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My uncle in Ohio keeps saying I should stay in the city for the jobs, and I finally pushed back
My uncle called last Sunday from Dayton and gave me the usual speech about how leaving Chicago would be crazy at 27 with my salary. He asked what I would even do back home in a town of 12,000 people with no offices and one hospital. But here is the thing he does not get: I ran the numbers after our call and my rent is $1,850 for a one bedroom that gets no sun, which is more than his mortgage on a four bedroom house. He is retired with a pension, so the city hustle is not something he has lived through since the 90s. Everyone says the jobs are the reason to stay, but I work remote three days a week anyway and my company has people in four states. Am I wrong for thinking the pay gap does not actually cover what I lose in space, sleep, and savings?
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sanchez.mary10d ago
Ha, your uncle is basically lecturing you about city life from a hammock he bought with a pension most of us will never see. My own "expensive city apartment" budget goes mostly to a window that faces a brick wall, so I feel you there. Here is the real math though: if you already work remote most of the week, that salary is paying for a zip code, not a job. You are not wrong, you are just the first person in the family to actually run the numbers instead of repeating what worked in 1993.
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