we have news to share...

We're unsure of how to start this video, but I think the best way to start any big video or big announcement is just to come right out and say it. We're moving. Okay, so I don't think we need to do a formal introduction because if you're watching this video then you know us and you know, hopefully, our situation. Especially if you've watched Beers and Budgeting. If you've watched Beers and Budgeting, you'll see there's a category in there called down payment for a house. We've been stacking that thing up since we moved here. Almost at $150,000 that we've saved up over the past seven years. And guess what? We're still not buying a house. We're not buying a house. I'm like about to cry over here, but... We're not buying a house because we've made the conclusion that it's too expensive to stay in Southern California. So with that said, we are leaving San Diego. And I think that's what is making me emotional about this because we've been here for a long time. Yeah, we've been here for seven years, but we moved here, what, a few months after we got married. I mean, Quinn was born here, we've had lots of, made some lifelong friends here. Oh, yeah. We've met some of our best friends here. You know, we started our married life here. I started two businesses here. Before Debt Free Millennials, I was an independent marketing consultant, but it's just so much growth has come from living in San Diego and... I wouldn't trade it for anything. I wish, I wish we could stay, but back in March, this past March, when we had looked at a home for sale, we knew we had to put in an offer over asking and the realtor that we were working with said, is that the best you can do? As in, like, increase it even more? And I was like, I cannot fathom. It was listed at $79, $7.95 for a two bed, two bath, 1,000 square foot townhome. And we were already putting in $50, $55 over asking. Yeah, we went $55 over asking. And they told us, like, do even more. And I think, what did it sell at? It sold at $85 over asking. So, and it wasn't even 1,000 square feet. And I'm like... It was less than 1,000 square feet. It was that process that I was like, what are we doing? Yeah, they told us not to put in an escalation clause. I was like, that doesn't seem like a good idea. I mean, it's still a wild housing market with the interest rates going up. We can now afford less because the monthly payments have increased so much. So now, we're either like an hour, hour and a half away from my office, or we're right across the street from halfway houses. Yeah, or just being in something really, really small for something that we want to grow a family into with, you know, no backyard, no patio. I mean, that, yeah. So once we had made that decision of like, okay, I don't think what San Diego is offering is not something that we want for our family. We started making the decision of looking outside of Southern California. And really, I can go anywhere. You guys know I run DFM 100% online. So I can do this anywhere. Really, it was Kyle trying to figure out what his next career move should be. So like, walk through that process. Oh man, it was challenging at first because for those of you who don't know, I have a PhD in nuclear engineering. And so, that means that I can't go work anywhere. My education really kind of narrows down what fields I can work in. I never thought I'd actually be able to live in a place as amazing as San Diego, and was very surprised to have to move out here. We were Kansas people that wanted to live in the country, and then we end up living in Southern California of all places. Totally blew my stereotypes away. Yeah, not to derail this, but I do remember clear as a bell. When we were living in Manhattan, Kansas, for those of you who don't know, there is a town called Manhattan, Kansas. We were sitting outside our shitty apartment, and we were trying to make the decision whether or not to go to San Diego. And I remember saying to you, like, we have best friends out there that we haven't even met yet, and they're just waiting for us. And we were so eager. Like I remember being extremely excited and eager to go, like yes, anywhere. Yeah, I was desperate to get out of the university. Terrible relationship with, I won't go into that, I could soapbox that for another hour. But they love your soapboxes. I know. Oh, you love, you fans, I love you all. That makes one of us. But I just remember that excitement, and now to leave, you know, this place that we've called home for, you know, almost a decade, it's just, it's very bittersweet. Well, I remember calling you from, so I timed my job interview out here so that I could watch a Cubs, a Chicago Cubs baseball game as they played the Padres, because I didn't think I ever wanted to live in California. And I came out and interviewed, the team was amazing, the projects were super cool. And I remember calling Justine inside the