Oops! Saturday night two drink rule! Do I get a Mulligan?
(Income tax is what I meant. But now that I’m an hour past the second beer, I realize that I have no idea whether WA or OR tax laws are in effect if your paycheck is signed in Oregon and you live in Washington. Ignore that bit of advice!)
I’ve moved cross-sea with no money (ok, I had 300USD to my name and the first month of rent paid for) and I’ve moved cross-small-continent with a tiny car multiple times (Yaris hatchback, Citroën C1).
Your papers should be in a specific, easy-to-reach container: mine are in the computer backpack I use as a handbag (it also contains jammies, spoon and fork and several changes of underwear; eventually it contains a bag with the used underwear).
If your new place isn’t furnished, prioritize. Something to sleep on is much more urgent than something to sit on. Actually, you can always sit on whatever you sleep on! Compare IKEA, whatever-Mart, etc and secondhand stores, but do it after you’ve got at least a decent bed. Tired and hurting isn’t the best time to do price comparisons.
This is a fabulous chance to chop down your wardrobe. Anything you haven’t used in a year and which isn’t warm clothing, throw away, give away… just get rid of it. Warm clothing, be more selective on, but still pare it down. Bedclothes may actually be a good thing to bring (one or two sets); among other things, they make for good protection for any delicate items or for cutlery. Kitchen items: mainly don’t bother, but those good cooking knives aren’t what’s going to kill your car (unless you’ve got enough of them to open a store, that is). Furniture, hell no.
I moved to Seattle about 10 years ago after a few decades in Asia.
Take vitamin D every day. Seriously. Most people in most places don’t get enough vitamin D. Maybe even a happy lamp. I discovered that snowboarding/skiing really helps the winter blahs as the resorts are very bright and something to celebrate in the winter.
book a trip to a sunny place sometime in Feb or Mar. Cabo is a couple of hours away and Maui more like 6. You’ll really think it is great by then.
Summers are freaking glorious (from July thru August and maybe September).
Otherwise, the people, the food, the beer, the beaches, the mountains, the weed are all killer. OK , the traffic can suck especially until you figure out your situation, and the gloom can really suck 6 months in, but otherwise Mrs Lincoln how was the play?
Except for that exit on the 40 with the big sign that says “Continental Divide”. You’ll probably notice that. Beautiful area, but yeah, no hairy mountains there.
Well, I can address the opposite: I live on the Oregon side, and taught at the community college in Vancouver for several years. They would not withhold money specifically for Oregon income tax. I had them take extra from each paycheck towards federal income tax, so that my fed return would be be enough to cover my Oregon tax (and then some, hopefully).
I really have no idea how it would work for someone living in Washington and working in Oregon. Would taxes be taken, but then the entire amount returned come April? It would seem strange to be set up that way, but then again, this is the government we’re talking about.
As far as the rain, and the quote above: “Portland gets some kind of precipitation, on average, 156 days per year,” some kind of precipitation does not equal constant rain. It seems like some people think the PNW has a 24/7 deluge going on. It’s not like that at all. Sometimes, yes, it rains for the entire day. But more commonly, a rainy day means light rains on and off, rarely for more than 30 or 60 minutes at a time.
If the gloom would bother you, though… we can go for months only seeing the sun a handful of times. But to me, that’s a feature, not a bug.
No, taxes would be taken and the entire amount (less any small overage) would be kept by Oregon.
Gonna add another vote to the ‘do ittt’ chorus, despite never having been to any of the places mentioned 
It doesn’t sound like you have a lot to lose, but you do have a lot to possibly gain. It’s so easy to carry on doing the same old stuff in the same old place, and even if it doesn’t work out quite like you planned, well, you’re not stuck there either.
I moved a few years ago from the area I’d been living in for a decade, to somewhere I didn’t know anyone that I’d only ever visited once before. I was utterly sick of the whole job hunt cycle in my old place, but in the new area, I’ve found myself falling into new jobs that I’d never even considered before. My dress sense has even changed since moving.
Here’s what I did the last time I was in a similar situation (moving a long distance alone, with way more stuff that would fit in my car):
(You can get car trailers where 2 wheels of the car you’re towing are off the ground, and the other 2 are rolling on the road, but I felt more comfortable with all 4 wheels of my car off the ground, and in 1988 at least, the price difference wasn’t all that big.)
They even hitched the trailer to their rental truck for me. So other than loading the truck with all my stuff, all I had to do was drive my car on and off the trailer.
You mention NC. Whereabouts in NC? It’s not blindingly hot here…really. It just depends on which area you move to. Around the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, we get significant snow most years and four (count 'em) actual seasons. It’s nothing like (much of) TX or FL.
As far as stuff being illegal…can’t help much there, though many areas (like Asheville) are much more lenient than you might think.
^ Smoky Mountain High?
(In Carolina)
Oddly, it’s the whole state, although they also specify cities. It’s weird and seems random although I bet employer friendly state laws may drive it.
Here’s the complete list, by the way:
Alabama
Arizona
Ohio
Georgia
Florida
Texas
Las Vegas
North Carolina
Shafter, CA
Oklahoma
Portland,OR
Utah
See? Mostly other crappy, hot, muggy places. I’m trying to get away from that.
If you work in Oregon and live in Washington you still pay Oregon income taxes–Vancouver WA is a bedroom community of Portland and I think the income tax is in lieu of a traffic congestion tax because dayum, the commute to and from Clark County WA sucks aaaaallll the ass. I used to live in Portland and work in Vancouver so I had a backwards commute and looking over at the opposing lanes on the bridge was enough to give me heebie jeebies. Now I work from home and the worst traffic I face on my commute is the dogs bunching up by my feet when I’m trying to get them out the door for their morning potty break.
