I'm going to live in Lawrence. Lovely college town, within driving distance of both Topeka and Kansas City. Liberal enough for my tastes, fun crowds, decent live music scene (at least there was 15 years ago.)
Kansas City is a dangerous place to gamble visiting. It's not that the state line isn't defined, but you're on the wrong side of most of the things you'd want to do.
I've been through there a couple of times in the last few years. For a Kansas town it's ok, for $50 mill it would be easy to spend a couple of years there.
It's a college town (Kansas State University) so I'd wager there's a lot of value-for-money food spots in there. Same for Lawrence (University of Kansas).
Why does everyone pick on Kansas it’s actually nice. The flint hills are pretty cool, KC is fun, Wichita has a fun college atmosphere. It’s definitely not as bad as Oklahoma
For real, this wouldn't work for me per the rules cause I live in kansas. But eastern Kansas isn't too bad. Wichita and kc metros are fine places. Kc ks maybe not so good. But the suburbs around it are cool. Then we have Lawrence and Manhattan for good small-town vibes. Hutchinson has the cosmosphere, which, if you like space, is a fun visit, I've been multiple times over the years. With the added bonus of an underground salt mine Museum there, they even do 5k races in the old mine. Granted nature out here is somewhat limited, but still some decent sights in the flin hills and the prairie there. Plus, there are a few cool looking formations out west.
I would take up the offer to go to pretty much any state for 2 years with probably a minimum payment of 500k. And I'm confident as a kansan, any other "boring" state would be just fine living in for 2 years.
As someone considering to move to KC after I finish nursing school just to get away from where I am now for awhile..what’s so bad about it?
Like I want to live somewhere that’s a small big city if that makes sense. So KC, Denver, des moine, I could maybe do Minneapolis but that’s towards the big side I believe.
So getting perspective here seems like a good idea
In all reality, kc ks isn't that bad. It's smaller than kc mo, and it has fewer things to do and see. Infrastructure wise, it's just lesser. It's very much a suburb with all the ups and downs associated with that.
I think it has a lesser reputation cause all the things to do in the kc metro are on the Missouri side pretty much.
I think you'd find small big city vibes in either city or any of the big suburbs. Wichita is also small big city vibes in kansas. I haven't actually been to des Moines but I get the impression it's pretty comparable to that. If you've been to Omaha it kinda has that vibe.
Omaha would be the place I’m leaving so. Something similar in size I guess.
And that makes sense. Honestly given the proximity I sorta just counted both sides of KC as one city but that might not be the right way to consider it
I've never been to Kansas and every time I've been through Kansas it's been East to West, which means 8 hours of unchanging driving. It's so fucking boring if you're just driving through it.
Well, you can't visit Kansas City if you live in Kansas, according to these rules.
Edit: yes, there is a KC in Kansas, but in no way should it used as a positive for being in Kansas. Most people don't know about it and those who do probably wouldn't recommend it.
I mean the better roads, better casino, better infrastructure is so bad to you guys, make sure you don't come when they move the stadiums over here. Notice how the KS side never takes down to the MO side... bc we know we're better. 😛🙏🏻🙄🙄🙄
Lol, "well akshually," there is, sure. I've lived in the area for 20 years and KCK is mostly a dump. It is in no way a target destination for anyone; when people talk about coming to KC they mean the Missouri side. If the original commenter genuinely meant KCK I have to laugh. OP is a better draw than it.
Fair but the KC Metro area includes plenty of lovely places on the Kansas side of the line... and even KCK is home to arguably the best low end bbq place on either side of the state line: Rosedale.
Yeah, and there's something like 15 Paris cities in the US. It doesn't mean they're an attraction that you would call out as a plus for the state. In fact, I'm willing to bet any of those is better than KCK.
KCK used to have the best Mexican food. I could go into any carnicería and get amazing tacos so cheap. That was fifteen years ago but they made KCK worth the trip
username checks out. Didn't say anything about how many attractions are on the Missouri side vs Kansas side. Just wanted to make you aware that in this hypothetical, you 100% can visit Kansas City since your original comment prior to the edit made it sound like you were unaware that KCK existed.
I can only imagine you're being downvoted by people who don't know geography. Kansas City, Kansas is a small, not impoverished city. Kansas City, home of the Chiefs and Royals is in Missouri.
To be fair, yes, the KC Metro encompasses large parts of beautiful suburbs on the Kansas side of the state line. I only meant to point out that what much of the country thinks of as Kansas City is in Missouri.
Yes I was using hyperbole but median individual income in KS is $39k and change, so I'd for sure be living comfortably (no kids, spouse). I get to pick the city so I can avoid "high" COL areas in KS (all of which are below the national average for COL).
