On Nh living and commutes..

[Travis Roy]

Larry Cook wrote:

> Jared,
> 
>> because of my interest in the free state project.. and the ideas behind
>> it...  now it seems the goal of moving to your part of the world is a
>> little closer.
> 
> 
> Pardon me for my directness, but if the point of your move is the Free 
> State Project, and NH has been designated as the Free State, shouldn't 
> you live and work in NH?  Doing otherwise sounds a bit hypocritical to me.

I also pointed this out, he said that he is not an official member, just 
interested. But I agree, he should at least live in NH.

> Along with the "good" you also need to take the high property taxes and 
> the smaller job market, with possibly lower salaries.

> Regarding jobs and commuting, I'd like to thank all of you who willing 
> commute to MA.  That leaves more job opportunities for me!  I've lived 
> in NH for 19 years and have always worked in NH.  I currently have a 15 
> minute commute, live in a medium sized house on 7 acres in the woods of 
> a small town, and a traffic jam is a backup of six cars!  And over those 
> 19 years my salary has increased by 350%!

Well while I agree that living and working in the same state is nice 
(even more so now that I do it). It's not always the easiest thing to 
do. Not only that, if you're just starting out or relocating you take 
what you can get to survive then move up the..

I took a pay cut from being a janitor to a tech support person at MV 
Communications just because I wanted to get into the field, from there I 
moved to a job in Chelmsford because the pay was better and it was a 
much better job with training provided. Since then I've had a few other 
jobs and now I'm working 4mins from my apt. in downtown Manchester doing 
a job I love and making okay money.. Less then I would doing the same 
thing in Mass, sure, but the commute alone was worth it. But without the 
experience I had with my Mass jobs I never would have landed this one.

I'll have land (unless something goes wrong with the deal that's in the 
works, but not likely) by August, and we hope to build within 2 years 
after that. Even after that my commute should only be 20mins max..

> So while I might not be making as much money as I could, that's not at 
> the top of my priority list.  In exchange I have more family and 
> community time because I hardly ever work more than 45 hours a week and 
> I only spend 30 minutes total on commuting instead of 1-2+ hours.

I totally agree.. Working so close to home is so much better.. Now I 
actually have time to spend the money I make :)

> Of course, with a smaller job market, I need to be more flexible in my 
> job requirements.  While I won't do toilets, I will do Windows if 
> required.  [Pun intended :-)]

HAH, as a Janitor I did BOTH! (and yes, they found out I was a tech guy 
and I not only washed windows, I worked on windows computers for a few 
of the teachers at the school I worked at)