Throwing a dart at a map

Curmudgeon wrote: But I will echo to avoid California, Nevada and Florida like the plague. The state economies just aren't currently conducive to a life reset.

Depends - I got a job in NV, and I could probably get a decent paying job in CA, too. Depends on what you're doing for a living, I guess.

Company I work for just hired two people for the team I work in, both from out of state. Mind you, that does have something to do with the large number of C++ developers looking for work in the Lake Tahoe area .

My wife however hasn't really been able to find work since we moved up here. Not that that was a big change, there wasn't much in the way of work for her down in Las Vegas either.

nderwater wrote: As good a place to start as any: America's Strongest Job Markets. Coming from Florida, Greenville/Spartanburg and Raleigh would be an easy transition - with the upside of actual seasons. Jobs are most plentiful in DC, but the cost of living would be much higher than you are used to.

Greenville SC is so friggin' beautiful it's not even fair to let Detroiters visit. when I hit the bigtime, or retire, i'm moving to Greenville SC. awesome mtbiking, lakes, not too far from ocean or mountains, etc.

GSP (more accurately the Travelers Rest side up into the mountans) is on my short list of retirement areas, along with northwest Georgia, western North Carolina and possibly the eastern Rockies.

I moved from Melbourne, Australia to Convoy, Ohio with $500, I knew nobody in the country, and had a one way ticket to finally meet the woman who is my now wife, 13 years later and 11 years of marriage I am happy with my adventure.

What have you got to lose?

Um. Wow. I never knew that.

Life is an adventure, don't waste it, go have a great trip, you can always make enough money to survive.

Better to do this now than being full of regrets when you are old and grey.

Plenty of GRMers to help out if you need it

I picked up and moved from No. Mississippi near Memphis to the Mississippi gulf coast with my clothes and a few personal belongings in the back of my truck. Took me a week to find a job as a satellite TV installer and 8 years later and 3 more moves (one to Indiana), I still work in the industry. I can go pretty much wherever I want in the country and have a job within a week.

I grew up around Boston, and just got sick of the snow and other crappy weather. I like living near a big city, and I like the diversity that cities with strong colleges attract, so I relocated to the SF Bay area.

By working a couple of night / weekend jobs in addition to my day job I was able to buy a reliable car and put enough in the bank to hold me over until I started picking up pay checks.

The first thing I did when I got out here was register with a branch of the temp agency that got me the evening job in Boston. The second thing I did was get a weekend job as a tech at Comp USA.

I soon had two paychecks coming in, and the temp jobs gave me a half dozen company contacts in as many months. Temp to Perm is pretty easy to do if you have some skills and a good work ethic. If it's not a possibility then most companies are pretty flexible when it comes to scheduling job interviews.

I haven't regretted my decision for one single day since I moved out here, and when I really miss the snow I can drive up to Yosemite or Lake Tahoe. ... not too shabby.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: No kids? Throw the dart. Literally, if that's what it takes. Let the dart only determine the state, though. If that dart hits California, Florida, or Michigan, you get a do-over, though. I like.... Colorado. You want a change? That would be a change. Colorado is where i'm moving next.

If it hits New york burn the map. If I didn't have a good job i would have left for either Greenville SC, or VA Beach area of Virginia. Meanwhile I'm hoping to stick it out here and the retire to Georgia to try and teach them the correct way to do everything

As it stands now, my wife has an interview tomorrow. She got the call today. We're hoping it will work out.

I do not want to work in computers at all. While I enjoyed being a computer tech back in my late teens, I understand that there is no real future in computer tech, and IT has too many qualified and experienced people to move into right now.

Someone mentioned that I should try a change of mind about my current job. I'd like to say that while I can change my mind about it, it doesn't keep customers from yelling at me about the "work stoppage" or whatever reason their DSL isn't working. It wouldn't be as bad if I could move up, but being on the phones does suck your soul. I've seen people start there as sane, reasonable people and leave as nervous wrecks on half a handful of meds just to make it through the day. Really, it's the E36 M3tiest job I've ever worked, and I've helped pump septic tanks.

In my town, the only people able to get work have welding certificates or they go to the call center. Our Walmart doesn't hire more than one or two people a month. People here are exploited because the job market is so bad here.

If you guys don't believe me about my town, read this article from Forbes Magazine:

http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/09/cities-vulnerable-towns-forbeslife-cx_rr_1009vulnerable.html

My town is number 2 on the most vulnerable list, see here:

http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/09/cities-vulnerable-most-forebslife-cx_rr_1009mostvulnerable_slide_10.html

Now, I'm not trying to convince you that I need to move, not at all. Those links are just to show how bad the job market in my town is.

The only other thing I'm really qualified for is construction. Like I said, I've done some handyman work, and overall I like building things. I like working outside, even if it's 120 degrees out there. The problem with that is that there is nearly no construction going on here. Not even much remodel work. I know about 20 construction workers that worked for the same company for quite a few years that got layed off because there's so little work right now. I remember when Palm Coast was being built (a boom town not too far from here, home of JG Pasterjak), if you had a hammer, you had a job.

Of course that's just one example of many I can use to demonstrate how bad the job market here is.

If I were to take a road trip, I wouldn't do it without some sort of income or all of my bills payed off. If we could get our credit card bills payed off and my wife came with me, all of our utilities besides phone could get completely cut off, obviously. Phone bill could be cut drastically, going down to a single pre-pay phone.

Right now, we only have about $500 in savings. I'm trying to keep it that way while the wife sees it as money we can spend. I'm trying to sell off all of my project cars and all of the odd and rare parts, but it's kinda hard selling off my collection of 1989 Honda Accord parts because the market is so small.

I think for right now, my wife is happy being unhappy. I guess I'll have to revisit this once she's as fed up with living here as I am.

