What to Consider When Deciding Where to Live
This is your step-by-step guide to make sure you land in the best place for your life goals
Welcome to the 9 new “In-Between‘s” who have joined us since last time! Join the 482 others by subscribing here if you haven’t already 📩:
Have you checked out The In-Between Podcast on Apple Podcasts yet? Give it a listen by clicking the button below if you haven’t already 🎙️:
Follow my Twitter page as well for daily tweets and more content. Join the 958 followers! 📲:
Follow the Instagram page as well for all the latest updates. Join the 300 followers! 📲:
Hard Decisions
The idea of moving is always in the back of our minds, it is hard to deny. Watching the glamorous lifestyle of living in the city on TV, reminiscing on that awesome beach vacation you took a few years ago, or visiting family back home in the suburbs – all these experiences will make you want to move. Deciding where to live, though, is an incredibly difficult decision. Luckily for you, I created a checklist that will make your decision a little easier.
There are many aspects of moving/deciding on a place to live that are easily overlooked. The best way to avoid this is to plan, plan, and then plan some more. This checklist is for anyone and everyone, whether you are a recent college grad, relocating, starting a family, or anyone else in between!
The Checklist
1. Trial Run
We are starting at the beginning, the basics, if you will. Square one is making a list of places that you might want to live.
If you have already been to some of those places, great. If you have not, now is the time to book a weekend trip and go check it out. I don’t know about you, but I do not think I would be able to move to a city I have never even visited before. You have no idea what is there, what the weather is like, and most likely, no friends in that area.
Vacationing in the location for a few days is a great way to get a feel for the area and see if it is what you are looking for. Make sure that above all else, you feel comfortable and enjoy yourself while you are there.
2. Can You Afford It?
Now that you know you like this place, it is time to get out the calculator and crunch some numbers. You need to answer the ~single~ most important question about moving, “Can you afford to live there?”
This question is difficult because there are many different layers to affordable living. The big one is rent and mortgage prices. If you are looking at a broad range of locations, maybe even just at the state in general, you might find something in your budget. However, if you are narrowing down your search and only looking at a specific city, options will thin out and you are less likely to find something affordable.
Taking this point a step further, you want to be looking ahead to make sure you have a roof over your head, the housing market value overall in that area is rising, and that you could upgrade or downsize depending on your future family plans.
Every move you make should be considering your future life as well as your current one.
3. Job Opportunities
Okay, you can afford it and you feel comfortable in this new location. Now, it is time to ensure you can make a living. As I stated earlier, this could be higher/lower on other people’s lists depending on their career field and ambitions. For most people, though, job opportunities are very important. Making sure you always have a job in that area before you move is crucial.
If you up and move before you have any work waiting for you when you get there, you may be faced with some hardships down the road. And let me tell you, the job market can be a notoriously tough one to manage in a pinch. Not only is having a job lined up important, but also having the ability to explore a wide range of career opportunities in the cities you move to.
The moral of the story is to get on LinkedIn or Indeed and make sure there are companies you want to work for in your desired areas and start applying. That is, of course, unless you can find a great remote work position (which there are a ton nowadays).
4. Proximity to Life Needs
Now, this part of the checklist will feature a wide range of needs for a wide range of people. The short summary of this section is making sure you have everything you need in that city that will make your life easier, exactly how you want, and fun. Like I said, everyone will have different prioritization on their list, so let me just throw out some things to consider:
City culture
Things to do (I’m talking sporting events, concerts, shows, parks, etc.)
Friends or family nearby
Essentials (grocery stores, hospitals, financial services, shopping malls)
Activity based closeness (Hypothetically, let’s say you like outdoor rock climbing. You are probably wanting places nearby with mountains and hikes and opportunities for you to do what you love.)
Great school districts
Transportation options (traffic, airport location, rideshare)
That is a short list to get you going. Make sure you think of everything. Take an inventory on your life as it is now and all the things you need to live happily and make sure the new place has those same things. It wouldn’t be any fun to have to give up something you love or have a difficult time getting something because of the new place you live.
5. Climate
Weather deserves its own part on the checklist because it can dramatically impact your life more than most people give it credit. If you are moving, it is the perfect time to make sure you secure the perfect weather for you.
If you grew up without a lot of sun and you want some sun, go out and get it. If you grew up in the flat plains of the Midwest and want some mountain ranges, go get that too. This is not a long section and there are no tips and tricks, it is all based on what you like.
