Ppl in high cost states - How do you save money?

[MrSquished]

heh I usually hear those comments to justify my co-workers continuing to stay in NJ. I feel bad for some of these guys paying $3k+ a month on okay homes.

The balance of financial freedom and things to do weighs out pretty good for me where I currently live. I'm okay with driving 20-30 minutes to get to hotspots of activity. Besides, everyone in NJ is mean.

People in NJ are nice enough. NJ gets a bad rap but it's pretty awesome and especially if you live close to NYC - the greatest city in the world. I am 10 minutes from Manhattan with walking and a train. Amazing. 30 minutes north is my first state park with hiking trails. 1 hour and a half or less north or west I am at numerous large state parks with everything from camping to fishing and everything in between. Less than 1 hour south and start to hit beaches.

Makes it worth it to pay the higher cost of living IMO

 

[rh71]

^ what are the legitimate higher costs of living really? Home/rent price and taxes... anything else? I don't see gas prices, groceries, etc. being that much worse. It's not that hard to make it & prosper assuming little/no debt.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

29, paying $2150/month in rent, going out every weekend, traveling every other month, saving absolutely nothing (outside of my 401k). Moving in with my girlfriend early next year is going to help big league. A salary bump would help too... I'm starting to feel a little bit under paid compared to what data has blown up to here in the west Los Angeles area. Not a lot, but I'm feeling like I'm going to need to get as much as I can to really make it out here in the longer term.

 

[MrSquished]

^ what are the legitimate higher costs of living really? Home/rent price and taxes... anything else? I don't see gas prices, groceries, etc. being that much worse. It's not that hard to make it & prosper assuming little/no debt.

I think grocery prices in NJ are slightly higher than the national average. Gas is towards the pricier side of the states but not the priciest. Mostly everything else is the national average.

Go NJ!

 

[Murloc]

Do you really need a bigger home? Poor people stash all their kids in a single bedroom.

 

[purbeast0]

Do you really need a bigger home? Poor people stash all their kids in a single bedroom.

It's pretty crazy how having a kid can make your house feel tiny. We have a 2200+ sqft home and it felt so big until we had a kid, and he's still under 2 years old. I can't imagine until we have a second or he just gets bigger how it will feel even smaller.

 

[core2slow]

Jumping job every 2-3yr and getting a 15-20k jump in salary.

 

[Kaido]

It's pretty crazy how having a kid can make your house feel tiny. We have a 2200+ sqft home and it felt so big until we had a kid, and he's still under 2 years old. I can't imagine until we have a second or he just gets bigger how it will feel even smaller.

It's actually not that bad. I relocated not too long ago & we primarily spend all of our time in the living room, which is just under 250 square feet. We limit the number of toys (especially large ones), have everything stored in nice IKEA shelves with slide-out boxes, and digitized everything we could (photos, games, movies, music, etc.). I'd much rather find a place with a big backyard, but we make due for now by going to the park & stuff. It is hard with kids though because their "stuff" tends to grow & grow.

 

[Mai72]

People in NJ are nice enough. NJ gets a bad rap but it's pretty awesome and especially if you live close to NYC - the greatest city in the world. I am 10 minutes from Manhattan with walking and a train. Amazing. 30 minutes north is my first state park with hiking trails. 1 hour and a half or less north or west I am at numerous large state parks with everything from camping to fishing and everything in between. Less than 1 hour south and start to hit beaches.

Makes it worth it to pay the higher cost of living IMO

I live in South Jersey. It's much different than North Jersey. The cost of living is cheaper but the opportunities to make money are few. Unless you're a business owner who has a store or a shop on the boardwalk.

 

[zerocool84]

I just moved to the SF Bay Area and damn its expensive out here unless you choose to live extremely far away. I don't eat out a lot. Eating out is a huge expense and just cutting that out has saved me tons of money.