Padres Stadium going like, do you want to move here? Because this place is amazing. And I was like, what? So I'm not leaving because it's, it's rare to leave an organization because you don't like your boss. Or let's say, the most common reason people leave their job is because of their immediate supervisor or management or the projects, the workload, none of that is true for me. I love my work, I love my team, my boss, I love all of it. It's just looking at what we want for our kid, like, and maybe kids someday, giving them what they deserve and what I want for them, and that's just not affordable out here for us anymore. And it's crazy, because like, when you watch our beers and budgeting films, we make amazing amount of money. Yeah. So in getting back to this story, I reached out to a few places and just Google searched and interviewed, but really, it was like the, it was the network of people that I had made that helped. And I didn't even reach out to a guy asking him if he had an opening, I just reached out to him because I had talked to him in a while and said, hey, how's it going? And a few days later, I got contacted by their HR department. And that was, one thing led to another, and now we're, we're moving. But what's funny is we talk about the cost of living here, the next place we're going to live is LA, we're moving to Los Angeles, but wait for it, wait for it. It's temporary, we're going to live there for a year to two years, and then we're moving to Colorado. Please, I hope it's just a year. I know. So the whole idea is the division that you'll be working with, their office is based in LA. So you'll be hands on, boots on the ground, kind of ramping up, training with them. And then you have already discussed this with them during your interview process, that once that time is up, let's relocate us to their office in Colorado. And so they were agreeable to that. Yeah. And that's all flexible. Okay, do you want to talk about the money side of it a little bit? You gotta, he's getting an increase. Yeah, I'm making about 30% more than what I was making before. That's a huge increase. And so you guys know, if you watch Beers and Budgeting, that's going to be a significant increase. When we're in Los Angeles, that's really going to go all towards rent. Rent is insane out. Like starting at four grand for basically the same setup that we have here in San Diego. So even though he's getting a really big bump in pay, it's all going to go towards rent. And then you also know our other big expense, which is childcare. So already off the bat, we know that our standard of living is basically going to be the same, at least while we're in LA. Once we get to Colorado though, it's, it's going to be amazing because your salary stays the same. We're going to be in a lower cost of living area, and we're going to be buying a home in Colorado. That for sure is happening. Yeah, I don't know. I want to be settling down, putting down roots in Colorado and calling it a day. I don't really care what the housing market looks like anymore. That's what we said. Like no matter what the housing market does, we have to get in at this point. We're in our thirties. We're, we have a kid. We're probably going to have another kid. Yeah. We're fortunate enough that I think our down payment will be big enough that we don't have to fight corporations, these all cash, way over asking price type offers. I think we'll be okay. I say that cautiously. Yeah. We'll see what happens. It's going to be in a year or two. The market, I mean, in 2019, no one would have predicted that the market looks like what it does today, where houses in San Diego are up almost 70% from those time periods. Yeah. Like who would have predicted that? And single family homes are at a million median home price. Although I think it went down to like 918,000, it didn't go down that far. Yeah. Not it. Yeah. It's like 998 or something. San Diego was announced as the most unaffordable city in the United States. So we got that. Number one. Yeah. Wow. The plan in LA is to rent for a year and we'll reassess with your new company if we're able to move out to Colorado. In that year span, we are making an LA bucket list of all of the fun things to do in LA so that we can say we did it upright. Our last year in Southern California, we're going to go big or go home. So we're talking about going to the Getty museum, little Tokyo. We already did Dodgers stadium. Do it again. I want to go to Price is Right. We want to go. We want to be on Price is Right. I mean, is that so much to ask for? Venice Beach, you know, all the fun stuff. So if you have any recommendations on best spots, restaurants or points of interest, let us know in the comments. What's the, I guess we kind of talked about this, but what is the longterm vision? It is to settle down in Colorado. Yeah. It's an affordable place to live. It's relatively close to our