One Year Experience - Relocating!

Being someone who got the hell out of the Northeast myself I'm all for moving further south. It's pretty rare to find a job paying that much and home daily that far down south. I'm in VA and some people come close to that but the cost of living here is a lot higher than the Carolinas. You've got good experience and the area your used to driving in will help you as many people don't worry about you ever being able to get the truck places. You qualify for a lot of specialized stuff, remember the tow truck and coil endorsements are NYS things, those will go away. Those are just ways for NY to extort you out of money.

Id do some research on cost of living. $1500/wk is almost 80k/yr. Making around $80k in SC with cost of living adjustment to NY is almost $150k/yr. Is that what your making now?

 

Congratulations on joining the 800 club.... And no debt... Money saved to.....Great job driver.

 

@snatale42 makes a very good point about cost of living.

First of all, making the kind of money your making, and surviving the NE with no accidents on your first year is something you should take pride and be proud of. I know that $80k in NYC is like minimum wage because of the cost of living. Jersey's cost of living is ridiculously high as well, I'm talking over $10k property tax for $200-250k house, but the further away you go from major cities, the lower the cost of living. Making $80k a year over in Lancaster PA, would be considered upper class. So if your planning on moving down south, your probally not gonna make as much as you were in NY. But if you want a high paying local job, you might want to check out Ashley Furniture's LTL division, where they make up to $90k, and their located in NC. Or you can check out companies like UPS Freight, where their wage is the same contractly nationwide, but you need 2 years experience to be qualified, and have to wait 4 years to make top rate and make that $80-100k.

 

Let's split the difference, if we call it $1250/wk then that's $65k/yr. With cost of living adjustments to SC that's a $38k/yr job to maintain your current standard of living. So as long as your making more than that (which I'd assume you will) then your getting a raise. PLUS nice weather and year round shorts! Can't loose. COL adjustments screw with the brain when your moving to another part of the country. Took me years to get over it when I came down to VA.

 

275kish mortgage in NC/SC? Lol, that's a freaking mansion, unless you are downtown somewhere. I'd look at maintaining something like 150k. That'd be a really nice place, and prolly far more space than you'd need being single. Heck, 85k would set you up pretty decently if you did alot of searching.

 

Start perusing Craigs List for real estate in your target area. You might be shocked how little you have to pay for a house. I know in the OKC area you can get a starter home for less than half what you are talking about, if you are willing to be in a 30-50 radius from downtown.

If you can see your way to reduce your budget on the house, you will have more options for jobs in the area.