Thoughts about applying for a potential job transfer/relocation

In My Humble Opinion
1

My job is soliciting applications for a transfer/promotion from my current job near Chicago to Honolulu. Was hoping you guys might weigh in on the relative merits.

Inn short, I’m seeing no real downside - other than being apart from my 2 young grandkids (10,5), who currently live 10 minutes away.

I’m 64 and nearing retirement - planned for 12/27. I’m well positioned for retirement, we own our home and have no debt. Basically, we live pretty boring, comfortable, predictable lives, and were assuming we would continue doing so until we die. Neither of us has ever lived/worked more than 150 miles from Chicago (and that was when we were in college!)

The new job would not pay any more, but would pay relocation expenses. (There is nothing about the job itself that is appealing/interesting/challenging. It is a job I have done in the past, and VERY similar to my current one.) My main concern is that my life is so comfortable and predictable, that planning and moving would be a hassle. Would we sell/rent our home? Store/move our stuff? Rent in Hawaii (including furniture and car(s))? What do we do with our dog? Get health care at a quick clinic in Hawaii? How often do we visit home? So there would be some costs involved, but nothing we couldn’t afford.

In my imagination, we could do this for 2-5 years, and then move back. Heck, we could even afford to spring to have each of our kids/grandkids come out to visit periodically. Or we could travel back to the states. (Our 2 other adult kids live in Denver.)

Bottomline, there is no harm in applying. Realistically, I assume MANY folk will apply and I highly doubt they would give it to me. But the application is not terribly onerous, and there is no harm in getting to the position that they offer it and I can still say, “No.”

The main thing I’m thinking is that I have always led a very boring, yet comfortable life. This would be one relatively low cost opportunity to jolt myself out of my comfort zone (into another VERY comfortable zone) and have an “adventure.” Or, I could just settle back in my easy chair and have another nap! :wink:

So what do you think? What realistic costs do you foresee? Plans that would need to be made? Experiences to share?

2

This is true, but this…

…would be an immediate deal-breaker for me.

Despite common cliches, there is nothing wrong with having a comfort zone and staying in it if that is your preference.

mmm

3

Me too.

Very generally speaking, since Hawaii has a much higher cost of living, I would think your standard of living would have to go down proportionally.

My advice is to stay put.

4

Well, did you do a cost of living comparison? Hawaii is a super expensive place to live, so you might want to do that. I discovered that, if I lived in the Dallas metroplex, my money would have 17% more buying power than it has here. So, even if I only made the same amount of money, it would be like getting a substantial raise.

Another consideration is that Hawaii is at least 2,000 miles away from any significant land mass or city. It is paradise to visit, but do you want your entire lifestyle to be that isolated? Having spent a wonderful week there, my feeling is, “It’s a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

5

The advantage of living in a place like Hawaii is being able to experience all the natural beauty, but you need to be the kind of person who will make the effort to experience it. If you just live in Honolulu like it’s any other city and commute back and forth for your job, you’re not going to get the full benefit of living there. But if you like things like boating, going to the beach, hiking, and living an island-kind of life, then it’s a great place to be. Those positives can make up for the downsides of living on a tourist island. And to really enjoy living there, you’d need to be able to fit in with the culture. It’s not going to be like Chicago. If you’re wanting things to be like they are in Chicago, you’re going to be disappointed a lot.

One thing you should carefully consider is the travel aspect. In reality, it may be difficult for families to do that kind of traveling on a frequent basis. Their lives are complex and they can’t easily take a week or so to come down for a visit. So you may end up not seeing them very much.

6

Wow - I really didn’t expect the initial responses to be so consistent in support of inertia! :smiley:

WRT grandkids: we see our dtr and grandkids pretty often - have meals, go to their activities, just stop by, etc. My sister and I go on long bike rides with the older when she is off school. We enjoy doing all that. And we pretty much feel that is what is expected of grandparents.

But, we often find ourselves wondering exactly how much such interactions mean to the grandkids. I mean, they are pleasant and friendly enough - but we don’t really get the sense that they would be broken up if they saw us less. And the things we like to do don’t really seem to be exactly what THEY prefer to do. To be honest, my days of running around and playing freeze tag are behind me.

I don’t want to paint an overly bleak picture. We truly value our time with our grandkids. But I’m wary of overweighing that one factor. They are a young family living their own lives. I honestly do not know how “important” our parents were in our lives when our kids were young. As a grandparent, I can imagine that I might overvalue my significance to my kids/grandkids.

Like I said, I could imagine paying for the grandkids to come to Hawaii for an annual visit, and flying back annually for us to visit. And there is facetime, etc. And it would only be a few years. Even if it were 5 years, they would still be 10 and 15 when we returned.

So it is definitely a factor, but I’m not sure it ought to outweigh all otherfactors. My daughter is stopping over this morning. We’ll likely bring this up to guage her reaction.