 

[Ken g6]

Are groceries more expensive on the coasts? I recently tried Amazon Prime Pantry. It wouldn't have been worth it without a $10-off coupon, compared to WalMart here. And, of course, you have to have Prime. But if all you have in your area is bodegas, it might be a better deal.

 

[Anubis]

Are groceries more expensive on the coasts? I recently tried Amazon Prime Pantry. It wouldn't have been worth it without a $10-off coupon, compared to WalMart here. And, of course, you have to have Prime. But if all you have in your area is bodegas, it might be a better deal.

not coastal based but distance it has to travel based and taxes. fresh produce in NE gets expensive because it comes from far away and such

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I think you just wait longer to have a family. You and I are in similar situations ... 27, $1700/month for a one bed here. I still manage to put away 1.5-2k cash per month, after maxing out retirement and HSA. How much are your student and car loans that they are significantly impacting your finances?

Hate to say it, but if you're going to have a family it's best to start in your 20s somewhere. You will come to realize that getting your wife (if you have one, of course) knocked up isn't always the most easy task when you or her start getting older.

 

[zinfamous]

Are groceries more expensive on the coasts? I recently tried Amazon Prime Pantry. It wouldn't have been worth it without a $10-off coupon, compared to WalMart here. And, of course, you have to have Prime. But if all you have in your area is bodegas, it might be a better deal.

depends. groceries are reasonable-to-cheap in CA, because that is where all the awesome food is grown, and also where a decent amount of it is slaughtered and squeezed from nipples.
You also have the benefit of choice in variety there that you can't really find anywhere else in the US. But that's the one great thing about CoL in most of CA--everything else is expensive af.

 

[z1ggy]

If you have any left over after expenses you are doing better than a lot of people "around" your age, or any other age. Yes, everyone is, in essence, making it seem simple. That's because the choice is yours.

You are living the New American Dream (NAD). Clothes on your back, gas for a car that barely runs to take you to your dead end job that will be offshored the second they can work out the logistics of moving. Don't forget the fun stuff that comes at you out of nowhere like getting sick, needing $$$$ worth of medicine, and having to take a couple days off work even if you are out of sick days.

People who don't have to worry about things like that are living the NAD.

The bar is considerably lower now than it used to be.

Yeah actually I saw on the news recently just ~50% of people now are making more than their parents. Meaning barely half of millennials are making more than baby boomers did at this point in their lives, adjusting for inflation. That's pretty bad if you ask me, because about 75% of baby boomers made more than their parents did around my age, adjusted for inflation.

I think $11k is "enough" of a cushion for me right now for emergency stuff. I'll probably dump my tax return into my savings acct, then start trying to pay my car off a little bit faster. As far as making more money goes, that's more of a long term solution/plan.

 

[Insomniator]

The answer is double income no kids. Wife and I (30) work decent jobs and our rent is 1750 for a 2BR in North Jersey.

The cost of living here really isn't that bad. Rent is a little high but its not the end of the world. Groceries are still cheap. We each drive ~10 year old cars that are paid off. If we were smarter about spending/cared more we could probably save more and have a house by now, or have had kids already. Both will have to wait a few more years due to damn near constant traveling...

I don't blame our wedding and vacation debts on NJ... that's our own stupid fault. Once that is all caught up we'll be able to save ~2500-3000 a month. In general you have to make more, and it is easier to make more here. I assume not a lot of households at 120k+ in say... Mississippi.

But yeah if it was just me alone, I'd be screwed. Need that extra income these days, unless I want to live with some weird room mates or my parents still.

 

[z1ggy]

The answer is double income no kids. Wife and I (30) work decent jobs and our rent is 1750 for a 2BR in North Jersey.

The cost of living here really isn't that bad. Rent is a little high but its not the end of the world. Groceries are still cheap. We each drive ~10 year old cars that are paid off. If we were smarter about spending/cared more we could probably save more and have a house by now, or have had kids already. Both will have to wait a few more years due to damn near constant traveling...

