My wife and I, for a variety of reasons, are seriously looking at changing our scenery. We're growing tired of the area we live in and the compromises we make to stay here. That's not to say that we don't like the region, or the people, or my job, but at the end of each day we've collectively given more to each of those things than we get in return.
We have two kids, and a third on the way. We rent, and have been working on paying down student loan debts and battling the [cost of the] ridiculous stream of illnesses and incidents that come with young boys, so in short we can't just up and leave without a great reason (in the past 6 months: a nearly broken foot, 4 bouts of croup with an ER visit, 4 ear infections, 1 round of viral pneumonia, and a visit to the pulmonologist that confirmed asthma requiring a daily inhaler). HDHP - 1, me- 0.
My job (see username) is pretty secure, and there's a decent chance I'll get a promotion in the next 12 to 18 months, but after that I'll have hit my ceiling in this company unless I venture outside of the lab. The company culture is much better than other places I could work, mostly because we're a consumer products company so there aren't exactly a lot of scientists here.
Despite that, it's not perfect and my wife sees it starting to eat at me more (stress, mainly - being one of the few scientists in the company is great except when it's not). An additional significant contributor is the commute - about 40 minutes one way. When we moved here a few years ago, our house was an exact midpoint in a triangle of locations we frequented (school for my wife at the time, her parents, my work). It's not anymore. The simple answer is to move to within 15 minutes of work, however rents and home prices are obscenely expensive. It's not worth the extra $400-$600 a month after netting out the gain in the cost of driving.
I could move within the company, to a non-lab role. It would probably require a year of working at a plant to gain experience (on a shift, with a 20% pay cut). I also probably could negotiate a bigger raise if/when the promotion happens (solely contingent upon a coworker's retirement).
We keep eyeing my parents' state, for a myriad of reasons. There's generally more science-related work out there, and they (my parents) are more equipped to assist with our kids (my wife's admission/observation). I don't have any industry connections out there, so it's a complete shot in the dark job-wise. I think I could find something decent and/or interesting, but it's not guaranteed, nor is it guaranteed that I would even be able to leverage an increase over my current pay (I find myself afflicted with imposter syndrome, and so I tend to believe I'm overpaid for what I do).
If it weren't for the pregnancy, I think I'd be sending out resumes at this point. But we've already hit our deductible and are about to hit our OOP max ($5k) for the year, so everything will be "basically free" (nothing's really ever) when the baby comes. Moving and starting a new job would mean that we'd more than likely have to work towards a new deductible/OOP max with this baby (November due date).
So, I keep saying we're going to stay. And yet, shit keeps happening (outside of work) that makes us want to GTFO. Even with a modest raise, moving (houses and jobs) before this baby would almost assuredly require us to eat significantly into our e-fund. So we keep telling ourselves we'll stay, for the security among other things. The dad in me feels comfortable with this decision (would also love to see home/rent prices come down this year). The 'me' in me is fed up with the stress, and the amount of shit our region keeps spitting back at us.
(Other relevant info - current kids 4&2 and not in school, wife doesn't work/is SAHP, we recently bought a minivan, have no meaningful connections [read: no friends] other than in-laws to current region).
I feel like it's the right thing to do to wait until this baby is born before looking at moving, but I (and my wife) would love to shed this stress. I probably know the answer but I need to hear it from a neutral observer. Is it lunacy to basically drain our entire liquid savings and possibly even some of our e-fund to move out of an environment that's slowly becoming (but not completely yet) more toxic? Or is the wise thing truly to wait this baby out and reassess Jan 1, 2020?
