I've got to get out of California.

"Shamoononon drives like a farmer" (shamoononon) 04/13/2019 at 23:00 • Filed to: californiasucks, Gas Prices

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Between my mortgage, gas prices, and a boat load of stupid taxes I don’t know how much longer I can do it. Anybody have any software engineering jobs for a middle ager in a less pricey area? Or perhaps you want to rent a bedroom from me, or perhaps you know of a well to do suitor , or maybe you just want to give me money? Lordy it sucks sometimes. Not like I ever go to the beach.

HammerheadFistpunch > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:10

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“Anybody have any software engineering jobs for a middle ager in a less pricey area?”

You’ve just described 90% of the new move-ins to Utah.

Shamoononon drives like a farmer > HammerheadFistpunch 04/13/2019 at 23:14

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I’m not Mormon though. ¯\_()_/¯ (hee hee )  

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:14

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Iowa? Pretty much anywhere in the mid-west.

DipodomysDeserti > HammerheadFistpunch 04/13/2019 at 23:15

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Better put up a wall.

DipodomysDeserti > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:16

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I hear Seattle is nice.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:17

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Utah's economy is 1healthyboi, though I'd definitely live out in the sticks... err, rocks... like HHFP and not in central Provo Valley.

66P1800inpieces > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:17

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I’m bothered by $3.20 for 91 octane in NJ . Is 91 your Supreme? $4.37 a nd you have to get out of your car?

My bird IS the word > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:17

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Pittsburgh? Its dirt cheap to live here and there's tons of software gigs. South hills area is pretty nice.

Shamoononon drives like a farmer > 66P1800inpieces 04/13/2019 at 23:23

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This is before the prices went up another 10 cents.  A bunch of morons in charge of making laws.  

WildlyMild > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:24

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Minnesota. Dont work in tech but tech jobs are crazy plentiful. Cost of living is good. Winter kills the bugs. No emissions testing. One of, if not the, highest per capita fortune 500 states in the country. Its a nice place.

MrDakka > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:26

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How else are we going to pay for high speed rail?

HammerheadFistpunch > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:26

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You’ve just described 85% of the people moving to Utah.  

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:27

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They are pretty open for membership tho.

HammerheadFistpunch > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 04/13/2019 at 23:27

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I wouldn’t live in Utah valley unless I absolutely had to.

HammerheadFistpunch > DipodomysDeserti 04/13/2019 at 23:28

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so far the weak beer is acting as an effective wall.  fine with me.

Shamoononon drives like a farmer > HammerheadFistpunch 04/13/2019 at 23:30

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I actually really like weak beer.  It means I can drink more and won’t wake up with a hangover.  SOLD!  

MM54 > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:38

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We have a pretty big software group where I work , but it’s Ohio so it’s pretty shitty, but cheaper.

DipodomysDeserti > HammerheadFistpunch 04/13/2019 at 23:38

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These are tech bros, they welcome the weak stuff. Everyone else can drive over to Wyoming.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:44

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That’s basically why I left california, no matter how much money I made I never felt like I was getting ahead and there are so many god damn people. Just way to many people. 

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/13/2019 at 23:51

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Ohio.

If you find anyone willing to actually pay more reasonable wages though, let me know. Not playing this “well we got X and you can’t be good at Y, Z, A, B, C, and D” bullshit any more.

Svart Smart, traded in his Smart > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 00:22

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Have you heard of the Silicon Forest?

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 00:41

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Feel like moving to New Zealand? My employer’s hiring.

Having said that, gas is about twice what it is in California, and real estate’s about as expe ns ive as anywhere outside Silicon Valley. Oh, and pay rates are a lot lower. So maybe not :-(.

Though our tax system is at least simple. T ell IRD how many kids you have so you get the rebate on that , job done (unless you’re self employed or have lots of assets) . Most people don’t even need to fill in a tax return.

smobgirl > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 00:49

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Just beware, half of the inhabited part of Utah is superfund sites. Not that CA is much better.

fintail > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 00:51

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Come to WA, everyone else from CA is here, fuel is marginally cheaper, real estate is .001% cheaper, no state income tax, the list goes on.

Gerry197 > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 01:20

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These prices honestly won’t last for very long, it happened about 5 months ago as well.

H owever, that’s probably an extreme example. I’ve seen ranges from $3.69 (Costco) to well above $4.35 in my area within a block radius.

