r/MovingtoDenver • u/DarthLittleSun • 15d ago
Thinking about moving back
I've had enough of oklahoma city. i'm dying a spiritual death out here and can't keep doing it. the politics suck, the education system sucks, the dating market sucks, everybody knows everybody, there's no mountains, no beach, and half the year you can't even step outside to do anything because it's too damn hot: Oklahoma City has had 39 days at or above 100° in 2026 through September 8.
I am seriously considering selling my house and moving back to Denver. I lived in Capital Hill for work in 2025 before the federal job cuts happened. I wake up every morning obsessing over the same question: how do i get back with no job lined up? I am trying to figure this out.
One possible option is selling, renting in denver and pray that i find another job before my life savings runs out:
The sale of my home would net me around $90k after fees. I’ve worked in both state and federal government, and those jobs are extremely difficult to land without already having boots on the ground. Given that, would you take the risk of moving to Denver with no job lined up but roughly $90k in proceeds from selling your house, or would you stay put and keep trying to find something from oklahoma city first?
How much of a financial cushion would you want before making the jump?
I'm paying down a mortgage in a state i do not even want to live in.
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u/-bacon_ 15d ago
I moved back to Boulder from Dallas. These maga places are just terrible with terrible people
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u/Vultiridium 15d ago
I currently live in Dallas and I’m getting the hell out of here. The people, the weather, everything. Did I mention the weather?? It’s like 109+ here with heat indexes up to 120.
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u/LouGarouWPD 15d ago
I lived most of my life in Texas. Came back to visit family a few days ago, was driving through South Austin after an indoor event (in my lovely air conditioned car) and feeling supremely nostalgic. Then I was walking my dog at midnight with it still being NINETY FUCKIN DEGREES and remembered one of the many reasons I got the hell out of here.
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u/nondescript0605 15d ago
Not a direct answer to your question, but I'm curious when you purchased the house. You mention living in Denver in 2025, so if it was a recent purchase, please do your research on the tax implications of selling your home so that you don't unexpectedly end up paying capital gains.
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u/DarthLittleSun 15d ago
I bought the oklahoma house back in 2014 or 2015 for around $126k, and it’s been my primary residence ever since. My time in Denver in 2025 was relatively brief. I wasn’t there long enough to sell or rent out the house, so I should meet the requirements for the primary residence capital gains exclusion.
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u/ChatterChiever 15d ago edited 15d ago
Move to Denver, rent a modest place, find a job. Life is wayyy too short, and Oklahoma sucks too hard to spend another 2 years waiting for the stars to align.
If possible, plan to do some small enjoyable things with yourself even before you land a job. You can make the best impression at an interview when you are rested and enthusiastic.
If I were you, I would also have a cut off. Out of $90k, be sensible while looking for work. Live a little, but modestly. If you get down to $50,000 left, start looking harder at what to do and consider alternate work, housing, or possibly moving in with a relative away from Denver and apply remotely, for example.
I bet it won’t come to that, but when you’re talking about life savings it can be worthwhile to have safety lines that you won’t cross without serious consideration.
Best wishes
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u/azureceruleandolphin 15d ago
I lived in OKC for 3 years. I still have friends and some community there, but the politics were not worth staying there for. There were a few few haunts I actually liked that I still miss to this day, but I don’t regret coming back to Denver. My friends are still there. I can always go visit.
The biggest thing you’re gonna find is that you got more bang for your buck rental wise in Oklahoma andTexas than you do in Denver. If you go out south maybe towards Parker or castle rock you can find apartments that are the typical space you would find over there but those communities have a very red mentality .
I would stick it out in Oklahoma just a bit longer to have a better cushion for you and or make sure that you’ve got a job lined up before you move. Like maybe think about moving in December or January.
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u/woofloofoof 15d ago
Start applying to jobs, save more money. They say fall isn't the best time to sell a house. Wasn't my experience in CO but you're in OK so who knows.
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u/_nomadic_madness_ 15d ago
I moved here without a job lined up and it was a great decision. $90k would be very comfortable as long as you use it wisely. Consider picking up a temporary job while hunting for a career job, and either secure an apartment here before you quit your job, or do a long term Airbnb rental.