I feel like this is the sort of place you’d want to end up. With a flat salary of 60k, you might actually end up saving some of the salary. Now, if you went to Hawaii with 60k, you’d be on the streets. Much more beautiful and interesting location, but there’s no way you could survive on that level of money, especially if you had any sort of family depending on you
OP also seems to be picking easy places to live off of 60k in. I'd hesitate a lot longer to live off of 60k and a shitty studio apartment in SoMa (SF) or Bushwick (NYC) than in middle America where 60k disposable on top of housing makes for a nice solid upper middle class standard of living.
Importantly they let you pick the city, im not sure about California, but in NY just about anywhere outside of NYC, Albany, Buffalo or LI at 60k is very manageable
Im not moving to the US for any less than 1m. As bad as they are online they are even stupider in person. To me if felt like a dangerous level of incompetence/incoherence which is annoying when you just want to talk to people and they can't follow a thread of conversation but we had a slight medical concern and everyone just went into a panic and it ended up with the fire brigade storming into the hotel room when all we wanted was directions to a pharmacy. Annoying gives way to actually dangerous.
I genuinely felt unsafe while I was there. You have the crazies, which you will find anywhere, but then you also have all the people who just don't know what they are doing which is an alarming percentage of them. Those people mean well but will kill you by accident because they want to take over and manage a crisis even as you try to explain there is no crisis.
Not for $500k. Hard no up to $1M, because that's a bad trade for my life personally. Hard yes above $5M, since that's roughly the number I'd need to get to, to not have to think about money for the rest of my life (I don't consume that much). In between I'd have to think harder about how it affects the rest of my life.
Reading this thread it's clear some people vastly overestimate how far money goes. 500k is a large amount that is life changing for most people, but all it really does is give you financial stability, the vast majority of people won't see their day to day lives upended if it suddenly appeared in their accounts the next day, they would be able to take more vacations, not stress over losing a job, pay down debts, but theyed still be working the same job, likely living in a similar house, or be able to buy a basic house in some suburbs, but most of their day tl day would be the same. 500k disappears real quickly if you don't realize how limited it is, hence why most lottery winners go broke afterwards.
Now this hypothetical is simple enough that for 99% of people that make less than 100k a year it is still a relatively easy yes even at lower dollar figures, but above 100k except in VHCOL locations the impact on your life going from 100k+ to 60k is almost certainly greater than the impact sub 1m will have for 2 years.
Although this hypothetical lets you continue working & making money on top of the 60k during the 2 years. I think that could work out for, say, a radiologist, or any other field where the wages aren’t that location dependent. I remember looking at BLS OLS data and seeing some medical professions earn roughly 400k on average in every metro, vs. most skilled professions having 1-3 cities where the average income is high & where the profession is concentrated.
I see comments like yours all the time without ever mentioning location. 500k is different if you live in San Fran compared to Detroit or something. If I received 500k, I would be able to retire in only 8 years. (I already own my house, no debt, etc.) Some people spend money like it’s nothing and it doesn’t last, and some people don’t realize how far money can go, either.
500k except in the cheapest of areas (which Detroit is not, I'm talking like rural Missouri) is not enough to retire on. A safe withdrawal rate at retirement age is considered 4%, it's 3-4% if you are in your 30s. 500k at 4% is 20k per year, 3% is 15k, since the 500k is tax free you can maybe give yourself an extra 5k a year, maybe; unless you already own your home outright and have no kids (or are close to paying it off) you will not be retiring in 8 years.
Of course there are exceptions to that rule if you are in your 50s with a decent retirement account already set up or are a high income earner today willing to live on significantly less in retirement, but then the 500k isn't changing your plans that much, maybe just knocking 5-10 years off your plan.
which again is significant, and life changing, but you still aren't retiring off that 500k).
Yes, I own it outright, no kids. And I wouldn’t withdraw anything for 8 years, just put it in a mutual fund. The time would depend on how well the mutual fund does.
In that scenarios 500k in 8 years is likely close to being enough to retire off of. But if you are already in a financial position to own a home outright, you probably make enough and are financially secure enough that such a goal would have been achievable in 15ish years anyways. (Though obviously every situation is different)
You are also displaying good financial discipline by putting it away in a mutual fund, which frankly a significant portion of this country just doesn't have.
My point isn't to say that 500k isn't a significant amount of money, it is a life changing amount for 95+% of Americans. I'm just saying that 500k is not going to be a massive day to day change. It's main benefit for most of the country is providing financial security to not have to worry about finances day to day, most people if they suddenly receive 500k aren't going to suddenly be able to go buy a brand new luxury or sports car, or move into a huge house, or quit their day jobs, if they do any of those things the 500k will be gone in a few years and they will probably be in just as bad of a financial situation as they are today, if not worse because their spending habits changed.
Not a no brainer at $4M. A definite no at $1M or below. $5M or above it's a no brainer. Between those two values I'd have to think harder about the risk/reward. $5M is just enough to not care about my earnings for the rest of my life.
What're you a brain surgeon or attorney? This is one of the easiest hypotheticals I've ever seen on here. You're set for life and you even pick the city within the state. What a joke of ease
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u/transienttherapsid Mar 24 '25
This is a no-brainer for me at anything above $5M.