Time to start a thread about bringing your family to the oil patch.

Very good thread. To me it ain't worth it. The money is good but what kind of lifestyle is your family gonna get outhere? U know they say if the wife ain't happy u aint happy mine would proly head outhere and end up coming back 3months later. My question to you is this how much longer do u plan on being outhere? I had the opportunity to head outhere but after some research I realized its dead outhere. Very good thread.

 

It is a good thread and I think it's something most guys don't think about before they head out there. I live 20 miles from Dallas and for the last four years I've been home every night while working in the oilfield. I'm about to have to go to west Texas cause the work here is slowing down. This is a choice me and my wife have made for our family. She's completely understands and is on board 100% which makes it much easier.

I think in Texas it is much easier to make a life for your family than it would be in nd. She is close to her friends and family and we have plenty to do when I'm off. This is a lifestyle for us. It's all we've ever known. I make great money and have awesome benifits and it allows her to stay home and raise our kids. I get twenty weeks off a year and make right under 100k a year right now so for us it is completely worth it.

 

Good idea for a thread.

I would not bring my wife and kids up to ND or Texas for any reason. I spent a week down in Texas on the west side and it was better than what I remembered ND being but still I would not like thinking my wife and kids would be sitting there waiting for me to get home in a strange land for them.

I discussed this with my wife the other day and she said what ever you do, I will support you. The kids don't care either way, they will miss me but my home time I make up with it and seeing I have no issues with communicating with them it is less than a worry for them. We have had to deal with some bad stuff and I had to go on the road for 12 weeks at a time, sometimes spending 26 weeks out on the road.

I don't understand how people can even consider bring wife and kids anywhere that people are living out of campers or in hotels, it is like when I was up in the great northwest in Canada, not the place for my wife let alone kids with those who were let's say criminally suspect.

 

Do ya want to take home 100,000 a year or live in poverty................which one is it...........what keeps you from buyin a house ?

 

I'm single, so don't face a lot of these issues, but even I know ND isn't ideal for families. The schools are overcrowded and underfunded. Housing is too expensive, and there's always the risk of overpaying only to see prices drop when it's time to sell. The roads are dangerous, even in good conditions due to reckless drivers filled with testosterone (and other chemicals). Everything is over-priced, and there's no cultural scene (for those that care about such things). Every deadbeat and scumbag in the country has heard the streets were flooded with easy money up here, and when they discover otherwise they often fall back on old habits.

What you're left with is the prospect of raising your family in a barren environment filled with suspect characters.

But you'll make good money.

 

Well me and the wife are going all in, been up here since Oct and the being gone 6-8 weeks at a time is not cutting it.just waiting on closing on a nice twin home in Dickinson. Its a risk; but #### wages in Florida just wont cut it anymore. Plus for some crazy reason I kinda of like it up here. I'm in Watford now but theres no way I would let my wife drive with the kids on the roads up there, but Dickinson is just big enough to have a good family life, kids are young and i think they'll like it up there, wifes a teacher and there's going to be plenty of work for the foreseeable future. The patch is getting more efficient everyday and it will come to the point that the work will mostly be done by people who are permanent residents. Definitely not for everyone but sometimes you just have to give it a shot, I think some people cut themselves short and for that matter ND. North Dakota will not only reap the benefits of the oil boom but the new blood of people that will become a part of its communities.

 

Five nights home a month would be great. I've been from williston to Bowman, now just started a job in new town I've been here since last July and have only been home for nine days at Christmas when my gramps passed away. I hate it here and miss my home (Michigan) badly. But I wouldn't put my wife through this being away from her family. No kids but I'm just trying to catch up by driving a #### truck out here till I can afford to come home again. She hates me being here but she would be miserable here. I know it.

 

As compared to that Camelot known as Michigan??? LOL. Oil is a small part of TX. The integrated circuit was invented here. 2nd largest high tech employment in US. Will over take CA soon as they drive off more good folks. List goes on and on. You were in center of oil boom towns looking for job. Drive 10-30 miles away from there and you can find all the housing/schools/culture you want. Hell of a lot more than MI has ever seen.

 

Texas= culture lol