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End of the tunnel


The_buster

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Things are going to be a lot easier now. I got a better job working for Tri-County, a Chrysler dealership, and the wife just accepted a job at Licking Memorial Hospital working in the CCU. Now we start a new chapter in life. Our oldest daughter starts kindergarten in 2 weeks. I get to learn new things now, I've been there a week and have already done more than I was allowed to try at Sears. I get paid a dollar more an hour and I get sundays and holidays off. I can start getting Chrysler certified after 90 days.
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Do you two talk, not fight, at least not every time, about money? Have you two read up on or taken any personal finance classes? You can make a ton of money and still be in a bad financial spot if you are bad with it. Being financially comfortable is at least as much about how you handle your money as it is about how much you make.
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Do you two talk, not fight, at least not every time, about money? Have you two read up on or taken any personal finance classes? You can make a ton of money and still be in a bad financial spot if you are bad with it. Being financially comfortable is at least as much about how you handle your money as it is about how much you make.

 

Jesse, knows his stuff on finance. He is one dude that you will never know if he makes $500,000 a year or $20,000 a year. Hell, I spent 8 years work in financial planning and still look to try and keep it as simple as he does.

 

You have to just find what works for you guys and talk, talk, talk about your plan. Be aggressive with hitting your $ goals, and make those tough sacrifices to not get those extra things you WANT, but don't really need. For instance, you have a 42" TV that works fine, but you have the money for a sweet new 70" that is on sale.

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Our next goal is to get our bills and credit cards caught up. Then we're going to start saving and planning to buy a house. As far as frivolous items we may look into a ps4. The wife wants to co-op the new star wars game haha.
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Congrats man. One step and a time. Save up, invest (especially with your wife and her 401k, etc.) and keep going. Remember the ups and downs come and go with everyone. Glad you're back on your way up. Get prepared and the next cycle won't likely even impact you. At that point they just become part of life that you navigate through vs getting pushed around by them.
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End of the tunnel LOL

 

Then we're going to start saving and planning to buy a house.

 

Plan to save 20% of the value of your future house for the down payment.

 

Decide which paycheck you and your wife can live off of. Then use the other paycheck to pay off debt. Once debts are paid, start saving.

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The simplest advice I can give is avoid debt at all costs, especially unsecured (I.e credit cards). I worked on finance and still lived beyond my means (should have known better). Too many sleepless nights led me to some painful decisions - like selling my Trans Am. It took my wife and I 5 years to dig out way out. We will never do that again. I am so thankful we bought a home well below what we were capable of buying - saved my butt.
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Good for you man. Sometimes you gotta shake things up and do something different. Especially to move up in the world.

 

The guys are right though, making a lot isn't as important as planning and budgeting. A few years ago my wife put us into bankruptcy court and since then, I've taken control and showed her how I manage money. We've since moved to a new state and our current jobs make much less but we save thousands more monthly due to simply planning. Now that we've settled into the new area we're planning to step up the jobs this fall.

 

Its very easy for me though, I come from a long history of cheapskates.

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I need an outside opinion. On our first trip to Disney, we went and visited a friend of hers in the Vero Beach area. While down there we looked at some of the houses(drove by and looked online-didn't go in), and we loved the area down there. I like the Spanish style houses with the yellow stucco and clay roof. Well we kicked around the idea of actually moving down there and its still a maybe possible thing. There are a few things holding us back. Number one is family. Her mom would be moving with us to help watch the kids while we work, so we don't have to trust someone from an area we don't know with our kids. But my folks would be staying up here, dad owns his business, and he is about 5 years from retirement, and mom just got her teaching license. Dad says he wouldn't be able to come visit, which means he doesn't want to-hates flying and doesn't want to drive long distances anymore. Next issue would be our jobs that we just got. When I was at sears it was easy for me to say yeah sure lets go, I could always transfer to another sears if it had an opening. I didn't like it there anyway and was going no where. Now I have a job with awesome management that is trusting enough to let me get hands on training by just doing the job with a higher up techs supervision. The wife just got her job and could potentially make 28/hr after the differentials if she works weekends. Were both worried that if we were to move we wouldn't find jobs that good down there.

 

What was drawing us down there was the idea of being able to do more things than we can up here due to climate. We looked at it as if we have a weekend off or even just one of the weekend days off we could go to a disney park, a beach, sea world ect. There are lots more opportunities down there than what we have up here. Also the car scene is better down there where you can actually drive a fun car more than just a couple months a year. I would like to eventually toy around with cars, as in buy a beat up thing and make it better and sell it, nothing to make a living on just something fun that one car would be the funds for the next.

