I knew I didn’t want to live in my small hometown forever. I wasn’t able to go away for college (see: overprotective parents) so I went to a medium sized city in my state. I had a good time and made friends. I then studied abroad and moved somewhat across the country after graduating and now I’m closeish to my home state in a large city.
My boyfriend and I recently broke up so we both need to move out of our 1 bedroom. I make a great salary in the city for my age (F26) but I still am not comfortable paying $1850 for rent.
I thought I had simplified my life by moving to a city but it’s started to lose its charm. Housing costs go up every month and realistically I’d never be able to buy here or even in surrounding areas. 1 bedroom apartments start at $450k and that’s just....not great.
I also haven’t built as much of a social network here in 4 years as I had hoped. Some of my friends have moved (lots of transplants), others are really busy working multiple jobs, and others are homebodies because I think the constant stimulation of the city attributes to that. I do go out with people but the price of drinks and food starts to feel suffocating. Even at dive bars, the beers are $7+.
I’m really considering moving back to my home state to a medium/small city. The state (I won’t name which lol) doesn’t have a great reputation and lots of people claim it’s awful but it really isn’t. I do feel kind of defeated moving back but I’m also scared to move somewhere even further away and having to rebuild another social circle.
I have a good amount of friends in my home state and I miss them a lot. I love my friends in my current city too though. Rent is about 30-40% cheaper (and much more space) but I’d also have to buy a car and pay for insurance/gas...but that’s also freedom I don’t have right now. Whenever I want to leave the city I pay $100+ a day to rent which really adds up for holidays (sometimes I can take a train). For context, I live extremely frugally in the city and save60-70% of my paycheck but there’s a lot of sacrifice involved.
Anyway this has gotten long. Has anyone moved back to their roots and felt better? I swore I wouldn’t, especially this soon, but I’m starting to feel like the grass isn’t greener. Anyone else felt burnt out from prices in big cities and quality of life?
Submitted November 05, 2018 at 02:51PM by Freenarn https://ift.tt/2F2i2iM