I don't blame our wedding and vacation debts on NJ... that's our own stupid fault. Once that is all caught up we'll be able to save ~2500-3000 a month. In general you have to make more, and it is easier to make more here. I assume not a lot of households at 120k+ in say... Mississippi.

But yeah if it was just me alone, I'd be screwed. Need that extra income these days, unless I want to live with some weird room mates or my parents still.

Student loan debt is a killer for us. Combined we are paying around $1300 a month. I've got 4 years left on mine, she has 9.

 

[TXHokie]

Jumping job every 2-3yr and getting a 15-20k jump in salary.

Or jump to a job that is 100% telecom....then move to cheaper cost location with no state income tax and take high salary with you.

 

[ioni]

Do you really need a bigger home? Poor people stash all their kids in a single bedroom.

I would have killed to share a bedroom! We had to live in a corridor!

 

[Murloc]

I would have killed to share a bedroom! We had to live in a corridor!

forgot to mention that people who have nothing in my country aren't that poor because of the juicy welfare, they can manage to have a 2 bedroom apartment.

There's an eritrean woman with 7 kids who got asylum who forced the village she moved to to raise taxes just to pay for her welfare and special social assistance, which is decided by a higher state authority, but the municipalities have to foot the bill for it. It's 690k $ per year. That's how nuts it is.

 

[Ns1]

I just moved to the SF Bay Area and damn its expensive out here unless you choose to live extremely far away. I don't eat out a lot. Eating out is a huge expense and just cutting that out has saved me tons of money.

I don't understand this mindset - the allure of big city living is having tons of shit to do, which is usually synonymous with spending lots of money. Esp in a city like SF with so many good eats.

 

[woodman1999]

I live in north NJ outside of NYC and the CoL is obscene. My wife and I both work in the city, I am in Finance and she's in TV. We're very fortunate to have two pretty stable well paying jobs, but it wasn't like that when I first moved down from Boston. I lived in a dicey area and paid as little as possible for the time being, but it was close to the city so it kept my commuting costs down. When I finally switched companies and got promoted, we moved farther away from the city to finally buy a house. The commute sucks something awful, and frankly, I am looking for a job in NJ now, but we make ends meet with two kids in daycare (2k a month) and eat at home as much as possible. In my industry, people typically rack up credit card bills and pay them off at the end of the year with their bonuses.

 

[OverVolt]

Don't know what to tell you everyone is going through the same thing in my opinion. I'm 29.

 

[MrSquished]

I live in north NJ outside of NYC and the CoL is obscene. My wife and I both work in the city, I am in Finance and she's in TV. We're very fortunate to have two pretty stable well paying jobs, but it wasn't like that when I first moved down from Boston. I lived in a dicey area and paid as little as possible for the time being, but it was close to the city so it kept my commuting costs down. When I finally switched companies and got promoted, we moved farther away from the city to finally buy a house. The commute sucks something awful, and frankly, I am looking for a job in NJ now, but we make ends meet with two kids in daycare (2k a month) and eat at home as much as possible. In my industry, people typically rack up credit card bills and pay them off at the end of the year with their bonuses.

I'd say come move to my RE agent territory of Jersey City, where your commutes would be a hop skip and a jump on the PATH trains. But you'd need at least a 3 bedroom condo, and that's at the minimum a million. Other places in Hudson County that are accessible by ferry are cheaper. Or find a suburb that has a direct train line to NYC Penn Station. Montclair is one, but that's expensive too, but there are others.

 

[jlee]

uhhhh because I'm 28? and I bought the car 2 years ago? And I didn't have $17k to pay my car in cash? lol the heck do you expect. I can't just magically pull money from the air to pay it down right now, hence the whole point of this thread.

How can people get so ahead in these types of high cost states that they can actually afford to pay a car in cash, or afford the 2 year low interest car loans?

I drive a $6000 car.

I also refuse to buy a house in NJ -- it's absurdly expensive, so I will work here, make money, and eventually leave.