Can't live where I want too, need other options.

sporty

Wed, Sep 10 2008, 7:51 pm

When DH and I got married a year ago we settled in a small apt. Now, B"H we are expecting and we need to move, we have no space at all. I can't stand the apartment, I am so cluttered that all my clothes ends up in piles on the floor. DH works very hard but his field doesn't earn him tons of money. My parents bought all my siblings their homes but they all bought so many years ago and the prices were lower then. They all bought in the town where I grew up. DH and I were dreaming about moving there too till we started looking and saw the prices. We had a few houses that we loved loved loved and we almost got and we were so excited and it was near my family (not to mention all my friends) but they all fell through.
Now my parents are having second thoughts about us moving there, they feel like we may not be able to keep up with the neighbors. It's very expensive there and the people make a lot of money to live there. It's a real downer, because it's all I know - every friend I have got married and moved back there and my entire family....but if I have to move away I guess I have to do that. I just have no idea where to go. DH and I sometimes say we'd like to live in Florida but I don't know what the cost of living is there, and what the schools are like etc. It's so big to move away - it makes me sad just thinking about it. But whether we move a plane ride or a long car ride away, it doesn't matter so much. At the end of the day, you only will get to see your family on holidays or the occasional Sunday.
Sorry for the vent. Does anyone have any information on Florida - Miami I guess? We'd have to go try it out for a Shabbos and see if there are couples like us, late 20's.....

tovarena

Wed, Sep 10 2008, 8:23 pm

There are 4 or 5 different frum communities in South Florida - dispersed over 45 miles or so north to south. It really will depend on what sort of community you're looking for and probably where your husband will get a job (since they're so spread out). But all of the major communities will definitely have nice amounts of couples in their 20's and 30's. What sort of community and schools are you looking for?

sporty

Wed, Sep 10 2008, 10:39 pm

Thanks for your reply. I spoke to DH tonight and he really wants to stay in the NY/NJ area. We are both really sad about it all, he's quite depressed, and if I think about it I cry too. I'd love to be near my family, it's going to be sad to never live near them. I think we came up with a solution for now. I am going to look for spacious apartments in Riverdale. We hope to make some good friends there and then maybe we'll find a community to buy a house in later on. I guess after all the yom tovim I will start the apartment search. I wish DH wasn't so sad....

sporty

Wed, Sep 10 2008, 10:52 pm

I think the problem is that the community will never be for us - money wise. It's competitive and wealthy and if we can't keep up it could be hard to live there. I think we are better off not taking an apartment in that neighborhood if we may not settle there because then we will just get even more comfortable and make even more friends, and we are better doing that somewhere else if our future is not there. DH doesn't even want to spend yom tov there now, he said it will be too hard to be there now.

sporty

Wed, Sep 10 2008, 10:57 pm

What is an estate sale?

It's not really so much the buying the house, though that is an issue, it's more separate, that once we are in the house and in the community we may not be able to keep up at all. I don't know what keeping up necessarily is but I think it's more to do with kids than us - I see how my nieces, nephews and all their friends always have to have the newest and latest technology, phones etc. I walk around with the same cell phone as a child! I don't want that for my own children bc I am scared we wont be able to provide it, and then they will suffer bc all their friends will have it, and I'd rather just be away from that all...I don't know if you can escape that but I like to think there are places where it's not like that.

sporty

Wed, Sep 10 2008, 11:00 pm

mummiedearest
PostPosted: Wed, Sep 10 2008, 9:54 pm Post subject: re: Can't live where I want too, need other options.
is there a cheaper community fairly close by?

Yea, a few, but you end up using the same schools. I have a friend who looked in to all that before she bought a house and she said you dont save that much.

Starhavah

Wed, Sep 10 2008, 11:20 pm

sporty wrote:

...once we are in the house and in the community we may not be able to keep up at all. I don't know what keeping up necessarily is but I think it's more to do with kids than us - I see how my nieces, nephews and all their friends always have to have the newest and latest technology, phones etc. I walk around with the same cell phone as a child! I don't want that for my own children bc I am scared we wont be able to provide it, and then they will suffer bc all their friends will have it, and I'd rather just be away from that all...I don't know if you can escape that but I like to think there are places where it's not like that.

I hate that people feel this way. I was raised upper middle class and my folks never bought me all the new stuff. We shopped at K-mart and Bradley's for clothes. My mom said if I wanted better clothes than that I had to go out and get a job and earn the money, which I did of course. (I also had to save half of my earnings for college). I am glad because now when DH's kids have all the lastest technology and DD asks I can honestly say , "No, you don't need it." If more parents just refused to play into that BS and stopped buying expensive electronic toys or clothes or Starbucks cards or whatever for their kids then the kids would not be so materialistic. I hate the keeping up with the Cohens attitude and I refuse to play along. It is too bad for DD because she would really like to play. Bad Ima, being so uncooperative. LOL

BTW, that is one reason that I refuse to live in NY and refuse to live in the suburbs.

Star Havah