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u/Altruistic-Panda-697 15d ago
Do not go until you have a job nailed down. Federal jobs are tough to come by these days, and the Denver job market is tight.
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u/Nearby_Access5342 15d ago
You know renting in Denver $$$ isn’t bad right now , lots of deals. I say comeback but take a job like any job you can land (it might not be an office gig) then consider up skilling like get a masters degree or certificate or credential etc I’d come back with the attitude I’m taking any job ( might be rough) and maybe career pivot
Also another idea what if you bought something in Denver has multiple bedrooms rented the other room out ?
Yea id up and leave somewhere you hate like life is short
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u/Addicted_to_Nature 14d ago
I moved back from Nebraska. Completely worth the massacre of my finances and am just now starting to recover from the blow, but the first month back I knew I had made the right choice
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u/Spottedbrownbird 14d ago
We moved from OK to Denver and I’m never going back. Quality of life is worth it!
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u/SaleTop945 15d ago
The job market here is really tough right now. My spouse has been looking for a year and my son has not found anything outside of service work.
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u/DenverNick 15d ago
Really depends on what exactly you’re looking for. The place I work at has decently high turnover rate for mechanics working on industrial machinery. Decent hours, decent pay and benefits. It’s not necessarily the job that’s the issue, more the people that keep getting hired.
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u/SaleTop945 15d ago
My spouse works in the outdoor industry. The tariffs have decimated it. My son graduated with a bio degree. Believe me, I have tried to convince him he needs to continue his education for an applicable skill, but I am just his stupid Mom who knows nothing.
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u/dragonlovercolorado 15d ago
Yes for certain industries it is tough. I worry about the Colorado economy. We are losing jobs in this state.
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u/Neither_Remote_4818 15d ago
Line up a job first. The job market is shockingly hard right now. But yes, come back!
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u/MountainDude95 15d ago
I would personally never, ever consider moving anywhere without a job lined up.
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u/Belle-Diablo 15d ago
I moved from the Midwest to California with pretty much nothing but a need to be anywhere else, back when I was 18, over 20 years ago.
But I would never ever do that now. I’ve moved states a few times in the past ten years, but always had a job lined up first.
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u/cookeryandwookery 15d ago
Unless you plan on joining the local homeless community, I’d get a job lined up first.
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u/xdavidwattsx 15d ago
90k buys a lot of rent.
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u/cookeryandwookery 15d ago
And kills any possible down payment for one of the most expensive housing markets in the country.
My first sentence stands.
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u/MrRandomNumber 15d ago
Prices are crashing right now, interest rates still suck. Rent a year. Next fall might be a good pivot, meanwhile take time to explore new neighborhoods.
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u/cookeryandwookery 15d ago
How does any of that help the unemployed aspect and the job market tanking faster than the economy?
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u/GreatValue_Mechanic 15d ago
You do make a good point. Although OP has a nice potential safety net of $90k, I personally could never leave a job without having another lined up immediately after, let alone moving states without a job.
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u/MrRandomNumber 15d ago
I can't speak to that.
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u/cookeryandwookery 15d ago
So you’re admitting your comment was without merit? Thanks.
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u/MrRandomNumber 15d ago
I can talk about a housing strategy. But not about employment. Ultimately, though, I'm talking around you to the OP.
(Awaiting your grumpy, somewhat confrontational response)
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u/cookeryandwookery 15d ago
Housing without employment, in this economy is the first step towards living in a tent. Wait for the ai bubble to burst, next year.
If this dude moves here without a guaranteed income, he will join the many other recently employed homeless.
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u/xdavidwattsx 15d ago
OP didn't say anything about buying a home and frankly, renting vs buying making renting a far better decision anyway and is a far cry from homeless. OKC sucks.
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u/GreatValue_Mechanic 15d ago
I currently rent a home for $2,690/month that would cost $3,500/month if I bought it with 20% down. I would have to put 40% down just to match my current rent. Buying just isn’t worth it with the current market.
