I feel like @anomalily probably has opinions about vegan junk food you can find in London!
I’m here for any suggestions!
Hi, everyone. I am coming over from MMM, but I don’t necessarily feel like I fit in over there. I’ve generally been pretty low income and sometimes I like to spend money frivolously. I currently live in Boston with my boyfriend but in August/September we are moving to a small city in upstate New York and he’ll be my husband. I work in the food industry as a cook but would like to work in it from a more PR/marketing/whatever lets me write about it angle.
I love to read, cook (especially big projects), cuddle with my cat, go out to eat.
I’m here because the community is kind and supportive. Working toward my best life!
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Congrats on your marriage!
Hi, I’m Tris Prior. Randomly saw today in MonkeyJenga’s journal over at MMM that this place existed, and because I clearly do not have enough places to spew my personal business all over the Internet already, here I am!
Lifelong Chicagoan, I live with my partner of nearly 15 (!) years and 2 kittens. I have a job in publishing that is mostly OK as corporate jobs go. I am in my late 40s and got a late start on retirement savings due to being very low income for a long time. Now making a decent salary but driving myself kind of nuts trying to save as much as possible to make up for lost time.
I have a lot of anxiety around money, and lately for a variety of reasons feel desperate to retire ASAP. Not desperate enough to cut my lifestyle as deeply as I’d need to in order to achieve this, though. That’s my current struggle - in order to get my savings where it needs to be, there is no room for, as I posted recently at MMM, any joy whatsoever in my budget.
Complicating matters, I recently decided that I’m done with the polar vortex and that we need to flee for a warmer climate ASAP. Trying to get Boyfriend on board with this.
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Oh! What part of upstate? (I’m originally from WNY/Finger Lakes.)
@TrisPrior, It’s nice to see you over here. 
Hey,
I heard the cool kids from MMM (especially the Aussies) were hanging out here now. Figured I’d check it out. You might know me as PDM on MMM, on OMD I’ll be PDM. Simple. What does PDM stand for? Well it’s a failed branding attempt at selling cheap Chinese made dog collars using my dog’s cuteness. Punk Dog Momo (PDM).
This side hustle didn’t take but I kept the name.
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I’m also looking to flee somewhere warm! Hello, fellow frozen person.
@AllHat, do you have a destination in mind? That’s what I’m stuck on. I haven’t yet found a location that fits all my criteria (blue state, no winter, can live there without a car, low to medium COL) and am uncertain what I can compromise on without being miserable.
We aren’t 100% committed to one destination but DH is applying in Atlanta, Houston, Tampa, and Orlando. My priorities are warmth, decent population size (this is primarily for medical resource reasons), diversity, but I’m ok with needing a car and being in a politically mixed area. If you’re open to smaller populations maybe Asheville, NC? I think if you lifted the car restriction you’d have more options, and maybe settle for a blue city instead of a blue state?
Not necessarily blue states but liberal cities, but some ideas I have for “no winter/low COL/can live without a car”:
- Charleston, SC (racially diverse); middle COL, walkable central district and easy-ish biking but not great transit; not blue state but very liberal city
- Eugene, OR (extremely white), middle COL, extremely easy to get around without a car, liberal state, no snow likely but it does rain for 9 freaking months
- Raleigh, NC (racially diverse, very gay too) though getting around without a car requires living in city center
- Cincinnati, OH (racially diverse) not the best for getting around without a car, but I did for years if you will bike, winter is mild to middling, very low COL
- Lexington, KY (middlingly diverse, very gay) very low COL and very walkable, not a blue state but liberal city
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@anomalily thanks! I know someone who lives in Eugene. She doesn’t seem wild about it.
I’ve been to Raleigh-Durham but it’s been more than 20 years and I found it to be very red. Isn’t there another liberal town near there? Chapel Hill maybe? Maybe things have gotten more liberal there since the early 2000s.
I also know someone who lives in Cincinnati and that is too much snow. I am looking for NO winter. Or the kind of winter where you are not expected to haul your ass in to work because you’re a tough Midwesterner.
Yea, there’s a triangle of cities out there, all three are pretty freaking liberal these days though, especially by NC standards. Might be worth a revisit. Everytime I’ve been there it’s been surprisingly liberal and also very queer.
I lived in Eugene about ~12 years ago and not keen on it anymore, particularly for diversity reasons, but it does fit all your criteria unless you want sun.
Yea, I grew up in Cincinnati and it’s definitely not no-winter, but it’s on the scale of like “not at all chicago/upper midwest”. Like it doesn’t get below freezing that often. We got snow like once a year; but we did occasionally have to go to school when it snowed unlike out here in the Pacific Northwest where a flake falls in the city and everything’s cancelled.
St Augustine FL might fit the bill. Small, walkable, good COL, no winter.
ETA: If you lifted the car-ban Austin TX might work too. I used to live there and liked it.
@AllHat, funny you mention that, my company has an Austin-area office and transferring might be possible. (I talk about this at length in my journal at the other place.) Except, the office just moved to Round Rock. And everyone who works there bitches about how awful the commute is. And my one friend who lives there says “step 30 minutes out of Austin proper and you are in Trump country.” Which I’m pretty sure Round Rock is?
So… meh? Maybe?
IMO some people just love to complain, about everything, no matter what, LOL. Negativity is easy! I think any place will have pros and cons 
but Austin does seem to have a lot of what you want!
ETA: meant to respond to you @TrisPrior still getting the hang of this forum.
I should start a new thread about this so I do not hijack the introduction thread with “where should Tris live?” blatherings!
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Yasss do that!
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I’m from WNY too! I will be moving to the home of the garbage plate :). I grew up in a small town about 45 minutes away from there but that city is where I went to school and where all my friends lived. I know it but I don’t know it completely; it’s a nice mix.
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Is the garbage plate like the junk pile in Toronto?