You can blame the “refinery” maintenance or collusion I say for causing this spike.

RiceRocketeer Extraordinaire > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 01:32

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I take public transportation to work through the heart of LA.  It is not pretty.

pip bip - choose Corrour > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 01:33

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i’d happily have fuel that cheap.

we’re paying 1.27cpl or $4.86 per U.S. gallon

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > HammerheadFistpunch 04/14/2019 at 02:38

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Utah won’t leave me alone. Recruiters there keep sending me job descriptions with near-coastal salary estimates. It’s too bad they didn’t offer decent money to me for similar jobs when I lived there... Now they’re desperate and the decent housing is twice what it was when I lived there, plus it was hard to get out of that gravity well,  so it’s a hard no.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 03:29

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SLC has been less than 50% Mormon for at least 30 years now. Even the closer-in metro outside the city is probably under 50% in most areas. The expensive areas along the foothills in the Salt Lake Valley have been minority Mormon for so long that I’m not sure they ever were majority Mormon.

That said, housing prices are out of hand there, especially relative to what you get. My parents live in a piece of crap house built in the 1980s that is apparently worth $380k, which completely blows my mind. I’d be reluctant to pay even $200k for it and they paid $108k for it in 1997.

Pay is distinctly lower for all job types there , especially if you’re looking for work once you live there. The people I knew that did well in the area moved there to take a job or transferred from somewhere else bringing a high income unavailable to locals . These people all lived in expensive sections of the metro that were highly isolated from the local populations with very low concentrations of Mormons. Few locals could afford these areas; I knew these people through church. It was like a merry-go-round, as the congregation had a welcoming and farewell announcement every week or two. The houses they lived in changed hands frequently, but it was always seemingly between a non-local and a new non-local. Most of my friends came from these transient families from other places because they were nothing like the locals and therefore were more accepting . The people that grew up there might as well have been Mormons with how disinterested they were in having anything to do with transplants (especially us Californians, which I was branded for the entire time I lived there).

People foolish enough to stay in the metro when they needed new jobs ended up moving to typical local housing because they couldn’t afford to stay in the expensive areas on local wages. There were exceptions, but they were in extremely unusual niche markets where there was no real competition.

On the other hand , medical & dental work of all types is first world quality and cheap there...

I was there 12 years (well, sort of, as I spent a total of almost 4 years of that time outside the state, mostly in CA, WY, and BC); these  were the worst years of my life aside from all the snowboarding I did when I could afford it.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 03:31

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The downside is that you can spot beer drinkers there because they’re all really fat. You lose the alcohol, not the calories, so if you try to drink enough to get a buzz you’ll get fat. Alcoholics there almost invariably end up drinking cheap liquor  from the state liquor stores.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > fintail 04/14/2019 at 03:48

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California is a big and very diverse state. Most of the land is in regions akin to eastern WA in housing prices and pay scales. Major cities also vary greatly. For example, IM would almost certainly be worse off by moving to our area.

Having done a move from San Diego, there’s no gain in moving here unless you can land distinctly higher pay (in my experience, pay is about even to slightly lower here, depending on the specialty). Everything else offsets the headline savings. Sales taxes on everything but food, even services, really shocked me at first. So did higher insurance premiums, more expensive registration, and all utilities being distinctly more expensive. It totally offset my savings on slightly cheaper housing at the time.

It’s a great move from the SF Bay Area, but questionable from most of the remainder of the state...

O ur traffic is worse than almost anywhere in CA, too.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Gerry197 04/14/2019 at 03:54

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All good points. It also happened about 10-11 years ago.

Gerry197 > Eric @ opposite-lock.com 04/14/2019 at 04:17

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True, that one also included a recession and gas prices no one had experienced before. Also no competition for Middle Eastern oil, which helped drive the prices of oil and gas prices.

However, US oil production now leads the Middle East and profitable at a much lower price point than was ever thought possible.

Honestly, there is not a market for high barrel prices anymore, just occasional blips from traders trading on momentum (and news) and then selling and cashing in.

These prices are due to a spike in trading (not really based on fundamentals) and a whole lot of refineries closing down for “maintenance”. Then there are refineries  switching to more expensive spring blend. Just a perfect storm for high gas prices.   

