Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lister]

Nashville is a pretty nice town and I know of some really excellent (pricey) restaurants, though I don't like Thai so I have no ideas on that front for you.  It is liveable on $30k, though probably not the most liberal-friendly.  It is the state capital so there are plenty of law firms.  There is much green space.

Has no one mentioned Austin?  Seems to be bang-on for you.

While I love San Diego and the weather would suit you incredibly well (81 and cloud-free today), you can't own property here if you make less than $60k, or $100 if you want that low-crime vibe.  Likewise Palm Springs may fit many cultural criteria but it is getting expensive to live there, as well.  I'm also doubting the lawyer need is very high.

I'd suggest Vegas (which is about to hit a housing glut, I think) if it weren't for the fact you probably want real culture and that whole crime thing.

My hometown is Birmingham, AL, which has a lot going for it but is way short on cultural opportunities.  My dad does know just about every lawyer working there, though... so jobs exist.

I am going to do more research and post again later.

[theinevitable]

oh, yes, also look into Raleigh and Chapel Hill. they are wonderful, in my experience.

[robot_god]

It would certainly increase your cost of living, but the place you described to me is in Brooklyn, NY, notably Williamsburg.  The only problem is the hipster kids so corny they don't deserve oxygen.

If you think this is feasible, act asap because the property value is basically skyrocketing.

Man, Sunday night I got a blackened catgiraffe sandwhich so good it made me want to do inappropriate things at the table.

[Sub_Topical]

I've lived in both No and So Cal so I'm going to be bold and say this for Cali:

Don't come here.

I'm going to add an appendum now: Yet.

Starting teacher in the 34 -> 42k range will have you living in squalor, with no guarantee of a second income. I'm not in L.A. and my area meets all of your criteria but you need to be yanking 90k to have a home and a life.

The Bay Area is just as bad (actually worse) in regards to cost of living. S.F. proper has been at 100% housing capacity for 15 years and cost is astronomical. This has made the down peninsula cost (Daly City for example) skyrocket as well. The golden triangle of Dublin, Livermore and Ramon is now just as impacted and north up-bay like Petaluma are a lockout. Richmond is in the same boat and is not nice as well. I've stayed there and will brook no argument. SJ valley places like Merced, Modesto, Clovis, Fresno, Sacto, Stockton are all cheaper but very limited in opportunity and don't fulfill 1/2 your wish list.when you get up north to places like/around Eureka you hit small town/longs ways syndrome. That doesn't sound like what you want.

The Cali trap for you is this: you could afford Palm Desert but have to scrap 2/3'rds of your wants. You can't come to the coast without experiencing financial and lifestyle hardship. Hell, to give a southern example, you could maybe swing Escondido but still be locked out of a lot of your wants because of distance/convenience. It's even more stark in NoCal, where there is less in all ways the further in you go. Lower wages, fewer jobs, less housing choices, just dang all less.

If you want comfort, come to Cali when you're career established and have some ca$h in your pocket. we'll be glad to help you spend it.

My list of options:

Tucson
Santa Fe
Phoenix
Grand Rapids, MI.
Atlanta
Lexington, KY.


And I couldn't agree w/ AW more on Cincy. Lived there for two months and chose unemployment over following my company there. Staying to the central meat of the country might just be a fine idea.

[littlefallsmets]

To be fair, my girlfriend is gonna be a starting teacher in September and is gonna start at like... 60K. Los Angeles's poorer schools need teachers that badly. The flipside, of course, is that there is also less room for salary growth than in most places. Start higher, top out lower.

Los Angeles is not a place to raise a kid. At all. Even if you're rich. Christ, ESPECIALLY if you're rich. Those private schools in the hills seem to be adept at turning out a particular kind of sociopath.

But if you're not looking to own your home in any way and you're not looking to grow any homo sapiens larve, you can get by financially in a pretty okay fashion.

This is not the place to find the American Dream with the white picket fence and the minivan. That is somewhere else, if it even exists anymore. If it ever existed at all, if it wasn't just a piece of hossshit devised to sell radio plays and keep the underclass at each others' throats.

This is the place to come if you have a chip on your shoulder about being an outsider as a teenager and you're either gonna show them all by becoming a god or die trying, toothless in a ditch outside of a Ralph's. One way or the other.

This is the place where the ghosts of losing lottery tickets come to rage against the cruel dire fates that branded them with numbers that meant nothing... or at least meant nothing that's redeemable in a state lottery office or a Seven-Eleven. Looking for redemption at the feet of God in Her most seductive form, as Stubborn Luck, and failing that to know that you have taken a slash at Her pristine ankles for Her unkindness before you breathe your last.

Rabid desperation, savage and beautiful. The whore who never lets you stray but always makes you pay. It is not a game for people who want a thing they own forever or a child to survive the wreckage of their faded obsessions. Madness, pure and dark, sick and true.

Mount the Goddess or die clawing at Her heels. It sounds crazy.

But it's pretty much the only thing I ever really wanted that wasn't completely easy. So I dig it.

[theinevitable]

nice.

I would like to mention, I have heard rumours of a planned Linguistics class at my alma mater.

[KeithHernandez]

I don't know, but I think maybe Austin.  Or Lawrence (no less about here, hate the rest of Kansas.)

Norman (the town I am in), OK, is actually alright, meeting all but a couple of your requirements.


Actually, now that I think about it, Tulsa is a pretty great town, and probably the town I will live in if i stay in Oklahoma.

I am not sure on size, it has a decent amount of culture, parks, decent restaurants (great pubs), college town, fairly liberal, at least tolerant, sun, cheap, teacher positions and a statewide smoking ban.   I don't know about fitness culture, but you can find a gym easily.  Crime is a problem in a very small part of the town, but generally contained.