Re: cost - yeah, Hawaii’s cost of living is expensive. But, as I said, we are pretty financially comfortable (tho not stupid rich.) And we don’t exactly live in a slum here, or deprive ourselves of pretty much any expenditure we want. Part of planning would require seeing how much we could get in rent for (or sale of) our current home, rent in Hawaii, … We’d likely have to store a bunch of our possessions. We currently have enough saved for retirement, and continue to save more each year I continue to work. In my mind, the higher cost of living would likely come out of our ongoing savings, rather than having to touch our existing savings. Also, tho work would pay our way over there, we would be on the hook for any costs of return.

I guess at this early stage, in my mind I imagine us living a more stripped down life there. Instead of our comfortable home and yard, I could imagine a smaller apartment. Giving up this one aspect of comfort, for a couple of years living someplace new and beautiful. But I DO appreciate my comfort!

Moreover, over the past couple of years we have been doing some kinda pricey travel - Kenya last year, France in May, and paying for trips w/ our kids/grandkids. If I were living in Hawaii, I would imagine not feeling a need to spend as much on travel those years. So that “travel” money could instead go towards Hawaii cost of living.

When we visited Hawaii, I was very stricken by how “isolated” the islands were, and decided we would not want to live there permanenty. But the idea of a 3-5 year sojourn seems more workable/tolerable.

Thanks for the responses - keep them coming!

7

I wouldn’t move that far away and expect grandchildren to visit more than once or twice a year, if that. Even if you pay, there’s the issue of taking ten days to 2 weeks away from their normal lives for each visit - it’s not like it’s just a weekend.

If it’s only going to be for a few years - I wouldn’t really want the hassle/expense of moving if I plan to return. It’s one thing to decide to buy new furniture because I’m moving to far away to be worth moving my current furniture , for an indefinite amount of time and it’s another to do so knowing I will be moving back to where I started in a couple of years. I hate changing doctors and for a distant move, I would have to change them all at once - and then change them all again when I return. It would be different if I was planning to move to Hawaii for good.

Also, about the expense - I’ve known a couple of people who moved from the NYC area to Honolulu and they said it was expensive. From what I understand, the housing cost is not much different ,maybe even a little less in Hawaii - it’s that everything else is just a little more expensive and it adds up.

8

Certainly your grandchildren would probably be fine in your absence; children are plastic and adapt to whatever circumstances they’re in. I never had grandparents around growing up and I’m fine. But my brother’s two children had both sets within ten minutes and saw all four regularly while they were children and I believe that they are richer for it. No one ever had too many loved ones in their lives. So I would encourage you to stay put and stay involved in your grandchildren’s lives, to whatever extent possible due to your age. Don’t worry that you can’t play freeze tag any longer.

9

This is a series of disjointed paragraphs; not an essay:

IIRC @CairoCarol lives on the Big Island. If so, doubtless she’ll have some good insights.

As you may recall, the DOGE fools laid off many (most? all?) Federal probationary workers. My (perhaps flawed) understanding was that included people with decades of federal seniority who had taken a job transfer in the last year. Would you be sticking your head on that chopping block by taking this transfer? If so, expect rather few people to apply for it, so the raw numbers may be more in your favor than you think.

IME, do not apply for the job as a lark, fully expecting to not get it. IOW, don’t think of it as buying a Powerball ticket, planning to lose. If you do get the job you will get to eat the whole enchilada of moving, etc. As difficult as that task is, it’ll be a lot more psychologically onerous if your mindset is more “Oh shit, I got it. Now what!??!?”. IOW don’t be the dog who caught the car.

I personally have gone through 3 residences and 4 women from age 63 to now 66. And retired from my job / career. I am well and truly jolted out of my old and familiar rut. And I am much improved for the experience. There is a lot more living in every day of my life than there was. I am now actively pushing back against the tendency to form ruts.

Grandkids: how old are they now? Remember they grow and change quickly. If they’re about to be tweens, their interest in all things grandparenty is going to plummet to near zero. Whether you’re next door or in Hawaii then won’t matter hardly at all to them. You have to decide whether eking out the last bit of intense interaction now before that happens is something so precious you must stay, or whether locking yourself to where you are for the long haul just to preserve those e.g. 2 years is worth it. etc.

10

I don’t know you or your grandchildren - but you won’t necessarily know in advance whether they would be broken up or how important you might be (or might become) to them. When my uncle moved to Florida, my cousin was not expecting her son to ask why his grandfather didn’t love him anymore. My two sets of grandparents were different. None of them were the type to play tag or even go to our activities (graduations, religious events, that was it) One set I saw nearly every day. The other set, I saw perhaps four times a year - and they lived a mile away. One from each side survived until I was an adult. The grandmother I never saw - I didn’t even make it to her funeral. I had just started a new job and didn’t want to ask for a day off. Grandfather I saw every day - I was a wreck when he died. He was who I could go to when I couldn’t go to my parents for whatever reason - and in large part, I was comfortable doing so because of he relationship I had with him. I never felt comfortable asking mile-away Grandma for anything.

