[babatong]

Thank you! I can only second what you say.

As a student living off savings from a previous minimum wage job, it is quite possible to live a comfortable life in London. Motivation and time are most certainly part of the few constraints.

I'd like to add financial wit to that. Most people who struggle also struggle to control their finances in any way and spend irresponsively.

[hiram112]

Come back and tell us what you think in 10 years if/when you're married and have a few kids.

It is exactly the same with the tech hubs in the US - SF, Seattle, East Coast, etc. I'm from the midwest, which I suppose is the equivalent to North England. Like the author, one here needs to move to a hub to obtain an interesting position and good salary.

The problem is that housing and other costs (tolls, taxes, etc.) have been pumped up so high, it is nearly impossible to live well (past your early 20s) in one of these cities, assuming you'll one day move out of the shared flat with 4 roomies.

I've done the numbers, and the choices are grim:

1) Stay here with a high salary and job prospects but never have kids.

2) Have kids, move hours out of the city, and spend my life commuting.

3) Move back to the sticks, take a huge pay cut, work on crappy Enterprise crud apps, but at least live in something larger than 500 ft^2 studio in the ghetto.

[philbo87]

I don't know if I agree with you that the midwest is a terrible place to be for tech. I'm located in a medium sized midwestern town, working on interesting web applications and using modern technologies. I am paid well. No, I don't make SF money. But my rent is 30% of what I'd pay in SF as well.

If you want to make a living working for trendy unicorn startups, then the midwest certainly doesn't have as many of those. But if you are on top of your career, and are happy to keep your skills up to date, then you can find many interesting opportunities here. And if you don't want to keep your skills up to date, there seem to be plenty of places looking to hire people to maintain old enterprise apps written in VB...

I find this job market to be absolutely fantastic. I have lots of opportunity coming my way on a regular basis. And since there is a lower supply of qualified engineers, I feel as though I could command more salary.

I can make enough money here to live an extremely high quality of life, and raise a family while doing so. For me to go to a tech hub, I would need to receive one hell of an offer.

[buffoon]

4) have three kids, work on crappy enterprise crud apps, live in a house in a nice area near good schools.

It's fine. Seriously.

[buffoon]

Financial wit is a killer definitely. A lot of people spend a lot of money on things that they don't need then complain about their life collapsing around them. I've done this before and spent 5 years digging myself out of it. Everything I'm saying is because I've learned about it the hard way.

I'm glad to say that they teach this in secondary schools now. I have hope for the younger generations.