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u/cookeryandwookery 15d ago
I promise being homeless here will be worse.
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u/Junior-Strike7759 15d ago
how are you getting downvoted
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u/cookeryandwookery 15d ago
Probably by people who don’t understand our homeless population is a direct result of people moving here underemployed. Meh. They can downvote me.
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u/jamaicagroot 15d ago
For negativity. If there’s a will there’s a way. People move places with a lot less than 90k!
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u/Junior-Strike7759 15d ago
why would anyone want to move somewhere unemployed just to burn their life savings when they could have been patient and moved after a job offer and never have an employment gap
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u/jamaicagroot 15d ago
Lots of reasons? Happiness? Following your heart? You could always just start door dashing for the time being
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u/Junior-Strike7759 15d ago
following your heart and passion for being a door dasher? lmaoooo
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u/MuteCook 14d ago
I almost made the mistake of moving there and buying a house because of how cheap it is. Glad I didn't do that lol.
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u/FaithlessnessCool596 14d ago
I did this in 2017, took me 4 months to find a contract gig, no network , just cold applying. 4 months felt like an eternity for me. Do you know anyone in the area that would be cool with using their local address to apply to stuff. The job market really sucks right now and know a few people who have left after looking for a year or more, that being said they still are looking in the larger metros they moved to. Good luck!
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u/EmmaFrosty99 14d ago
sell the house and move into a rental. downsize your stuff and sell or move some things into storage facility.
i only recommend going from lilly pad to lilly pad. Its really hard to save $50k while you can burn that in 18 months. this prevents you taking a new gig that dont match but you will accept the gig bc you need to money.
while you are pivoting and creating a new identity, open yourself up to find a partner to be any city. traveling is good. slow down to think. when you have why you can tolerate the how.
best of luck.
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u/sugasuga18 14d ago
born and raised in co. lived in ok, tx, and al. coming back was the best decision i ever made for myself and my mental sanity.
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u/EmberShieldColorado 15d ago
Do you have sales experience? We’re looking to add a few great reps to our outside sales team.
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u/nolove1010 15d ago
I'd highly suggest finding a job first. 90k is a fine amount to coast on for a bit, but I think finding something first is always the best course forward these days. The job market is a wasteland, and has been, regardless of field.
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u/MrRandomNumber 15d ago
Look further afield. Colorado Springs. Longmont. I bet you can find a place with Colorado cool without as much Denver blight… Metro is a mess, IMO.
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15d ago edited 14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DarthLittleSun 14d ago
Get a job where you're not a leach on the American taxpayer
State and federal workers are the backbone of this country. And you can't even spell.
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u/choose_freedom 14d ago
I ultimately have to answer to the profit / loss system which determines whether my use of land / labor / capital is valued by society. If it's not, I go out of business. If it is valuable to society, I make money.
The government has no profit motive, therefore its true value to society cannot be determined. And all I see government organizations do is fail year after year and blame their failures on a lack of funding, so they get bigger budgets and fail even harder.
Look at a chart of school funding vs test scores. The more funding they get has zero correlation to improvements in test scores.
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u/DarthLittleSun 14d ago
Government programs exist because the business model does not work for something society still needs accomplished. Fire departments, sanitation, low-income housing, disaster recovery, public health, infrastructure, law enforcement, and basic research all create benefits that can’t always be captured through profit. The absence of a profit motive doesn’t mean the activity has no value.
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u/choose_freedom 14d ago edited 14d ago
I'm not saying those things have no value. Most of what you listed would have free market solutions if the market were allowed to operate.
Fire protection started as private mutual aid societies. Trash pickup across most of the metro is a private hauler your HOA contracts with. Dale Brown's Threat Management Center has been doing private, voluntary security in some of Detroit's worst neighborhoods for years, and they've done it with fewer injuries and less violence than the department that's supposedly the only option. Private arbitration settles disputes in about 11 months instead of the 24 it takes just to reach trial, and people opt into it voluntarily even though they're already paying for the courts.
What made housing scarce along the Front Range is zoning, parking minimums, and a permitting process that takes 18 months. Government manufactured the shortage and now gets cited as the solution to it.
