April 24, 2026
Interesting conversation with a guy in a golf cart. Playing Saturday in my usual game, he shared that his daughter, her husband and two children had moved to Omaha. Not Omaha (to hide the identity) but think of some similar Midwest city. They moved from New York City.
The back story is that the son-in-law wants to begin a business, but between the cost of living and the regulations to do so, they saw little reason to remain. “They rented their 925 square foot apartment for over $7,000 and are now renting a four-bedroom home on one level for less than $3,000.”
I recall when one of my kids was starting a business and the permitting cost in New York City was $5,000 more than Miami. Guess where the business opened?
Now the thing is that big cities should not want to lose that family to Omaha. A family unit with children, an entrepreneur. They are exactly what a big city needs…consumers of all the usual things plus self-sufficient plus law-abiding plus perhaps job-creators. Striving taxpayers.
This triggered memory. Because back in the day (stop rolling your eyes), we all tried to move to a place we could afford. We did not move to a place we could not afford and then bang on the government to give us the money to close the gap. Because that struck us (me, my friends, classmates) as stupid. My Mother didn’t have the money to pay my way (I put myself through college in a single parent home) so no scratch there. And if I wanted the government to pay for it, I would have no clue where to go with that and besides, that felt like cheating.
But it was also Finance 101. If I wanted to save and build a safety cushion and eventually have the money to put a down payment on a house (20% was standard), I had to have disposable income to slot into the bank. Forehead slap!
I spent some time thinking about choice. How often do people have a choice in where to live? And I found that they have the choice, nearly all of the time. If they decide to go to work for a company in Denver, then they have chosen Denver as the place to live. Simple.
No, I’m not speaking about people who have a parent to care for or similar family obligations. Choice may be limited. Speaking more of kids coming out of school, or people in early mid-career. By late career, retirement beckons and the residency choice is driven to a retirement State, or you stay put in your current social circle.
Now it is impossible to go into this subject in detail because one could write a book about it. Instead, I’d offer a simple message.
Too many people are too casual about where they plunk down their personal flag. It is often driven by that first job offer and there you go. But in many cases, they blunder into the wrong residency choice and once they realize they’ve done that, in many/most cases, they’re embedded and can’t move.
I think the solution lies in the same kind of thought process you may have used when picking a college. You need to be clear with yourself as to what is really important and not simply jump at the check. A short list:
What environment do you want?
Urban? Rural? Suburban? Weather…do you want warm weather 24/7/365 or do you like a change of seasons? Do you like a bustling city with an active shopping/dining/sports and social scene? Or do you prefer a more sedate existence?
Here where we live, it is more the environment (we’re on the Atlantic Ocean near St. Augustine) and we’re willing to give up the bustle for that. Better be able to, because the nearest real shopping is an hour away in Jacksonville. But Michael could live in NYC easily because she used to work there and loved the scene. Not me, but she definitely. But as a couple, we worked out where we really wanted to be, where our last rodeo would be. It was a thoughtful and considered effort.
How does the cost-of-living stack up to your resources?
In general terms, urban living is more expensive than rural or suburban. There is a price to pay for all the bustle and so forth. When we go to NYC or Chicago or Miami, I seem to deplete a gaggle of $20 bills just tipping and getting nicked here and there. But if you want an urban experience, it is going to cost more than living in North Carolina.
Here I would just comment that if you have a healthy checking account, you don’t care about any of this because you can afford it. Not addressing you here.
But you see, if 100% of your paycheck goes to turning on the lights every month, you are never going to make any progress in growing your net worth (Your assets minus your liabilities equals your net worth). And eventually, retirement will be a challenge and you’ll read the headlines about Social Security with anxiety. And if it costs 110% or 120% of your paycheck, then you either have to whine to your parents/family for help, or you have to get a second job (thus no time to enjoy the environment you’ve selected), or you have to borrow the money (slippery slope) or you have to look to the government to grab it from someone else and give it to you.
Really, is any of that the way to live? Can you see any progress at all in any of that? Claude:
So not only does it make your eyes bleed to pay your living expenses, but worse, the highest cost of living areas, which deplete your checking account, carry the highest cost of buying a home.
You wonder and I answer….wages in Memphis do not even it all out. They’re relatively higher than the lower cost of living.
I don’t care how much you want Urban…if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it. If you can, then sure…go there and enjoy it.
We could go on and on. Some people make a conscious decision to pay the taxes; pay the costs for the experience it gives them. But I also observe, too often, that while the immediate pleasures of a particular environment are present and obvious, the long-term and insidious damage it does to your eventual peace of mind and well-being through depletion of personal resources isn’t felt until many years later, when it is typically too late.
More people need to be more careful and more people need to adjust themselves to reality.
Thoughts, questions, or reflections? I’d love to hear them. You can reach me anytime at anthony@workingprofit.com