 

I don't know. Any moving we do wouldn't be for a couple years. This is just hypothetical what ifs. I personally hate winter after about a week of snow. I used to love it as a kid, but now its just annoying. We started looking at houses around where both our parents are now and found a nice one for 137k, and after punching numbers into a loan calculator it said less than 600/month. Which doesn't seem bad. Really just looking for outside unbiased opinions either way. Thanks and sorry so long.

 

 

 

TL/DR- opinion on moving out of state in 5+ years after getting nice jobs and causing possible family issues.

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We started looking at houses around where both our parents are now and found a nice one for 137k, and after punching numbers into a loan calculator it said less than 600/month. Which doesn't seem bad. Really just looking for outside unbiased opinions either way. Thanks and sorry so long.

 

 

 

That loan calculator is just calculating the mortgage, remember you'll have property taxes and homeowners insurance on top of that. Plus the random expenses that add to the joys of home ownership.

 

I'm not diving into the other can of worms you've asked about.

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Pros of florida:

Warm weather

No income tax

beaches on three sides

 

Cons:

Sink holes

Deadly animals

Hurricanes

Floridians

 

Let's add lots of transient people to the list of cons. Lots of people move there for just the reasons you pointed out, and lots leave in a relatively short time. Albeit I have never lived there myself, it's my understanding that employers are less likely to hire someone who just moved there due to this fact. I sure wouldn't count on finding a job easily, of course this is only hearsay but it seems reasonable to me.

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That loan calculator is just calculating the mortgage, remember you'll have property taxes and homeowners insurance on top of that. Plus the random expenses that add to the joys of home ownership.

 

I'm not diving into the other can of worms you've asked about.

 

+1

 

That payment will be around the 1500 a month range give or take a few. Your also forgetting the part of getting pre-approved for a loan.

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Take whatever a loan calculator says and double it and that's probably not too far off from the monthly payment including property taxes and insurance. If you put down less than 20% of the purchase price then you're also paying pmi which is just more money down the drain.

 

Regardless of where you end up, start throwing every last cent possible into savings.

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As someone who recently moved to better weather, that's the one thing you can completely control. If you want to move do it. Ohio has good things that I miss but I wouldn't give up being able to go outside 11-12 months of the year without a coat to get any of it back.
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I lived down in Florida for a year (Naples), absolutely could not stand it. Awesome to spend a few weeks (or Months) down there, especially during the Winter, but all and all the vast Majority of Florida is a giant shithole.

 

When it comes to jobs/opportunities, yes they exist, but outside of the Major Cities the Economy is often times highly unstable and heavily seasonal. Health care (again outside of the Major Cities) is atrocious as well. Be prepared for sub-par Management, high turnover, and lack of Education in the workplace.

 

In regards to the weather yes it is warm all year, but from May 1st to November 1st it's 92 degrees and 92 percent humidity every.single.day. I can't think of a worse environment to wrench in, it is downright disgusting. Personally I rarely went out in the summer because it was so goddamn swampy. Picture the worst, hottest, stickyiest day here, then multiply it by 180.

 

Another thing to consider is your parents/Dad's health. Not sure how old you/they are, but man, serious Health issues can and probably will pop up sooner rather then later. Being at least a two-day drive away from Family during these crisis is often times a disaster of unimaginable proportions.

 

Have you considered moving a little less South? Tennesee/North Carolina are bad-ass. Yes, they get somewhat of a Winter, but usually the temps hover right around the 40 degree mark.

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Your right the Carolina's are great, especially around Charlotte, the weather is amazing, 80-90's at closer to 50% humidity. Odd part is the local people here cry about the weather so much I want to slap them. I can't go anywhere without hearing how hot it is and how they can't wait for winter, but the morons all go inside and stay there from labor day to memorial day anyway so I guess they just like indoors best.

 

Huge job potential here in Charlotte, same with Raleigh and many other Carolina cities. I don't know much about florida, but its on the list of places to move someday. Next move I plan to be on a beach, but that is a few years off once I get set up to work much less.

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As someone who recently moved to better weather, that's the one thing you can completely control. If you want to move do it. Ohio has good things that I miss but I wouldn't give up being able to go outside 11-12 months of the year without a coat to get any of it back.

 

Hi, neighbor :thumbup:

 

 

OP Be careful using potential weekend trips as a factor.

I lived in Florida for 8 years. If you're a fan of the beaches, it's okay and winter is awesome.

It still takes hours and hundreds of dollars to take the family to Disney, SW etc.

If you're rich, no prob. But then you could live that life from anywhere.

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