of this can be intuited based on culture/vibes/stereotypes about cities, but this is a good way to determine accuracy.

Got a new bike last year for $1600 (Spot Acme). Hit 2,610 miles today of commute mileage- using the IRS mileage rate of 72 cents per mile, I realized that I have officially saved money (including some upgrades I made to the bike, like dynamo lights and gatorskin tires), vs driving my car.

Fun milestone!

A well paying part-time job can cover your benefits without actually giving you benefits. This is especially true for people leaving a white collar field, without kids.

For example- in Los Angeles (where I live), the typical Starbucks barista (literal example here) starts at $20/hr, and people typically work around 25 hours, and pay premiums around $50/paycheck.

Monthly pre tax income is $1900 ($23k/yr), including health insurance.

Now lets say I want to do consulting work, or find a part time bookkeeping job (again, this is tailored to my current career as a business analyst, YMMV).

Looking at Covered California, as long as my income stays under 400% of the FPL ($62k (individual) or $84k (couple)), then I can get Kaiser Platinum insurance for $10k per year (other options are cheaper, but for the sake of this exercise I am going with a really good plan).

This means that I would need to make more than $33k per year to come out ahead of the Starbucks option financially.

That's like $28 an hour, 25 hours per week. So assuming you can find work in this vein, it can make sense to ignore the benefits. It is a big assumption, but could be worth considering depending on the situation. Also, if you're self employed, you can deduct your aca premiums.

I love to daydream and think about all the ways I would be able to cut spending if I didn't have to work 40+ hours per week. I like to DIY stuff, but lack the time and energy to make/repair as much as I'd like.

My wife and I have a raised bed garden, but it is small- again, a time issue. She sews and mends our clothes, but there's a pile of 'to-fix' stuff that she hasn't gotten around to.

We have two cars (paid off, but still), but we could easily get away with one if we didn't have commutes.

We eat out or get take out 1-2x per week for both lunch and dinner- because neither one of us is in the mood to cook.

The list goes on. All this stuff makes me FEEL like I could cut spending by around 15% pretty easily if I didn't have to work. But it's hard to know if that is actually how it would work.

So for those of you who had these ideas before retirement, did they actualize when you finally left work?

I was looking at the states with a $15 minimum wage and was surprised to see Arizona- which isn't really an expensive place to live.

If you work 30 hours per week @ $15/hr, you're taking home around $1600/month.

On various rental sites (zillow, apartments.com, etc) I am seeing 1 bedrooms in Tucson starting at around $750-800/month, with dozens of options.

Obviously if half your take home pay is going to rent, you're not exactly living large, and so it would probably make more sense to get roommates, the fact that it might be possible to rent your own place working part time, minimum wage, is pretty impressive.

Nebraska and Missouri also have high minimum wage.

Obviously plenty of states with low minumum wages have well paying jobs, but I think this is a fun and interesting exercise.

Wife and I got married late last year and decided to hold off on the honeymoon until NYC became green and warm.

We flew from LAX for the week of April 18-26. Most of the trip was paid for with credit card points, as a result we stayed at two different hotels- the Hyatt Place in Long Island City, and the Homewood Suites in Midtown. The Hyatt was much nicer- friendlier staff, cleaner room, closer to more trains. But the Homewood was fine, and had much nicer views from the room. I'd recommend either hotel to anyone.

I'm not going to go through every last thing we did, just the highlights/main event of each day.

Day 1/2: Got in late, had DELICIOUS Thai food at The Buffs in LIC. We only went there because it was walking distance from the hotel but it really beat expectations. We weren't sure how tired we would be, but we had enough energy to go walk around Times Square/midtown. It was my wife's first time in NYC and so this was kind of obligatory. Especially since we would be focused on the outer boroughs the next few days.

The next day we went to the Queens Museum, with plans to walk to Flushing via the Botanical Garden. Rain forced us back onto the 7 train. Delicious Szechuan noodles in the basement of the New World Mall.

Day 3: Started with Utopia Bagels- one of the best bagels I've ever had. We would continue to go back every day we stayed in LIC. Then took the train down to Fort Greene to walk around and get coffee (Nostrand Coffee Roasters, solid cup of coffee). Then hopped on the train to coney Island. Walked down the boardwalk and then lunch from the buffet at Tashkent supermarket in Brighton Beach. Picnic on the boardwalk. Foolishly we went to Coney Island on a monday- this time of year the amusement park is only open on weekends. Oops!

Day 4: Williamsburg and then Bushwick for some shopping and walking. Bushwick is cool for night life but you really have to have stuff prepared if you want to enjoy it as a tourist- you can't just wander into stuff. Then dinner at the Musket Room. Wife and I are into fun/interesting tasting menus and the Musket Room can accommodate vegans with prior notice. That being said, neither her vegan menu nor my standard menu were that impressive. The non-alcoholic drink pairing was especially middling, for the price ($470 for two after tax/tip).

Day 5: Ferry to the Statue of Liberty, where we had crown tickets. Very cool experience walking up to the top but the view from the crown wasn't that cool. Would recommend just to see the inside. Then we visited the 9/11 memorial and finally dinner at Dirt Candy, which was awesome. It didn't feel as 'fancy' as the Musket Room (despite Dirt Candy having a star and the Musket Room having lost one) but the food was so much better, the NA pairing was awesome, and it was cheaper ($300 after tax/tip). Would recommend even for meat eaters. After dinner we walked up to alphabet City, ate fried Reese's at Ray's and drank some kava at Helate cafe before calling it a night

Day 6: MOMA PS1 and Museum of Moving Image. Then headed towards Manhattan but spur of the moment hopped out on Roosevelt Island, rode citibikes, and then took the cable car to Manhattan. Late lunch at Le Botaniste (great place to take a vegan). Walked over to Central Park and rode bikes all the way to the north end of the park. Walked to the ravine, and pond up there before hopping on the 3 train. We decided to ride it a random number of stops- between 1 and 10. It was 9 and we got off at Wall Street, walked up through the seaport and Chinatown to get dinner at Little Rascal in Nolita. Food was nothing special but they had some nice jazz playing. Back on the train up to Rockefeller center.

Day 7: Moving hotels today from the LIC to Midtown. One last bagel at Utopia (tried a salt bagel for the first time - AWFUL. I think I have gout now).

Dropped our bags off at the new hotel and walked over to Hudson yards, down the high line to Chelsea market. Got pizza and then went to the Whitney museum. Then walked along the river down to Carrie's House (from SaTC) and Stonewall Inn. Taxi to the dirt room (fun to visit but wife wasn't impressed) and then walked around until we got tired and then went back to the hotel.

Day 8/9: Last full day we spent the morning at the spa (Great Jones Spa, very nice!) met up with a friend who lives in Bushwick- went to the Bone Museum, walked around in the rain then dried off at Molasses Books. Rush back to the hotel to change and then it was time for Book of Mormon! Good show- I'm not into musical theater but it was all very well done.

Last day we woke up, LIRR to Jamaica, then back to LAX.

This is not a typical itinerary but we both had a great time. The highlight was riding around central park.