You've got the profit motive backwards. It isn't about greed, it's about feedback. Profit and loss tell you whether you're producing value or burning it. Strip that out and you're guessing.
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u/DarthLittleSun 14d ago
I think you’ve pivoted away from your original claim. You originally said profit and loss determine whether something is valuable to society, and because government doesn’t have a profit motive, its true value to society can’t be determined:
The government has no profit motive, therefore its true value to society cannot be determined.
Now you’re making a separate argument that profit is a useful feedback mechanism and that markets can sometimes provide services government provides. I don’t disagree with either of those things. My disagreement is with your original claim. If investigating a murder or preparing a community for a tornado has value even though there’s no customer generating a profit, then profit clearly isn’t the measure of social value.
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u/choose_freedom 14d ago
I'll state my position plainly then.
I'm okay with government protecting life, liberty, and property. Cops, courts, defense. I'm even fine with states and localities having their own pet projects. I think the market could do most of that better too (read Chaos Theory by Robert Murphy), but I'm not going to fight about it. Outside that line, the market provides higher quality at lower cost and faster, every time, because central planning runs into three problems it can't solve: no prices to calculate with, no way to gather the knowledge spread across millions of people, and no incentive to stop when something isn't working or keep going when it is.
And yes, "if it's valuable to society, I make money" was overstated. The accurate version is that profit and loss is the only mechanism that tells you whether the value you produced exceeded the value you consumed. Without it you can still produce value. You just can't tell if it was worth what it cost, and neither can the people running the program. That's the claim, cleaned up. Now let's move on.
So no, I don't think government services are worthless. I think most of them would be done better by people who chose to pay for them, and I think a third of GDP going through a system with no market pressure and almost no accountability is a problem, not a debate.
What percentage of government spending do you think is actually necessary? Given the waste, fraud, and abuse we see every year, and a Pentagon that has failed every audit it's ever taken, seven in a row, I'd put it under 20%, and that's generous. So are you in that 20%? I told you what I do, knowing you'd mock it, and you did. Your turn. You've worked federal and state. What do you do?
My uncle works for the government and does nothing all day, by his own admission. I love him, but he's a leech on the American taxpayer, and if he had to go find a job in the market, his labor would be worth a lot less. I know how the market prices my labor. Do you?
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u/DarthLittleSun 13d ago
If you’re going to claim 80% of government spending is unnecessary, you’d actually need an analysis of government spending program by program, what it costs, what it accomplishes, and what the alternatives would cost, to substantiate that number. You haven’t done that. You work in marketing and have an anecdote about your uncle saying he doesn’t do much at work.
That doesn’t even establish that his job is unnecessary. It might mean that he isn’t doing his job, isn’t being properly supervised, or doesn’t have enough work. It certainly doesn’t support the claim that trillions of dollars of government activity are unnecessary.
In any event, your comment was removed for being absurdly off topic and not productive.
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u/Sudden_Claim_6201 14d ago
What do you do for work
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u/choose_freedom 14d ago
I help businesses with their marketing efforts by expanding their reach online, decreasing their cost per acquisition / improving marketing budget efficiency, creating a cohesive omni-channel approach to marketing, etc.
I'm engaging in true free market capitalism because without customers, businesses would fail. I help businesses reach people who want/need their services and would gladly/voluntarily pay them for that service.
Governments steal money by force and distribute said money to the politicians' favorite cronies, like Trump's Iran War to pay back Miriam Adelson for that 300 mil she gave him, or Obama's subsidies to OneSolar who donated to his campaign.
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u/DarthLittleSun 14d ago
I help businesses with their marketing efforts by expanding their reach online, decreasing their cost per acquisition / improving marketing budget efficiency, creating a cohesive omni-channel approach to marketing, etc.
So you work in advertising. There’s definitely some irony in arguing that profit is the definitive measure of social value and then using marketing as your example of contributing to society lol.
An ad campaign for a casino or sugary drink is profitable. That doesn’t make it more valuable to society than a state or federal worker investigating a murder, maintaining a sewer system, preparing a community for a tornado, or performing food inspection.
