@DL Martin Please tell me how you really feel. : ) Sounds like you are quite tired of the big city life, my friend. Glad to hear that you are finding a place in Amberley - very nice, peaceful area.
Are you originally from Cincinnati? I saw you were a Bearcats fan? That's my alma mater. What is bringing you back to Cincinnati?
So I work in finance and my potential total pay package could just about double from what I'm getting now, and my wife's could go up maybe 30-40% as well. These aren't lateral career moves we're taking, and we're not moving just to move, like some do. Frankly, these same jobs we're finding in LA are just not available in Cincinnati, which is part of the reason for the move. Cincinnati is much smaller than Los Angeles, and while you can make a great career in this town, it's a little bit more difficult to advance quite the way we're looking for, as compared with some of the other larger cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, LA. Los Angeles, being an alpha world city, has an enormous economy, and there are a lot of job opportunities available in my wife and I's specific fields.
Absolutely it's more expensive. I'm projecting we'll be paying about $30k extra per year between the two of us, as compared with where we are now, and we'll be living in an apartment, quite different from the larger SFH we live in now. But the pay difference will be higher than this $30k increase, so we'll be earning well more than we are now, even after the cost of living goes up.
We're young, with no kids yet. You lived in Long Beach for 28 years. I've lived on this earth for 28 years. I can handle a few years of living in an apartment and renting. I'm not going to buy an $800k house, and we don't buy $40k or $80k cars (think Rich Dad's Assets vs Liabilities). All the extra money we're going to be making is funneling straight into our investment portfolio. In 3 years, we'll assess where we are financially and make the decision of buying a new place and where that will be. It could very well be outside of LA, as we'll have the new job experience we wanted, we'll have lived the beach life for awhile, and maybe we'll be on to something new. It's hard telling - too far away.
I've lived in LA before, and have been back many times. I'm pretty familiar with it, and how to navigate it. We'll be living in Marina Del Rey or very nearby, most likely, with our jobs very close so as to avoid as much traffic as we can. The neighborhood will give us access to the shops and restaurants we want, the beach, and it's a short drive up the PCH to the Santa Monica Mountains if we want out of the city. Also, it's not quite like living inland, and has a much more laid-back feel, that we both really enjoy. It's a beach city.
Aside from just the job and financial considerations, LA and Cincy are totally different. In Cincinnati, I hope you're OK with 4-5 months/year of cold, gray skies, and dead outdoor plant life. Like you said about LA, visiting Cincy in the winter is OK and dealing with it in small doses is fine. But, as the days get shorter, the nights longer, the weather cold and gray with brown all around from the dormant plant life, the environment can frankly get fairly depressing. Ask anyone who lives in the cold climates. There is a real psychological thing known as seasonal depression. In January in LA you could go surfing. In January in Cincinnati you will be busy shoveling your driveway and staying indoors as much as possible, and as most of the city does.
In Cincinnati, there is no ocean, and no mountains. We're in the middle. : ) If you want to be by a great expanse of water or mountain range, you're going to be taking a day's drive.
In LA, there are an enormous amount of restaurants to try, of neighborhoods to visit, entertainment options for young and old, great national parks to drive to, other very cool and different cities that can be visited very easily (San Diego, Vegas, San Francisco), and if music is important to you, LA gets all the major tours. Cincinnati misses out on some of them, due to its smaller size, which means you'll sometimes then have to drive to another city if you want to see your favorite act. I don't watch college football, and if I do it's the Bearcats, and I can still do that on TV (I think I've only been to one game ever). LA has two MLB teams with the Dodgers and Angels, two NBA teams with the Lakers and the Clippers (Cincinnati has no NBA - you'll drive to Indy or Cleveland which is 3+ hours), an NHL team with the Kings (no NHL in Cincy), and an MLS team with the Galaxy (no MLS in Cincy). The only thing missing in LA is the NFL, which is unfortunate, but there is an awful lot of chatter about making it happen: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000481409/article/goodell-were-not-focused-on-an-la-team-for-2016. Maybe moving the Raiders, Rams, or Chargers in. It's a focus.
Anyway, that's enough rambling. Thanks for your post, and I hope you liked my counter. Point is, moving to any city is a very personal and subjective opinion, with many things to consider other than simply which one is more expensive than the other (If a city, any city, is more expensive than others, it's due to demand market forces pushing up cost because so many people want to live there. That in itself should be somewhat eye opening). It's difficult for a total stranger to know what's important to another in their decision to move. Cincinnati is a great city, and I'll continue to have roots and investments there, and it'd be the first place I'd move back to if LA doesn't work out. I wish you the best of luck in your new neighborhood! Cheers.