11

There was, I thought, a remarkable bit in one episode of Ted Lasso. Roy Kent is walking with his niece, alongside Rebecca and her goddaughter Nora. Roy is advising Rebecca how to spend time with Nora.

Roy, “Most adults think kids need to be constantly entertained. It’s bullshit. I didn’t need a fucking parade every day growing up, did you? Truth is they just wanna feel like they’re part of our lives.”

To his niece, "Oi, do you want to come to my podiatrist appointment with me?

Phoebe, “Yes, please.”

12

That is very much our approach. Last couple of years, some hip arthritis has slowed me a bit, but I still bike and swim regularly, our preferred recreation is hiking and our preferred destinations state/national parks. I was born in Chicago, but have lived in suburbs for the past 40 years. So living IN a big city by itself is not a big attraction. I golf quite a bit and we both play music, so I imagine we would check out where we could engage in those activities. Yeah - I THINK they have a golf course or 2 in Hawaii…

I presume the new job would have some telework available and flexible hours. What exactly would be involved in commuting is a very real concern.

I get that. Which is why my wife and I have started really discussing this, and why I’m soliciting your impressions. But as I get older, I’m more aware of my limited time left, and how little really interesting I’ve done so far. It is so easy to just stick with my comfortable (and lazy) routines, and continue to pass the hours until I die.

Again - I find the near unanimity surprising. Coincidentally, I’m reading a Julia Child autobiography right now. She describes moving from California to Ceylon to China to Paris to Marseilles to Germany to Oslo to Boston, then building a second home in Provence… Whereas I can say, “Well, I spent 8 years going to school in the cornfields south of Chicago, and then spent a couple of years living and working in the cornfields of NW Indiana!” :smiley:

I would have expected someone to say, “Be irresponsible - go for it!” Realistically, I wouldn’t be signing a contract with a penalty or anything. If I took the job and hated it after a month, I could simply retire. Even if the costs above current living were - let’s say $50-100k, that would just be $50-100k less that we will eventually be leaving to our kids.

Thanks for your experiences. That is a very good thought. I have no real idea how long this process would take - but such things do not usually happen overnight. Realistically, I would wager a considerable sum that no offer would be made earlier than June, with no expectation that I move earlier than a couple of months after. But we are starting to discuss it now, so as NOT to end up with that bumper unexpectedly between our teeth.

BUT - the application has to be submitted by 4/4… If you don’t buy a ticket, you are guaranteed not to win! :wink:

Grandkids are 5 and 10.

13

Moi aussi.

You will miss out on Italian beef sammies (wet of course). And what will you do in Honolulu? Surfing? Hiking? What are the entertainment options like plays, concerts, &c.?

14

How many employees will consider the offer without a pay raise? The increased cost of living would be a deal breaker for many.

15

Do you own your house outright or close to it?

I’m getting second-hand vapors right now thinking about selling a fully-paid-off house, moving to a very expensive area, and then expecting to come back in 2-5 years to just buy another house.

Maybe it’s just my age, as people my age don’t usually have pensions or paid off houses or retirement funds. But housing is the one stable thing in my life. I can’t imagine giving that up, especially right now.

16

Presumably he could rent the house during this time. That might help with the increase in expenses.

17

It’s not - I have a paid off house and a pension and have already retired. And I can’t imagine selling my house to move somewhere far away for a few years and then move back to the same area. I can imagine selling and moving somewhere permanently. I can imagine selling and moving for some indeterminate amount of time, at which point I might return to where I started or might move somewhere else entirely. It’s just that one situation where I plan from the outset to return where I started that I can’t imagine.

18

A few years before retirement is the best time for a jolt. A move to someplace like Hawaii would open you up to myriad activities and potential passions which will be vital when you suddenly have a bunch of free time on your hands. You can always go back to your old life (sans the career). I say go for it.

19

To clarify my own position, were I in the OP’s shoes I’d jump at the job.

Cost of living be damned; I / the OP can afford the difference. I’d be intending to move to HNL permanently and promptly sell that oversized useless Chicago house and all the contents.

Go to Hawaii with just a couple suitcases of clothes and reservations for a month at a corporate extended stay hotel. Spend that month picking an apartment to rent for 6-12 months while shopping for the apartment or condo you want to rent as your more or less permanent residence.

All the rest of the crap in your life is just a museum you’re stuck curating that nobody else cares about or will ever pay to visit. Most of us are prisoners of our stuff. A reality I did not appreciate until circumstances forced me to break out and never look back.


Reflecting on a couple of recent posts …

In unsettled times the last thing I’d want is a hunk of real estate I can’t sell into a crashed market that anchors me to one spot in a dying country. Far better to have that millstone sold before la deluge and be light on your feet.

20

I’ve been contemplating a cross-country move and received a quote for about $5000 to move the contents of my one-bedroom apartment. But I was also pricing the stuff in the apartment. The Corelle dishes I can replace for roughly $60; the pots and pans for roughly $130. And so forth. It seems that replacing everything with brand-new stuff would cost roughly the same $5,000, for which I get all new stuff and less clutter. But then the question is how to get rid of it all?