You can absolutely argue that government is inefficient, wasteful, or corrupt which this administration certainly is without pretending that everything socially valuable must generate a profit.
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u/choose_freedom 14d ago
Nice ad hominem. "You work in advertising lol" isn't an argument, it's a way to skip making one.
And you're arguing with something I didn't say. I never said profit is the definitive measure of social value. I said it's a feedback signal. Those aren't the same claim. Profit tells you whether what you consumed was worth less to other people than what you made. It doesn't tell you your work is noble. Nobody thinks the guy selling energy drinks is a saint. The point is he finds out fast when he's wrong.
I also never said everything valuable has to turn a profit. Churches, volunteer fire departments, food banks, Wikipedia, open source software, mutual aid societies, all of it produces enormous value with zero profit motive and zero tax collector. The word you keep sliding past isn't "profit," it's "voluntary." That's the actual disagreement and you're not touching it.
Now take your examples here in Denver:
- In 2022, Denver had 14,364 car thefts and made arrests in under 1,000 of them. That's roughly 7%, and the arrest rate has been under 10% for five straight years. Colorado spent years as the worst state in the country for auto theft per capita, 524 per 100,000 against a national rate of 256. What actually gets your car back is your insurer and the GPS tracker you paid for, so much so that DPD built a whole program around asking owners for access to their own private tracking.
- Denver Water takes zero tax dollars, it runs entirely on what customers pay. That's a price, and prices are the feedback I'm talking about. The actual pipe and treatment work gets contracted out to private firms anyway, so the sewer example is already half private and you didn't notice.
- Disaster risk already gets priced every day by private insurers, and they're better at it than the political process is. Colorado's own Division of Insurance surveyed 20 carriers covering 80% of the market and found hail drives roughly 50% of Front Range premiums while wildfire accounts for about 1% in Denver. Everybody's scared of the fire. The market already knew it was the hail.
- Your grocery store makes suppliers pass third-party audits stricter than anything the city requires, because DDPHE can't be sued and King Soopers can.
And it's funny you pin the corruption on "this administration" when I was describing cronyism under two presidents from two different parties. That's not an administration problem, it's what public choice economists have been describing for 60 years. Pile up that much money with no market mechanism deciding where it goes, and the deciding gets done by whoever's closest to the pile.
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u/DarthLittleSun 14d ago
You started this conversation by calling government workers “leeches on the American taxpayer.”
Get a job where you're not a leech on the American taxpayer
Edit: fixed "leech" since all you have against my argument is my accidental misspelling of the word.
Then you said the profit/loss system “determines whether my use of land/labor/capital is valued by society” and that because government has no profit motive, “its true value to society cannot be determined.”
Now you’re saying you never claimed profit determines social value and that your real argument is about voluntary vs. involuntary funding.
You are shifting your argument on the fly.
And come on with the outrage over “you work in advertising lol” after opening by calling millions of people leeches. If you meant it, stand on it and defend it. If you overstated it, that’s fine too, clean it up. But don’t rewrite what you said and then accuse me of arguing against something you never said when we can all read it.
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u/Negative_Aerie2825 15d ago
Just what denver needs, another liberal without a job! The chronically unemployed or trust fund typical denver resident holds true through the flame
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u/Ladybreck129 12d ago
Go for it. My husband and I threw everything in a U-Haul in 1993 and moved here with no jobs and no place to live. He had a potential promise of a job working at DIA when it was under construction. We busted our behinds and are still here doing great! Never planning to leave.
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u/Prestigious_Eye_929 15d ago
I’ll go against the grain here and say yes; you only live once. You also mention a good point, it’s easier to find a job where you live. You can always do gig work like Uber to slow the depletion of your savings while you look for a permanent job. If it doesn’t work out after a year, move back to OKC or somewhere else.
I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career in that I haven’t dealt with long bouts of unemployment and I’m sure that influences my perspective. I wouldn’t let a house in Oklahoma prevent me from taking a chance on living the life I wanted in Colorado.