Dogatemyfinances was talking about Personal Responsibility, specifically someone complaining about their living situation. I have to say I agree. No one makes people live where they live. You have choices. It’s up to you to decide to live in a horrible expensive COLA. Or move to a cheaper COLA and perhaps afford the house you want.
I understand where she is coming from because she has chosen to live in Texas with a very reasonable COL. I know that many people choose to live in an expensive area to be near family. But then you are making a choice to live near your family at the expese of being able to buy a home. Perhaps you’ll never own. Or perhaps you’ll only own a tiny home or townhouse.
Those are all choices. No one is holding a gun to your head and demanding you move to Manhattan or San Fransisco. I know it doesn’t feel like we have choices, but we do.
I can say that because I choose to move away from Hawaii. Paradise on earth pretty much. Many people stay but work two jobs to make ends meet. Why? Limited employement opportunities. I have many friends from the “rock” and they made the decision to leave so they could have a better living situation “to them” by having one job instead of two.
So yes I hate where we live. I hate the cold, I hate having to shovel snow, I hate having heating bills. But I will survive. My DH and I made a decision to live here and I can deal with it. No one forced me, though you could argue I made an “uneducated” decision, never having really lived in a cold climate before. But I made the choice and I have to deal with it.
So how will I deal with it? By having a plan to escape this cold weather. I am praying to escape to a lower COLA, because I know that our lives will be easier. I also know that our savings will be able to land us a real home, we can stress less about money, and maybe even not shovel snow.
So is where you live a choice? Or a forced circumstances? By the way, if you say it’s for your spouse, I’ll tell you I know people who have ended relationships because they desire to move home to Hawaii and the person they are will not move. Thus the desire to move home is stronger than the relationship, so I’d call it a lack of common values and a choice to end the relationship.
So do we choose where we live or it’s decided for us?
11 responses so far ↓
1 SP // Sep 24, 2008 at 11:13 am
I don’t know how anyone could claim they have no choice. Even if it is for a spouse, isn’t that something most couples decide together?
It’s always a choice, though sometimes the alternative (leaving a spouse, changing fields, being away from family) is something a person refuses to do.
2 Meg from FruWiki // Sep 24, 2008 at 11:43 am
You may always have choices, but let’s remember that some people have more and better choices than others. Some can recover from bad choices easier.
Moving is expensive and risky. Not everyone can afford the travel costs but even in town moves can be hard due to first’s month’s rent, a security deposit, possibly breaking old leases (or trying to sell a house), etc.
Plus you have to find a job elsewhere, which can be hard to begin with, but harder if you can’t visit the area for job interviews.
I’m not saying there’s no choice, but I think we all need to realize how very, very hard some of these choices are and that for some people they may literally be so hard as to be impossible.
On a personal note, my husband and I considered moving earlier this year. Even though we love where we live, his company wanted to move him to headquarters as part of his promotion. The raise might have seemed like a great deal at first, but we quickly realized that his raise would end up losing money on the move. Fortunately, he was able to talk them into promoting him without moving us.
3 LivingAlmostLarge // Sep 24, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Yes moving is risky and expensive. But that’s a choice. There is no way to cut it. You can take the risk and plan for it. Save money, find a job before moving. Or you can just move. You have to make the decision and live with it.
How do you think immigrants feel? My DH knew he wanted to come to the states and saved up a ton of cash as a college student. Over $20k in cash to come and move with deposits, etc. And no credit score.
But he knew what he wanted and did it. So I don’t believe anyone is forced to stay put. You choose to stay put. And it can be a huge sacrifice.
4 dogatemyfinances // Sep 24, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I really respect people who chose to live somewhere expensive for a high-paying job. It usually involves sacrifice and risk and ambition. But it’s just silly to think it isn’t a choice.
5 fengshui // Sep 24, 2008 at 11:23 pm
“I can say that because I choose to move away from Hawaii.”
You lucky thing. Hawaii is the most beautful place on earth…..
Perhaps you can move to a LCOL area and then be able to visit Hawaii every year.
I also HATE the cold and snow, and by late Feb/ early March I develop depression and get pretty bummed out and have to go to a tanning salon just to keep my sanity. I hope to move somewhere warmner someday, but we have good paying jobs and a cheap house so it is hard to leave…..
6 LivingAlmostLarge // Sep 25, 2008 at 9:22 am
No what will likely happen is I will continue to choose to live in an expensive place and go home. The choice will be to sacrifice visiting awesome places like Europe, Asia, etc. A real vacation, instead I’ll just “visit” home.
8 Meg from FruWiki // Sep 29, 2008 at 4:07 pm
LivingAlmostLarge,
I’m all for weighing all one’s choices and I really respect those who choose to make big sacrifices to fulfill a dream. I just hate how sometimes some talk of choice turns into “Well, we shouldn’t worry about helping so and so type of people because they *choose* to live like they do.” Especially when the people talking haven’t had to make such large sacrifices themselves. That’s why I think any talk of choices needs to include some perspective on how tough some choices really are — not to give people excuses.
Note, I’m not talking about anyone here in particular. I saw the attitude in college where a lot of students from well-to-do families would talk about how they understand why people would choose not to go to college or would say that it was people’s fault for being poor if they didn’t go to college.
I, myself, came from a rural area where most people didn’t even think college was an option — and by the time people realized that they needed to go to college, it was almost impossible (and maybe impossible for many). Many of my current friends are working their way through community college. But though they are very, very hardworking and determined, they’re having a really tough time of it.
9 LivingAlmostLarge // Sep 29, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I believe that choosing to go to college is a lot different from choosing a professional career and job and location.
Many people in Hawaii want to leave but lack the ambition to leave. It is very easy to save $1k and move to the Mainland US. But they choose not to.
Thus they only have themselves to blame with regards to the high cost of living. No one is telling them to live in hawaii. It’s a choice.
I feel great sympathy for people in Hawaii but first and foremost it’s a choice. 1 out my 7 cousins moved back to hawaii. He works 2 jobs to make ends meet. That is a choice. He has a college degree like the rest of the family and his brother has a different life in Las Vegas.
So it’s about choices. I believe that choices for poorer people is limited. They are less informed about college and scholarships out there. But they also realize that there are different lower cost of living.
10 Meg from FruWiki // Sep 29, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Considering how important having a college degree — and often a specific degree — is to getting a job, and how important finding a job is to being able to move, is it really that different? It’s all very connected.
But then, the problem I see isn’t so much about living in places that have high COL (though that is a problem, too). The people I know that have problems are those that live in places with very low COL, but few job opportunities and who can’t afford to move to higher COL places that might have better opportunities (including access to college). Unfortunately, that’s the usual trade off: low COL, low/few paying jobs. I hope that the internet will give people in low COL areas more opportunities, but unfortunately, a lot of internet/home-based jobs don’t pay much either or take a lot of high level skills — and they’re just as easily shipped overseas.
11 LivingAlmostLarge // Sep 29, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I noticed living in Hawaii a lot of people couldn’t afford the cost of living. Still can’t. There is an affordable university and most go to it. But the reality is that the average home is $600k and average income is $60k. NOT going to happen.
Thus the surplus of people working at least 2 jobs to support a family. I think that there are lots of areas for sure that you can live that is a metropolis with a lower cost of living.
Example houston or dallas. Pretty reasonable. Or Portland, Oregon, etc. Even other major cities in the midwest and southern states.
That’s a choice people can make to live somewhere they can work and go to school. In high COLA there is no way to work and go to school. It’s either or. When rent in CA costs $1400/month for a 1 bedroom it doesn’t allow for paying for tuition and living expenses.
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