This guest post is from Penelope Trunk, author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. Trunk is a career columnist for the Boston Globe and Yahoo! Finance, and also dispenses wisdom on her blog.
I recently relocated from New York City to Madison, Wisconsin. I made the move in order to have a lower cost of living, and to give me more flexibility to focus on things that will really make me and my family happy.
Most people think this is an extreme move that they could not do. But maybe you can. I am married with two small children, and I am a person who has always lived in big, expensive cities: Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. But the move turned out well for me.
I decided to move after reading a lot of research about what makes us happy — in my mind, it all points to a small, inexpensive city. We used to think that happiness was a mystery, but it’s not. The positive psychology movement is scientific, mainstream, and taught at 150 universities in the United States. At Harvard, positive psychology is the most popular undergraduate course. This is not fringe stuff, and it’s hefty enough to guide big life decisions.
The conclusions I came to will not work for all of you, but surely the research I used will give you some ideas to think about. Here are some tidbits of positive psychology research that influenced my move:
Money will not make you happy
Money doesn’t buy happiness, but you won’t feel like you have enough money if you don’t make as much as your friends and neighbors. We really only need about $40,000 to be happy. Once you have a roof over your head (not a nice roof) and food on your plate (not out-of-season fruit), happiness is based on how optimistic your outlook is. To a point.
If all your friends earn a lot more than you do, it is nearly impossible to feel secure with the amount of money you have. I love this story from the New York Times real estate section: A husband and wife are looking a summer home in the Hamptons that is on the market for $5 million, and the wife says to the husband, “If you had a better job, we wouldn’t have to live this way.”
Don’t be so arrogant as to think you could not be this person. Most of us are not immune to the uneasy feeling of being the person in the room with the least disposable income. It’s human nature.
More choices will not make you happy
In New York City you can get the best of everything. It’s part of the draw. And people who live there are very smart about figuring out what is best. In fact, so much so that if you tell someone you have the best of anything, they roll their eyes because it’s such a cliché.
The problem is that more choices make us more stressed. So if we can choose between ten very expensive health clubs, we will want one. But if there is only one, small, sort-of-ratty health club, we’ll usually just go there and work out and won’t worry that there is nothing better.
Your mortgage is more long-term than your career
Most of us will change careers more than we will change homes. Moving kids around the country in order to change jobs is not good for the children. Kids need to make long-term friends, to feel part of a community, to have a sense of stability around them so they can explore themselves.
This is not news. What’s news is that you should pick your location first and then pick your job. You will change jobs a lot, you will change careers a few times, you will probably not change your community. If you pick a community that is cheaper to live in, then you will have more flexibility when you are changing jobs and careers. The biggest barrier to people leaving a career they don’t like is that they’ve boxed themselves in financially. Living in an inexpensive city makes it more likely you can change careers when you need to.
Your relationships matter most
People think a job will make them happy, but it won’t. A job can ensure that you are not unhappy. You need to have interesting, challenging work that you can make progress on. You need to work with people you don’t hate. But that will not make you happy unless you have good relationships.
A big factor in your happiness is if you are in a committed relationship and you see that person regularly. Want to test yourself? If you are having sex once a week with the same person, you’re in a great position to maximize your happiness.
So live somewhere close to your friends and family if you can. And don’t relocate away from your significant other to get more money. It’s not worth it. The less financial stress you have in your life, the more time and energy you can spend with your friends and family.
Conclusion
I think people spend a lot of time thinking about small financial issues because they think the large financial issues are set in stone. My life became amazingly less stressful as soon as I moved to a city with a very low cost of living. I recommend that you think of doing the same thing — think about what is keeping you from doing that, and ask yourself if it’s a real barrier or just fear of a big change.
And, if you do want to consider a move seriously, here’s a bunch of other research I used for my own move.
For more of Penelope Trunk’s advice, check out her book, read her column, or visit her blog.
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This is the worst advice I’ve ever heard. I’m recently married and if I moved to a small city from philly and had kids that grew up following some other sports team I would have to kill them. Which is one of the many reasons I had to leave the hell hole that is called washington DC.
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Steve…to each, his own. I used to live in Maryland, about 30 minutes from D.C. and the same to Baltimore. I loved it!
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Steve
I really hope you’re kidding. If that would be your biggest concern about moving I don’t think you’re actually ready to even think about having children.
