Relocating, when possible, to places with a lower cost of living is a highly underrated move.
See, everyone obsesses over salary. But income is only one side of the coin. The other side is expenses.
The part that everyone forgets is this: Both sides of this coin are equally valuable.
An annual $10,000 in lower costs is the same thing as an extra $10,000 in higher income.
A major move to save money is outside so many people’s comfort level that most never consider it though.
Maybe there’s ego in it too?
Maybe you think family or friends would see it as a failure?
Or, would you rather be from New York City, or Kingman Arizona?
Understand: We know about you. But you don’t know about us.
The double-double is when you can pull off a crazy move to earn more and save more.
Cheers to that.
When I was ten, my father had moved us—three boys, ages fourteen, ten, and eight—from Bronxville, New York, a compact, affluent suburb just north of Manhattan, to Kingman, Arizona, in a desert valley ringed by two mountain ranges, known primarily to the outside world as a place to get gas en route to somewhere else. He was drawn by the sun, by the cost of living—how else would he pay for his sons to attend the colleges he aspired to?—and by the opportunity to establish a regional cardiology practice of his own.
-Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air (Amazon)