Recent comments in /f/RhodeIsland

t1_jegyobr wrote

Yeah if you don’t insist on living in the highest COL areas of the state it’s very reasonable. I work in providence but the rents here in northern Ri are more reasonable and the competition for units less insane. If you insist on living in a 2 bedroom on the East Side then no, you will have a hard time affording to live here

Edit: fixed typo

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t1_jegrg6a wrote

I make ~60 K per year as a resident doctor. After taxes it’s about 3.5 K per month and I pay about $1k /mo for rent. My car is paid off, not that I need it cause I can walk to the hospital from my apt. I get health and dental through my job. I have 200/mo going automatically into my retirement investment account with employer match. I spend probably $300-400 per month on food because I like to splurge on good ingredients to cook with.

Admittedly I don’t spend a lot of money on basically anything else as I don’t have time outside of work to spend the money so I’ve been able to put a few thousand in my savings account.

I definitely don’t live like a king but I don’t feel like I have problems affording the essentials and the occasional splurge purchase.

Definitely doable. But I couldn’t raise a family on this salary.

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OP t1_jegrdbv wrote

We did this past week actually. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time in each area but found that for our style the most sensible option is going to be East Greenwich (or directly surrounding areas).

The reason we came to this conclusion:

  • E. Greenwich most resembles our current home in FFC. Lots of woods, charming town, schools (private and public), large lots, plenty of beautiful old homes
  • ease of access to both the train and the airport are important for us and not driving 45 minutes is going to make our living easier.
  • How we personally spend our daily lives is mostly homebodies, but when we want to strike out for our adventures 2-3 times per week we can given this is a very convenient home base to beaches, Jamestown, Newport etc.

Many of the other areas certainly had their charm but it felt like for us a lot of trade offs for our needs. Jamestown for instance is beautiful and has a lovely town, but smaller lots, less dense woods, not as convenient. Bristol / Barrington has lots to like but definitely less convenient for commuting to Boston/NYC and where our children will likely go to schools for instance.

So for us, despite everything having plenty to like, EG seems like the easiest pick that affords us the quaint life that we currently enjoy without going overboard as well as access to things to do given everything is so easy to drive to for a day trip. It was great to ponder the possibilities on a map but there really is no substitution for going there and that helped us choose pretty quickly.

To your point real estate in EG is pretty sparse, and I don’t want to minimize the expense, but we also are coming from an area that is SHOCKING even to us (lots of properties being relisted for double and triple pre Covid levels) so I at least take solace that we aren’t paying as crazy prices as we would otherwise have to here.

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