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Dying to move somewhere cheaper. I personally despise big city living and currently I’m in it. BUT it’s great for single, young 20-somethings. I can’t imagine being young and in a small city because it would be difficult to meet someone. But as you get older and your needs change moving to somewhere cheaper and smaller really makes sense.
Would you really raise your child in a 2 bd/1 bd 529 sq ft condo in the city? Without a parking spot for $300k? How would you fit 2 kids? Our friend is house shopping and he’s really considering that condo to buy. But where do you put your kid? It’s only for single people pretty much, even couples find it tiny.
So I think it depends on the needs of the person/family.
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I read this and the comments and one thing that jumped out at me is that people seem to believe that kids must have a big house with a big yard. I don’t think that’s true. I would never move to a city just for the sake of a big house for the kids. That seems crazy-making to me, and what good is a big house if everybody in it is unhappy?
We’ve got two kids. We live in a modest townhouse in one of the urban suburbs of San Francisco. The kids share a room. We have a dog. We walk to the library, to the farmer’s market, to the train, to the grocery, and to the parks. We are happy and we love our lives.
We’ll never have a huge house, but we don’t want one, either. I see people with huge houses filled with stuff, and that stuff seems to make them a lot more stressed than happy. In our small tiny space, we had to learn to manage the space constraints. However, I truly believe that physical closeness engenders emotional closeness, at least it works well for us.
I love living in the Bay Area, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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I’ve come to love living in a small home too. I would have preferred raising my kids in a typical home with a yard but it didn’t work out that way. My daughers are 13 and 19 and I agree with Katherine that they are probably closer emotionally from sharing a room and small quarters. It forces us to keep less STUFF, although we still have too much. I rent in an expensive area rather than own in a more rural area because the schools are excellent here and there’s a lot of good energy too. The job opportunities are plentiful too. When my kids have both moved out, I will probably downsize even more, unless I remarry. I’d like to rent a little room near the beach.
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Hundreds of thousands of kids are being happily raised in apartments and townhouses in cities like NYC, San Fran, London, Vancouver, etc – and apartments in “cheaper” cities too. Like the last two posters, I also find the prevailing opinion/assumption on blogs that one must move to the suburbs as soon as you even decide you want kids (let alone have them yet!) strange and decidedly at odds with the way my friends and family live their lives. In fact, some of the most engaged and switched-on children I know have city parks/museums/festivals/etc as their back yard, and the way they are being raised is an example to me.
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Nope, but 529 sq ft for two bedrooms is tiny. What size are the places you are raising your two children in? Maybe your apartments in SF is bigger than some single famiy homes others own.
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Livingalmostlarge, I’m not sure who you’re replying to, but I live in SF and a 529 sq ft two bedroom apartment is tiny, and by no means the norm in a city like San Francisco. Although we have everything from huge mansions to normal detached single family houses, most people live in apartments/condos which are going to be smaller than an apartment you rent in Omaha, but by no means 529 sq ft for a two bedroom.
But I think the point people are making isn’t that apartments/housing aren’t smaller in an big city, because they are, it’s that it really doesn’t matter for the quality of life; unless you raise horses or something that “requires” a lot of space. Space, is over-rated, and ultimately buying more and larger things is an empty, temporary, type of happiness.
It really depends on the person, some people feel incredibly stressed around a lot of people, and enjoy open spaces; obviously for these people a rural area makes sense; to stay in an urban area for no other reason than to make more money is a waste of years of your life for no “good” reason.
For many people, urban life is the most rewarding. Cities didn’t magically pop up, they were created, created by people. There is a reason they are like they are, it’s because that’s how people like to live. If you go to a refuge camp, where everyone is forced to leave their homes and build temporary homes, people don’t live in a “rural” style, they set up their camp in an urban style, very close to everyone else; it’s just natural for them.
I find very few people, who actually live in a large city rather than commute to it, dislike it. They may leave, but it isn’t because they hate it, it’s for other reasons, such as being close to family or buying a ranch to raise their horses.
At least in this area, most people who complain about the “big city” are commuters, as they see the worst side of the city; namely the horrible traffic, etc. I don’t feel sorry for these people, as the want their cake and eat it too. They want a big house out in the suburbs, but they want to get paid the high salaries of the city; which is fine, of course, but they pay the price of wasting 3 hours a day in traffic. IMHO, these people should move into the city, or get a job in their own community.