families. It's a good job that I would like and enjoy and make decent money at. Yeah. It checks a lot of boxes. And the thing is, is that there's probably no spot in the world for us that every single category is going to be a 10 out of 10. But I would say, so true. I would say everything is like a seven or eight out of 10 like winters. Maybe not. I'm going to hate winters. I'm going to love the access to the mountains. The thing that's appealing about Colorado and I guess we didn't say, but Colorado Springs specifically is where we are heading after LA. And what I love about Colorado Springs is my best friend lives there. Yeah. How amazing is that? Also Pike's Peak is just right there. Garden of the Gods, uh, Colorado Springs Zoo. We're not too far from Denver where you have access to lots of things. And Colorado kind of gives me that California vibe anyways. Just laid back, calm as you are, very outdoorsy, you know, people who are active, have an active lifestyle. That's very much the culture here. And I feel like that is also the culture there. So I'm really just like, I got my eye on the prize. I'm like, okay, enjoy this year in LA, but man, I cannot wait to have that house with the backyard. And, you know, like we had talked about doing Christmases at our house with like a finished basement and having family Christmas movies. And I'm so excited. Look who's on there. Soapbox. I know. Let me stay on it for a little bit. Just dreaming. Snow falling, the Ponderosas, the Aspens, you know, anyway, what's your career path with this company? You're going to be in a leadership role. Yep. And you're just hoping to make an impact. I think the two biggest things we talked about for your vision for your career is you want high impact in technology and high impact with people. Yep. I don't know. It sounds boastful to say, but I think I have good leadership skills and I have good communication skills. And so combining those two things in an engineering field, I'm hoping will take me a long ways. There are lots of opportunities for growth with this company. The last one I was with, I'd kind of reached my ceiling and opportunities, which was maybe another small factor, motivation, just the opportunity that I know that there's something coming down the road or an opportunity for something cool else cool to happen within the same organization. But I hope when I've lost the rest of the hair on my head that I will be sitting at some kind of C-level type executive, you know, position, round table position, something like that. Yeah. That's the long term goal. Yeah. But got a long ways to go. A lot of things between here and there. I'm really pumped for you. I'm really excited. You definitely deserve this big opportunity and the fact that you were able to get that the offer is so stellar. Also, they're paying for moving expenses up to L.A. and then paying for moving expenses again to Colorado. And I think that is really, really cool. I just I think after kind of looking together as a family, as a couple on this, it just makes sense. Yeah. I'm excited to join this company. It's going to be a good time. I was going to ask what is what is your least favorite thing or what's the one thing that you will not miss about being in San Diego? The traffic without a doubt. Don't get me wrong. Everywhere's got a little bit of traffic. San Diego has vacationers. We have Ubers. And then also they predicted in two years that there will be over a million people in San Diego that are over the age of 60. Older drivers are known to get in more frequent accidents, drive slower, don't signal or break as fast. Response times are slower. It just adds up to a ton of traffic and a ton of confused drivers. I've been a confused driver. If you've ever driven in D.C., oh, my God, there's so many on ramps, off ramps, then on ramp on an on ramp and then an off ramp on an off ramp on an off ramp that it says you don't have time to look at your GPS in that person. So I understand. I sympathize. It's a very transient city, too. So lots of new people coming in and just don't know the streets and the roads. We were those people. We were those people at one point. The other thing I won't miss is the amount of dogs that are downtown. I love dogs. I want a dog. I've wanted a big dog since I was a little kid. We're going to get a big dog when we go to Colorado. I think every other apartment unit downtown has a dog with no outdoor space. So it can get a little bit stinky and kind of messy on the sidewalk sometimes. I am not going to miss the amount of homelessness that is in San Diego. We also... It's gotten bad since we got here. Yeah. Also realize we know that all of this stuff is still alive and well in L.A. Like we're not going to be far removed from that. However, like just thinking about San Diego in general, like I will not miss the amount of homelessness that is here in the city. I don't think we've ever really