6. Taxes
The dreaded taxes. They are sneaky and can often be overlooked when moving.
That is why I needed them to be on this list, so people could properly calculate whether they can afford to live with the state, income, and many more taxes that vary across our country. Luckily for you, I have provided links below to great resources to help you learn more about specific state taxes!
WalletHub: https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer/2416
Thank you, WalletHub, we would not know what to do without you.
7. List of Negatives
No place is perfect, so it is best to make sure all the negatives of a place are listed out so you can compare them with your other cities. If you have a partner or a family, that list will look different from those living independently. The worst thing you can do is overlook the negatives or completely disregard them all together.
Right when you start saying the sentence, “Well this probably will not affect me,” is right when it will completely affect you.
Again, no place is perfect, so it is probably best to go with the place that has the fewest negatives or at least the most manageable negatives. If a city does not have a Chipotle, there is a good chance you will never see me there – LOL.
8. Safety & Crime
This goes back to my first point about testing out an area to see if you are comfortable. Feeling safe and being able to avoid high crime rates obviously would be on anyone’s list of priorities. Make sure you do your digging on that front as there are many websites, like the one below, that can help you learn more about crime in all areas of the world.
2022 Crime Rate Report: https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state/
9. Opinions
Next on the list is doing some research on how other people have enjoyed or disliked specific areas. The saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” could be applied here. Weigh your friends and family members’ opinions heavily, but also remember that every person’s experience is unique to them and may not be the same experience you have.
Reach out to people you know with experience in that area and gather intel. This will give you more in-depth detail about daily life in these specific areas. But again, take everything with a grain of salt because everyone’s experiences are different. You can also do an internet search to see what other people in your age group and demographic have to say about living in any one place.
Utilize the internet, people!
YouTube has hundreds of thousands of content creators that make in-depth video breakdowns of each state, city, and even probably neighborhood or apartment building.
10. Don’t Forget About Where You Are Currently
You are probably thinking about moving because you are tired of your current place, maybe you are just looking for a change, or maybe you are moving for fun. I have this as my last item on the checklist because I think it is important to remember why you fell in love with where you are currently.
I have an exercise for you: write out all the things you will lose when you decide to move.
See how long that list actually is?
The best thing about this exercise is you realize that where you are currently might be the best spot for you. It is okay, we have all watched too many Friends episodes and decided we MUST live in New York. We have all watched hours of New Girl and decided the next move needs to be a loft with three people we met online.
But, remember, think this through and refer to your checklist.
Organize it on Excel
Now that your checklist is complete, the next best thing to do is get organized. What better way to organize your thoughts and data points than in a trusty Excel spreadsheet?
Once you open it up, write out all your potential cities in the one row and all your questions in another and then leave room for your answers in the middle to help you visualize all the pros/cons of each place.
And just like that, you now have a great breakdown to make the best decision for you and your life moving forward.
Cheers!
Announcement⤵️
I have turned on paid subscriptions! But its not what you think.
All of my content will remain free and accessible to you at no extra charge, so do not worry that this is suddenly going to start costing you money. I have turned on paid subscriptions solely to give my readers the ability to financially support the newsletter. A paid subscription is completely optional, but to anyone who chooses to support me and this passion project in that way, I sincerely thank you for supporting! There will be no change in content whether you set up a subscription or not, but if you are feeling generous, and just love The In-Between Newsletter THAT much, I would deeply appreciate the support.
You can set up your paid subscription: Here
You can either sign up for an annual subscription: $50/year (saves you $10)
Or you can sign up for a monthly subscription: $5/month ($60 annually)
Again, thank you so much to everyone who may choose to sign up, and a huge thank you to those of you who have already signed up for paid subscriptions, it means so much. When I started this newsletter two years ago, I never knew it would grow to the heights it has today, and it is all thanks to my amazing readers!
You Should Definitely Share: The In-Between Newsletter
This newsletter has been growing so much since I started it in August 2020! We are already up to 482 subscribers. Let’s keep the momentum going!
I want this newsletter to be for anyone, all ages, and all backgrounds.
Like I said above, I feel like the public school system does not always teach us some of the most important information we need to be ready for the real world. And so, The In-Between Newsletter was born. I write about topics ranging from career, finances, personal development, and everything else in between that I think everyone would benefit from.
So, if you know anyone that would benefit from a weekly newsletter written by a great, humorous, overall exceptional writer, then share the link and just put in an email!
I appreciate all the endless support and look forward to growing this thing even bigger.
