> My advice would be work hard, save your money, travel when you can to better locales to improve your social life, but with the eventual goal of permanently moving out when you've saved enough. If you pick your destination within the USA well, dating prospects will improve greatly, and if you look worldwide (and can overcome the language and immigration issues), it could improve dramatically. The Bay Area will seem like a bad dream.
I just created my HN account to emphasize this point. After 4 years in the Bay Area, I've come to the same conclusion. I've been saving money for 9 years now & should be at the $1,000,000 mark within 2 years. First 5 years of saving in Los Angeles got me to $200,000, and the last 4 years have pushed me to $700,000. Assuming Trump is re-elected, my portfolio should hit the $1,000,000 mark within two years.
A million bucks isn't much here, but its a sizable nest-egg in most places in America. Saving money in the Bay Area is much easier to do than anywhere else. I plan to move to a rural state as soon as I get to a million. The misery of living here has to end at some point.
With 1M USD, a really good place to live would be Buenos Aires, Argentina.
OK, this will sound like I'm from a travel agency, hahaha, but here's why:
If you are single, spending just 1200 USD per month here you can live a middle-high class life, renting a cool and spacious apartment in a nice neighborhood, good health care, gym, car, dining out. (To give you an idea, most of the middle class singles would spend half that amount...)
There's a very nice tech scene (lots of startups, and several unicorns), where having a work exp. in SV companies is an instant door opener.
Climate is temperate, (lots of sunny days year round, average weather 8C winter / summer 29C).
Huge restaurant scene, very cosmopolitan city, with ethnic restaurants of all kinds (lots of euro, american and asian origins). Also, some of the best meat in the world, at very good prices.
Lots and lots of cultural activities.
Huge mass transport network. You really don't need to own a car, (but I prefer having one, just for convenience... specially if you want to improve on your social side). European looking city. But as a most big cities, it can get chaotic in rush hours depending on where you live.
And lastly, considering your quote: you have LOTS of pretty girls, that love dating foreign guys.
Although I should warn you there's very few Asian-origin girls... and almost no [black | Indian | Middle Eastern] girls, comparing to the Bay Area. It's mostly euro-descendants or latinas; so depending on what you are looking for (if you are that specific/picky) it might be a concern.
It's the kind of place where with 1M, you can afford to not work actively anymore (e.g. living off rental income, or investments abroad).
Move to South East Asia instead. Burgeoning tech scene, some incredible nature, dating is considerably easier, both with locals and other expats, health care is first-rate and a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper ... "a rural state" sounds like all the worst bits of living in the US.
> I don't have the level of contempt for my fellow Americans that you have
I was going to ignore this as an obvious troll, but I'll take a stab at it. Rural Americans aren't the problem, America is the problem, but some of that is made up for by the cities.
Rural America has the same terrible public transit, the same grotesque healthcare problems, generally appalling internet and cellphone, the same incredible incarceration rate, the same terrible problem with opioids, the same terrifyingly divisive politics, the same endemic racial divide, the same problem with gun violence as the rest of the US, except that some of the cities have made some headway with these problems.
If y'all lost New York, LA and the Bay Area, GDP would fall by ~25%, and you'd be just another upper-middle-income country. America's greatness comes from the cities.
Ah so because someone else like a non-American place, he is having contempt for his fellow Americans?
That's so polarising and typically what gives Americans such a bad name abroad.
I'm from a rural state and while I've been to I've been to over 12 countries and lived in 3 US states, my rural home state is the best kept secret in the world.
My wife is from Latin America, and while it's cheaper down there, none of those countries are as good of a deal as the rural US. More developed, safer, better public services. Can be nearby a major city for work.
I do like southeast Asia, my cousin's wife is from Thailand and I have a lot of connections there through her, they own a chain of hotels there. But I would prefer Latin America. It's a western culture for the most part, which if you're from Europe or the Americas, is less jarring in more ways than people realize. There's some indigenous elements, which actually enhances the culture, they're very cooperative and team players. I love Latin America, at least as much as I love Anglo America.
Just wanted to add two more cents in there, because there's good things about every place. Everything in life is a trade off!
I've visited a few countries in SE Asia and could never see the appeal of living there longterm, at least in the metropolitan areas. The food and living costs are cheap but in return you get terrible air quality and lack of clean tap water.
You don't have to live in the cities. A luxury villa in e.g. Phuket with views of the ocean and water purification system and other international-standard amenities can be bought for what you'd pay for a small condo in SF or Palo Alto.
I'm strongly thinking of doing this with the family when I retire as well.
Just out of curiosity, why do you say "Assuming Trump is re-elected, my portfolio should hit the $1,000,000 mark within two years."?
Do you believe the stock market will get bad if he doesn't win the election? or is it the other way, i.e. if the does get re-elected, the market will be better so it will take you less than 2 years to reach your goal?
I've never heard this take before so I'm genuinely curious.
Markets prefer political stability. Average annual S&P 500 returns are around ~7% adjusted for inflation, but ~12% when a President is in his second term.
Political answer:
A Trump loss would be presumably be to one of the self-avowed socialists running which would certainly crash the markets.
Furthermore, even without a market crash, a socialist implementing mark-to-market capital gains taxation while also doubling the long-term capital gains rates (15% to 32% for me) would drastically slow down my march towards $1,000,000.
> A Trump loss would be presumably be to one of the avowed socialists running
Oh bless, the tendency in the US towards labelling people still right of the centre by most countries' standards as "socialists" for being left of the Republicans is cute.
I'm not American, but the Democratic party self-describes as social-liberal.
Of course people can agree or disagree with the ideology, but only you here seem to have attached stigma to the word.
(Though the same could have been said for 'fascist', which certainly now has widespread stigma attached, and most proponents have stopped self-describing as such.)
> I'm not American, but the Democratic party self-describes as social-liberal.
Social-liberal isn't socialist. I live in a liberal-social democracy, but very few workers own the means of production here.
> but only you here seem to have attached stigma to the word.
American society as a whole has attached a stigma to it. Claiming otherwise is either disingenuous or ignorant, I'll let you take your pick as you listen to the dulcet tones of Ronald Reagan disclaiming the dangers of socialised medicine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYrlDlrLDSQ
Don't move anywhere without visiting several places for at least 1-2 weeks each. Trust me on this. You may have a picture of a place but being there can be very different.
Not so sure I agree, I moved to Beijing, China having never spent a second there, probably the best decision I made ever. (Though, I had no pre-conception on how it would be like prior to landing...)
While no longer living in mainland China, I still haven't left Asia (nearly seven years on)
Sometimes pushing yourself right out of your norm/comfort-zone can really help you find yourself.
I just created my HN account to emphasize this point. After 4 years in the Bay Area, I've come to the same conclusion. I've been saving money for 9 years now & should be at the $1,000,000 mark within 2 years. First 5 years of saving in Los Angeles got me to $200,000, and the last 4 years have pushed me to $700,000. Assuming Trump is re-elected, my portfolio should hit the $1,000,000 mark within two years.
A million bucks isn't much here, but its a sizable nest-egg in most places in America. Saving money in the Bay Area is much easier to do than anywhere else. I plan to move to a rural state as soon as I get to a million. The misery of living here has to end at some point.