clutter.

Alright, my Seattle research.

So, as mentioned last night, Laura mentioned to me the notion of moving with her to Seattle. I thought on it all night, and have spent most of this afternoon compiling information concerning expenses and how much money I would need to make such an endeavor possible.

Now nothing is decided, obviously. I know how easy it is to get excited over some new life venture and I’m not jumping onboard with it right away just because I’m a bit frustrated with life at the moment. But here’s what I figured out, for funsies:

• I would need about $3,000 starting to make moving possible. Looking at rent rates in the greater Seattle area (not counting Everett or Tacoma really), most go for around $1k as far as what I’d expect to rent. Units usually require last month’s rent as well, or a deposit, at the same rate if not higher. So first month’s rent along with deposit, split two ways, would be around $1k. But I wouldn’t want to go in with just enough for a single month, so I’d want to cover next month’s rent as well as I’d have to find a job out there and that can take a little bit of time, so I added $500 for the next month.
  
  I also added in $325 for moving truck rental (Penske rate), $300 for random expenses (food, gas to get there), and my current bills which would transfer over spanning a two-month period ($200 for phone, $200 for credit card bills).
• To raise that amount of money in three months, I’d need to sell my comic book collection (1,500 or so issues). I don’t know what I’d be able to get for it, but I’d hope at the very least $1k. I would also have to sell a lot of my extra video game stuff (additional systems and games outside of the current generation, somewhere between $300-$500) and anything else I may own which is worth money (furniture, etc. Maybe $300 worth).
• Of course I still have my current bills to take care of as well, so I can’t really utilize my current monthly stipend much. I could probably save $300 out of it over the next three months. So, best case scenario with all of the stuff I could probably squeeze month out of, I have a little over $2k.
• The real issue I am having, however, is leaving my Grandma and other nearby family if I were to move. If my Grandmother weren’t nearby and had my Grandpa not died last year I wouldn’t be giving this scenario a second thought, I’d already be packing for Seattle. Moving so far away from her is my main issue. When my Grandpa died and she moved here my Dad said that she was coming closer to us because she needed us to be there, and that I needed to be there for her. When I bring this up to my Grandmother she will, of course, tell me to do whatever will make me happy, and if I tell her I would love to live in Seattle she would probably even aid me financially a little bit to get started.
  
  But that’s her way, she’s a Grandma and therefore the least selfish person in the entire world. I don’t know what my Dad will say when I mention it to him, he’ll either say the same thing or tell me that I should stay nearby. So really, in the end, it comes down to my decision, and I am terrible at making decisions on my own.
• There’s also the issue of finding work in Seattle, a city that has been hit kind of hard by unemployment. But I live in Stockton, so I figure it can’t be that much worse than here. I’d find some random job probably, unless I got lucky, but again that part is up in the air. Also: How do you find a place to rent/work when you are nowhere near the city in question? Would I need to take a trip there beforehand, because that in itself can be expensive. So many questions.

So that’s what has been on my mind lately. 

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