If I might ask: how much is owed on the CC?

We owe less than $5000 on all of them total. Because it's spread over a few cards, the payments are kinda high. Around $200, maybe a little more, a month goes to credit cards, and since we're working on the bare minimum, we've not been paying over minimums. We were when we had the money, but we haven't since my wife learned that she wasn't coming back to a job this year. We do have a little that's not included in that $500 emergency fund, but it's to hold us over on bills as needed. I'm intentionally not including it in our budget.

I'm considering Pittsburgh (again). I went to college at IUP (45 min from Pitts) and remember hating it up through 2001. It was full of old, crotchety, laid-off and retired steel workers and the energy was just plain grey. I have nothing against blue-collar people (I am one) but we described it as a town that was full of people who never even had the idea of bettering themselves. It was a mill-honky town. We considered moving there four years ago and it was greatly improved but still no dreamland. Now we're looking at it again and its 1000% better but the housing prices are dirt cheap. We're going to buy before anyone else realizes its a hip town.

I just looked at a 5/3 on 0.46 acres in downtown for $80k. Not the greatest neighborhood but rapidly improving.

poopshovel wrote: Um. Wow. I never knew that.

Harden the berkeley up, maaate

Whatever you do, don't look this way.

What with the low unemployment, low cost of living and real estate (modest 3/1/2 house 10 mins from downtown Tulsa under $100k), and relatively well paying jobs compared to the national average.

Yep, please stay away.

I do like Huntsville but for teachers you are berkeleyed as far as getting jobs.

Alright, so on top of the interview locally, my wife has a prospect in Charlotte, NC that she's investigating. Anyone with experience in that area?

Charlotte is great. Area is pretty, schools are pretty good, cost of living is pretty low, good airport, lots to do. It's worth noting that the white collar job market there centered mostly around finance, and has thus been mediocre because of market turmoil - but that shouldn't affect you.

I know nothing about Charlotte, but I like it.

curtis73 wrote: I'm considering Pittsburgh (again). I went to college at IUP (45 min from Pitts) and remember hating it up through 2001. It was full of old, crotchety, laid-off and retired steel workers and the energy was just plain grey. I have nothing against blue-collar people (I am one) but we described it as a town that was full of people who never even had the idea of bettering themselves. It was a mill-honky town. We considered moving there four years ago and it was greatly improved but still no dreamland. Now we're looking at it again and its 1000% better but the housing prices are dirt cheap. We're going to buy before anyone else realizes its a hip town. I just looked at a 5/3 on 0.46 acres in downtown for $80k. Not the greatest neighborhood but rapidly improving.

I am moving up there in a few weeks. I agree, the culture sucks. Sucks even worse because I am not a (stick and ball) sports fan and the Steelers/penguins/etc stuff just gets to be grating.

My plan is to go up there for a little while (a year, maybe two) and then move down to the Baltimore/DC/NOVA area. Yeah, its more expensive, but the job market is better there for my girlfriend and I.

While I could stay in the town I am at, there are only 2 or so employers that hire engineers and it wouldnt be doing what I want to be doing, if I stay, I might get trapped.

curtis73 wrote: I just looked at a 5/3 on 0.46 acres in downtown for $80k. Not the greatest neighborhood but rapidly improving.

yeah, until you show up....

Derick Freese wrote: We owe less than $5000 on all of them total. Because it's spread over a few cards, the payments are kinda high. Around $200, maybe a little more, a month goes to credit cards, and since we're working on the bare minimum, we've not been paying over minimums. We were when we had the money, but we haven't since my wife learned that she wasn't coming back to a job this year. We do have a little that's not included in that $500 emergency fund, but it's to hold us over on bills as needed. I'm intentionally not including it in our budget.

Roll those bad boys into one card and then your $200 will no longer be paying just the minimum. That works great as long as you don't look down at the card and say, 'Dayumn, there's enough room for (useless high end trinket)'. Look around; there's plenty of card offers that could help you out. You don't have to have sterling credit to do this.

About getting a job: I figured 30-60 days of job searching, maybe longer. I went cold calling to 3 places on my first day of The Search and got called back the next day. I start tomorrow. It took a whopping 12 days to get a job. I'm not trying to brag, just making the point not to let fear of the unknown stop you from making decisions to better your life. You can't possibly know unless you try.

AngryCorvair wrote:

curtis73 wrote: I just looked at a 5/3 on 0.46 acres in downtown for $80k. Not the greatest neighborhood but rapidly improving.

yeah, until *you* show up....

Hey... those charges were cleared years ago

Greenville SC Look it up.

Or go some where that you guys have family. You can't do wrong with family in hard times.

Well, my wife didn't get the job that she interviewed for. The county office put someone in the position, overriding the principal's decision completely. They were downstaffing people where I work today, too, so I was sent home because people aren't calling due to the work stoppage that was mentioned in the "Life of a striking worker" thread.

I'm going to get in touch with my family in VA this evening and see if I can get the ball rolling up there. I haven't honestly felt this much despair in my future since I was in my teens. I'm just hoping something can work out.

On the credit card front and transferring balances, I just started working where I am 6 weeks ago. My wife is on unemployment right now. I don't think any credit card company in their right mind would give me an offer. I will call one of my card companies and see if I can up the limit so I can do balance transfers, but I am doubtful they will be able to. We've been debt snowballing whenever possible, but we have been paying minimums lately. I don't want to use our bit of savings to pay down our CCs because that would leave us without an emergency fund, and let me tell you, that fund has been being used quite a bit lately. Theft of a car battery, a tree falling, unexpected repairs on my Jeep, it's all been hitting it. We've been putting money back into it, but I feel the need to keep that $500-$1000 available at all times these days.