Portland has some spendy rent, not gonna lie, but if you work from home you have the option of living in an outlying community that’s not quite so expensive. The rents are coming down though so there’s that. Might mean we’re heading for a recession again but Portland weathered the last one pretty well.
Weed we got. Read an article recently that says that in the Portland metro area nobody’s more than 750 meters from a dispensary. I believe it, too, the little diner down the street where I’ve been having the occasional breakfast for the last 20 years is now a weed shop and a strip club a few blocks up went out of business and is now also a weed shop. It’s getting a little out of hand, I’m thinking. People also need breakfast and nekkid wimmens, y’know. Harumph.
I just helped a friend do househunting who moved from Colorado to The Dalles for a job. That was fun, snooping apartments and rooms to rent without having to actually move myself. Lot cheaper out that way too. Probably a little too far out from the city for your job to okay.
Hey SmartAleq, it’s been a while since I’ve been to Portland, in fact last time was mumble decades ago when we moved Gma from LaGrande to Deer Island. Can you give any insight to living costs etc for that area?
Hey Purplehorseshoe, what sort of emviroment do you want to move to? Coastal/near the Columbia River lush and green and wetter? A little drier, a little hotter in the summer sorta in sorta not the Columbia River Gorge (The Dalles). I know you said you have a friend already in Portland, other than that, is there anything that limits you to that place? Oregon covers a lot of different areas from flat central, hilly bordering on mountains eastern to the coastal areas (Eugene has a reputation for being a snotty and arrogant college town btw)
Good question. I’ll ask H.R. to clarify. See, their list specified Portland, so I dunno. Do suburbs nearby count? Lemme see if I can get details this week.
And hey, feel free to stop in Las Vegas. Don’t gamble tho; we don’t build these big casinos because people win.
You could put stuff in a self storage unit and leave it behind. That way you aren’t stuck with all your stuff while you look for a new apartment. After you get settled in the new location you can drive back to sort it out (decide what to ship and what to throw away), or take a flight or Greyhound back and carry stuff in a u-haul.
Or, if needed, just abandon it. At least for a while, there was Storage Wars: Texas on TV. Just don’t leave your molotovs and your goat porn in the unit.
Prices and things are different here, but I wouldn’t go for self storage. Unless it’s fancy, high end stuff this will very quickly (on the order of a month or two) end up being more expensive than simply replacing with new / used.
If you do go the u-haul and car-trailer option, remember that the car needs to be tied down. If you’ve never done it, you’ll need help with this.
We moved from Asia back to New Zealand, ended up getting a full 20’ container + delivery to our house for only marginally more (about 15%) than it would have cost to replace a piano we had. So do think about this if you have large items that are similarly important / difficult to replace.
I have a list of all my medium-large items written out to help me think. Anything bigger than, say, a lamp.
I have a bunch of side tables, a large and a small chest of drawers, a bookcase and nightstand, medium sized flat screen TV and a desktop computer, a kitchen hutch (that easily comes apart into thirds) a wooden armoire and some miscellaneous shelf thingies. I’m ditching the couch and loveseat, and frankly my mattress isn’t worth moving.
I’m considering one of those “try free for 90 days!” for the mattress, esp. since I’m kinda interested in trying the Purple Mattress anyway. Buys me a couple months.
Haven’t decided about the bed frame yet, and I don’t mind a mattress on the floor for a while.
Finally, there are two glass tanks (my ball python and corn snake) and around a dozen of those 65-quart plastic storage tubs, except these house my African soft-furred rats, which I breed to feed said snakes and also just as a general hobby and side hustle.
Plus clothes and kitchenware. Not terribly much of either.
There’s always more stuff than you think (I’ve packed and moved a LOT) but I think it would fit into a medium U-haul, especially with neither a couch nor a mattress to consider.
Will your car flat tow so you don’t have to try to haul it on a trailer? Or do you have a PDX friend you could fly out to be your second driver?
Portland is definitely not the cheapest city to live in for sure. Housing is very spendy–my daughter just lucked out and scored the house next door to rent on a sweetheart neighbor deal and for a small 2 bedroom (around 750 SF or so?) with a 10x10 uninsulated storage shed and a goodsized yard shared with an ADU they’re paying $1300 per month, and this is out in SE which is considered to be a low class area of town. As you go closer in it gets even spendier so in downtown proper you could spend that same $1300 on a studio loft. Get out of the downtown area and it gets more reasonable–such as the aforementioned SE and also NE on the east side of I-205, Gresham, Hillsboro and Forest Grove you can get a lot more for your money.
If you’re looking to buy bring your checkbook and your stellar credit rating because house prices are pretty crazy. There are deals to be had but you’d better be ready to DIY and cope with some adverse site influences. Lotta homeless people in Portland, gets super rasty downtown but there’s a lot out here in SE along the bike paths and ODOT rights of way. It’s complicated.
We have great food and our cart scene is first rate. I really like living in a city where I can be out in wilderness in a half hour and can have my kayak on the water in the same time frame. Any one of a million places to hike and boat, we’re definitely spoiled for choice here. SAD is a thing here on the wet side, but if it’s driving you batshit you can drive a hundred miles east and be in sunny, cold high desert or go a hundred miles west and sit next to the ocean to be mopey. People in Portland make a point of going to the coast whenever there’s a major storm, just to enjoy the crazy surf and get beat up by rain. We’re weird that way.
For all that my city drives me buggy sometimes I really can’t think of another state I’d rather live in. I recently drove from Ontario OR to Portland on highway 26 and I spent half the drive with my jaw dropped at the amazing scenery and huge, busy sky. Heals the soul, that does.