mentioned this in our past videos, but now we can say this because this video is going to be released right around the time that we're gone. By the time this is released, we're going to be up in L.A. That we live downtown and that we live in a high rise and the accessibility to all these different points of interest is amazing. That's what I will miss the most about living here, is being able to walk out that front door and say, what happy hour, what bar do you want to go to? What food joint just opened up? The food scene in San Diego, the tacos and the burritos, oh my gosh, I'm going to miss that so much. Yeah. And just, you know, looking out our window and seeing like, you know, city lights and... Having the windows open in February. Just that. Yeah. Just the urban lifestyle, you know, we've grown so accustomed to as two small town kids from Nebraska and Kansas, you know, living this lifestyle has just been, it's been really cool and I'm going to miss, I'm going to miss that. I will not miss seeing the drugged out, you know, poor souls on the streets that I've got to witness literally every single day. And so... It's pretty sad sometimes. I watched a homeless guy make out at the crosswalk one time. The crosswalk button, you know, the ones that you push. Just down on his knees, just, he was having a good time. And that dude was just on some kind of hallucinating drugs and I was like, what was his childhood like? Yeah. What happened there? Yeah. You just, you just wonder. Anyways. When I, when we leave California, I'm absolutely going to miss the beach and the ocean. I'm an ocean person. He's a lake person. Yeah. So the fact that we're going to Colorado and we're going to be around like rivers and, you know, fishing, like freshwater fishing. You're going to love that. Yeah. I'm going to love that too. It's just, it's not, it doesn't call to me like the ocean does. Sand is such a pain in the butt and it's dragging your stuff to the beach. Car full of stuff. I feel like I'm loading up for a road trip. Car's full of sand. I mean, got to fight for parking. We're going to, we're going to load up the car full of like stuff to go fishing anyways in Colorado. It's going to be the same thing. Only no sand. If I go by myself fishing, I'm going to grab a fishing pole and a cooler. That's all that I'm taking with me. Okay. Soapbox. Over. And off. We understand that a lot of you are also in the same situation. High cost of living environment. What do you do? We just got to the point where we couldn't take it anymore. I think things changed for us after we had Quinn, our daughter. Once we had her, it was like, oh, priorities change. There's a certain level of financial freedom that we are trying to achieve. When you have a kid, it gets pushed even further. I want us to obtain financial freedom so that we can go on international trips as a family, so that we can provide for her with her education, so that we can have the space in the backyard. I would like a proper home office. She works out of the back bedroom or walks to WeWork right now. Yeah. So I've been doing WeWork and our desk is literally right next to our bed. Our bed is part desk because papers and stuff get put on the bed while you're working at the desk. It'd be fun to do a walkthrough of our apartment after it's all cleaned out or something, just to show them, like, this is what it was like. But if you have moved like we are planning on moving for the same reasons that we're moving a high cost of living, a lower cost of living, let us know. I want to know how much money you saved and if you are still happy with that decision, if you regret it. I mean, there's always going to be things you miss, many things that you don't, kind of like what we talked about, but let us know. I'm curious to hear what your stories are or if you're thinking about it, if you're on the edge of what's holding you back. Blow up the comment section. I really am curious where people are at in their lives right now as far as what's happened with inflation and rents and interest rates and all that stuff. It seems very tumultuous right now. Yes. I want to hear what's going on in your guys' minds. Yes, please comment and let us know what your living situation is and especially if you are living in the Colorado area, Colorado Springs, let us know. We are so excited to get there. This was a long time coming. I had kind of danced around this subject for a while in previous videos, but now it feels really good to actually say it online. We are going to have a big going away party with our friends. Oof. I will be a soppy mess. Yeah. You'll be dehydrated from crying so much. I think that's it. Yeah. Yes. We love you and we look forward to seeing you guys in LA where we will have a new background, new backdrop, and we will be filling you in on our adventures in LA as a family of three and we'll catch you in the next one. Thanks. Love you guys.