I noticed in your post, Livingalmostlarge, that you mentioned your friend’s condo came “without a parking spot”; from your perspective this is a horrible thing, because you have to either pay additional rent for a spot, or go through the trouble every day of finding a free spot on the street. But what you aren’t understanding is many people in very large cities drive rarely and probably don’t even own a car. A parking spot, to them, is as useful as a hanger would be to the average suburbanite.
I also see unhappiness when people visit or live in a large city and expect to live the same lifestyle they would in a suburb. Which is just as silly as expecting to live the same in a rural area (where you may have propane for heat and wells for water [this is how I grew up]) as you would in suburb. Each environment has a completely different lifestyle. I don’t, personally, need a car, as I don’t drive to work, and most normal things I need (bank, groceries, drug store) are with blocks of my home. Here, you don’t jump in the car and drive to Safeway to buy your next 2 weeks of food, you walk out your door, walk a block and buy the next 3 days worth of food, which you carry home in your little hands. If you live a lifestyle the area is setup for, you’ll find you will have very little stress.
I grew up in a rural area, and when I say rural I mean it; propane and wood for heat, wells for water that you couldn’t drink (we had to go into “town” and fill up big containers of water for drinking. The concept of drinking out of the faucet was novel to me when I moved into town later in life). I had tons of space (10 acres) but very little else (friends, opportunities, culture). I’ve also lived in suburbs, and for 11 years a huge city. I can safely say that I feel the least stress, and enjoy life the most in huge city. From the number of people spilling out of the cafes onto the sidewalk, laughing and smiling, I’d say I’m not alone.
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We live in a 900 sq. ft. townhouse. It has two bedrooms with one parking spot.
As I mentioned, it isn’t in San Francisco proper. It is in one of San Francisco’s very urban suburbs, a city in itself. We walk everywhere. My husband walks to his work and I take the train to mine. My kids walk to school. We walk nearly everywhere: library, farmer’s market, grocery, etc.
We have one parking spot and we have a 11-year-old Honda Civic that we drive when we need a car. We definitely use it, mostly for trips out of town and then for trips to places like Costco and Target.
I love this life. My kids are thriving. They don’t have the problems with boredom and obesity that I see in their ex-urban or rural contemporaries. We don’t watch TV. Because we have to keep junk out of our house, they’re not very consumer-oriented. They’re happy kids, and we’re a happy family.
If we were stuck in the true suburbs, having to drive everywhere, having to fill our homes with stuff made in some third-world sweatshop, having to live in a place where quirkiness was condemned instead of celebrated, we would all be deeply, deeply unhappy.
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I’m with Annie T. For me, paying more to live in a city I love is worth it. If I found a cheaper city I loved about as much, then great. But I’ve tried moving away before and my level of happiness dropped drastically. It’s hard to put a price on community and living among a population you feel at home in.
Living where you’re happy is truly priceless, which is why it’s worth it to so many of us to do what we can to stay in some of the nation’s most expensive housing markets. I’m not advocating giving up other parts of life just to live in a pricey city, but if you can maintain your priorities and stay where you love, and just make some other trade-offs to do it, I think it’s worth it.
I’d rather be poorer in the Bay Area than rich in a part of the country where I will feel alienated or unable to take part in pursuits and environment I enjoy most.
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I have always marveled at people who say money doesn’t buy happiness. Before I am misunderstood, let me agree completely that I believe that money CANNOT and DOES NOT buy happiness.
That said however, my personal mantra has always been that anyone who says that has either never had money or was incredibly foolish with what they had.
I have been both well (six figure income) and completely homeless (more than once). My happiest periods in life were not relative to my income but moreso to my relationships and family. That said however, I have to say first hand, from experience that it is a lot easier to enjoy life, regardless of whether you are in the throws of a joyous relationship or on the brink of emotional disaster when money is adequate to tend to all of your needs and some of your desires.
In other words, my experience tells me that while money itself doesn’t buy happiness, it is a heck of lot easier to be happy when money is sufficient to meet all of your needs and at least some of your desires.
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Interesting article. I wrote a bit about this on my blog as well, from a younger point of view (no kids): http://transientneha.blogspot.com/2007/08/living-in-major-city.html
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I disagree. I moved from a city with a low cost of living to one of, if not the most expensive city in my country. Now I have more freinds, and a job I love, and if I hadn’t moved I would still be doing work I hate for minimum wage.
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