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 04/14/2019 at 04:40

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Unless there has been a huge fundamental shift in the market there, it’s just part of their typical boom-bust cycle. Northern Utah is the tail on the dog and the canary in the coal mine. It’s a nearshoring destination because the people have a decent grasp of English and the area has an educated workforce willing to work for peanuts to stay there . As an expanding economy   matures, large companies from outside the state start to invest in opening or expanding operations there, hence the tail of the dog. When recessions hit, companies from elsewhere cut their headcount there first, hence the canary in the coal mine... When recruiters there stop sending me job descriptions, I’ll know the market is about to tank.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > pip bip - choose Corrour 04/14/2019 at 07:24

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Bargain. 1.379 is the cheapest here.

pip bip - choose Corrour > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 04/14/2019 at 07:26

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:(

random001 > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 07:36

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We have a software engineer position open.  Dayton is really nice.

f86sabre > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 08:00

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We are hiring. Atlanta isn’t too bad.

https://delta.greatjob.net/jobs/JobListingAction.action?jobUUID=00JEA_0_en_US&job=00JEA&reqId=0&PSUID=fb3ffd16-09b5-4aeb-86db-a5455fc26abd

KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 08:27

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Move to Texas

DipodomysDeserti > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 04/14/2019 at 08:39

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You do not want Californians moving to New Zealand. These people ruin everything and move on once there’s nothing left to take.

MoCamino > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 08:39

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Geez. Here in SW Missouri regular is about $2.50. Lots of things here suck (the weather, crappy roads, etc) but at least gas is way cheaper. At 15 mpg I’m happy about that.  Not a lot of software jobs here, but there are some.

Out of curiosity, where in CA did you take that picture?  My wife came from San Diego and wants to see if she can guess from the picture.   :)

Under_Score > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/14/2019 at 10:54

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-People in Butte County in 2018

Cé hé sin > pip bip - choose Corrour 04/14/2019 at 11:43

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Bargain. I'm paying €1.40 approx.

fintail > Eric @ opposite-lock.com 04/14/2019 at 12:00

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Yeah, I was more mocking/complaining about the endless flood of new arrivals who continue to fall in love with this place sometimes for reasons I don’t grasp. As you say, for most, cost of living greatly outpaces pay, and I won’t even get into traffic. They must really love the scenery and maybe the social climate. I once read something like SF is where go-getters/workaholics/rich who become richer make their money, Seattle is where they settle down with family.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great place to live, better than much of the country. If my employer said tomorrow “we’re moving HQ to Spokane in Q3, we’ll move you or give you a severance package and wish you well” ), I’d reply with “so when are we going?”.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > fintail 04/14/2019 at 16:27

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The social climate makes me chuckle. This is the weirdest place I’ve ever lived from that perspective. It even makes me uncomfortable, and I’m pretty antisocial.

I would probably take them up on it, too. I’d prefer somewhere truly rural like the coast, but just about any smaller city would beat this metro area in quality of life.

fintail > Eric @ opposite-lock.com 04/14/2019 at 20:21

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The “cool” (as in quiet and boring) social interactions here along with the weird socio-political arena - people are flamboyantly to the left, to the point where I, considering myself to be liberal, want to tell them to simmer a little, and at the same time, they won’t touch the regressive taxes and growing socio-economic chasm in this area. It’s really goofy.

My mom lives on the coast.  The weather and poor economy would get to me - unless you can really work from home, don’t mind living in a low amenity area, and like the damp, it can get old.  I spent a bit of my childhood east of the mountains, I like that climate and scenery, not to mention cost of living.  Some jobs migrate that way as time goes on, too.  If I could have my Bellevue salary in Spokane, I would be all over it.

duurtlang > Cé hé sin 04/15/2019 at 02:03

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Yesterday I  paid both €1.819 (the Netherlands, expensive highway gas station) and €1.269 (Luxemburg) for a liter of gasoline.

jminer > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 04/15/2019 at 18:01

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St Louis is cheap and a big IT town. There’s always a ton of jobs, I’m a sysadmin so I stay pretty plugged into it. My company along with a lot of others is closing branches is more expensive parts of the country and relocating here as cost of living is dirt cheap

Super red state though, which is a big drawback for a lot of people (myself included). If you don’t want to live in a state run by religious fanatics that cut education and social safety net funding first while arming local police forces like a military  I’d stay away...