[wombat]

It would certainly increase your cost of living, but the place you described to me is in Brooklyn, NY, notably Williamsburg. 

On a schoolteacher's salary?  I don't think this is even possible anymore. And forget about Boston too.

Coming late to this, and sort of hung over due to much drinking over my own job situation so maybe I am confused, but - your TOTAL income is 30k including your SO being a lawyer?  How is this possible?  Is this one of those things I don't understand from always living in a big coastal city?

Do you think he'd make more in a bigger city or is he one of those lefty public service types who doesn't make real lawyer money? I would also rule out the DC area unless the lawyer is going to get a real lawyer-paying DC sort of job.  I know people who try to live on 30k kind of money - basically what it means is commuting to their DC job from someplace over an hour away. It's not a pretty sight.

Now Baltimore, on the other hand - you can still live there on a reasonable amount of money.  Probably doesn't meet your low crime criteria and as for the public schools, um, well maybe you can teach in a private school?  But otherwise it is a cool place, I totally have a crush on Baltimore.

[KeithHernandez]

Also, I can't help but notice that, no matter who supports cigarette bans, they are not really liberal.

[CortJstr]

Well, how much do teachers make there? I'm just quoting my salary here where we live currently since I'm the sole income for us since Mr. Muse still hasn't found work. If teacher pay is commensurate with the cost of living then it could work. I used to live near DC (but in MD); although I can't remember what I paid for an apartment there. Assuming Mr. Muse can find work at all, we should be good. What's it like living there? The Richmond area is on our list, but we don't know much about the rest of the state.

My mom is a public school teacher but she has in year 36 or 37 so she isn't exactly starting salary. Most of the teaching jobs are in Fairfax and Loudoun counties which have much cheaper rents than I mentioned early because you'd be 30-60 minutes from DC (closer to 90 from Baltimore). Fairfax sounds a lot more your speed in terms of amenities and politics, though. Plus we are one of the states who recently decided to completey redefine the word "marriage."

There are plenty of law-talkin' jobs here. A friend got a swank job at the SEC right out of law school and has more money than he knows what to do with. Another option is non-profits. There's a metric ass-ton of non-profits based in the area an many have legal departments or at least staff counsel. The pay is lower but a 40-hour work week is also much more likely than at a firm.

[Muse_Of_Fire]

These are awesome suggestions and great input, guys. Thank you so much, it's helping a lot.

Wombat, the $30k is because I'm the only one working right now. My husband just graduated from law school and where we live has the most lawyers per capita than almost anywhere. So no one is hiring. That's the whole reason we want to move. He can't find anything anywhere, and my job is unstable because of the seniority structure (the dumbest idea for educators EVER, IMO) and budget cuts.

It's starting to tick both of us off that we can't get stable work. We are two of the most capable and educated people on the planet for our age bracket--

Me: Degrees in Linguistics and French. Will have a degree in Spanish by the end of this summer. Teaching license grades 6-12. Will have a K-5 teaching license by the end of this summer. Fluent in French and Spanish, working knowledge of German, basic skills in Russian and Mandarin Chinese. I also read Italian and Portuguese. Corporate experience in translation and localization fields (5 years) prior to four years of outstanding teacher service. Also a professional dancer and ballet teacher. Also a semi-professional caterer. And that's just the stuff I can put on paper.

My husband: Degrees in psychology, theology, and political science. Master's in theology. Juris doctor. Started his own ISP in 1993 which is now (after mergers and acquisitions) one of the largest in our area and part of an international communications company. CCNA certified. 10 years of entrepreneurial and technology management experience prior to law school. And that's just what he can put on paper.

If I think about it too much I start to get Pissed At The World(TM) and that's unhealthy and unproductive. But dammit.... DAMMIT!

So yeah, that's why we're feeling restless. We want to go somewhere where we're wanted. Actually, I'm wanted at my current school, but I'm being shoved out by bureaucracy, so... yeah.

[wombat]

Does the place have to be that large? Because if you leave the size figure out what your list makes me think of is Northampton, Mass.

Actually the first thing your list made me think was to wonder what kind of drugs you were on. I am surprised that such a place exists.  I was relieved to find that it was in a location where the winters would kill me, so I didn't have to want to move there.

[Sub_Topical]

I'd be frustrated in that situation as well. Y'all need a bigger pool of opportunity to draw from. Sounds like your spouse needs to be in an area with a nice broad base of established technical  industies with a need for in house counsel. Combine the past experience with the educational achievement. You, with four years of teaching experience and your language skills, can pull an additional bonus putting you in the 42 -> 46k range in California to teach. You can hit 50k if you add a post-grad on Cali's dime while you work.

With the additional info I've changed my mind.

What you should do is come to Cali and rent a duplex next to Onstad. Live thin for two years until your settled in the career groove and then you'll be flying fine.

And stalk Onstad's doggie for Wombat.

[Nabubrush]

I live in Portland, and yeah the weather can be shitty, but we got pretty much all the rest of that. I live within 10 minutes of great restaurants (Thai, Indian, Mediterranean, Cuban, Ethiopian, etc) and coffee shops, and concert venues, the bike shop, music stores . . . and that's walking distance. We have great public transportation. I'm not sure what the bus hate was upthread, but I really haven't had trouble with public transportation except in really big cities. Our buses and trains are clean and in good repair, and they will get you anywhere you want to go with alacrity.

Average annual chance of sunshine per day in Portland = 48%. In Madison WI = 54%. Something to consider.

Information from here.

[wombat]

What you should do is come to Cali and rent a duplex next to Onstad. Live thin for two years until your settled in the career groove and then you'll be flying fine.

And stalk Onstad's doggie for Wombat.

Now there's a plan!