I would have flipped my $#!! over that.

I totally beat you to that one.

^

You're a skilled user. :D

True. I could buy 2-3x the house in Houston. My next move is going to be to a location where housing is a bit more reasonable.

The only time I've ever seen that is at the Australian regional airport nearest to the town where my aunt and uncle live. There was no security there either (so flying to SYD they dumped us out at baggage claim).

Come to the 2013 US Open, which is being held about two miles from my house. You can park in my driveway. ;)

Semi-ignorant tax commenting ahead:

Having two similar incomes is when the marriage penalty applies. With one income (or two widely varying incomes) the married rate is slightly lower, I think.

The single withholding rate is higher than the married rate (which is why there is a box on the W4 that reads "married, but withhold at higher single rate"). The issue there is figuring out how many exemptions to take and having the spouse with the higher income take them all. When my wife was working, we always screwed up the exemptions and ended up owing money. Consequently, I give the IRS a rather large interest-free loan each year. I know enough about the way we spend money to know that, since we need to set aside a certain sum each year for tuition/house improvements/etc., we're more likely to save it if it comes as a lump sum from the IRS. Interest rates are low enough these days that we don't lose out all that much.

PA has a flat tax. Normally, I'm not in favor of those, but it does make tax returns easy to file (and the rate is relatively low).

Avoid Teh Pit at all costs. You could still get 1.5x-2x as much house for the same price in Austin, and actually live somewhere nice. Personally, I've always thought BNA would make for a nice move. I enjoyed the city when I was visiting it regularly, it has all four seasons, and there are some nice hilly bits. It's also pretty cheap. ^

AUS and BNA were both places we were looking at when we decided to bail out of SAN. AUS won due to proximity to family (south of The Pit) for when we start having kids in a few years.

The book I'm reading tells me that a subsidiary company of Pan Am had a piece of a hotel in Havana in the 50's. Said company bought their stake in said hotel by dealing with Meyer Lansky. The hotel ownership caused PA to offer $39 MIA-HAV fares.

Which makes me wonder, do these last few days of beautiful weather deduct from our allotted 11 days of Spring?

:cool: I haven't been to a US Open since Cherry Hills which was back in the 70s I believe! :eek:

Beer Laos is my favorite Asian beer. Check it out if you ever come across it. :-:

Living in NYS state sucks the big fat :rolleyes: in terms of cost of living and taxes. The amount we paid for our casa here would buy us something rather nice just about anywhere else. Two advantages to our situation: our real estate values are relatively insulated being only 15 miles from Manhattan and my SBH is milking the teet of egregious NYS taxes, so every dollar I put in, I get back in spades.

I have to repeatedly remind myself of those two things however.

If we can commit to a Brazilian Beer DO for next year I'd commit this far in advance.

What are you reading?

Kraft doesn't have a location in Houston anymore since we sold off the coffee plant. I'd like to stay with the company (good pay, good benefits, tons of time off since sick/vacation days are one pool for me, and I don't get sick much), so my next move is probably going to be a full-time spot in one of our plants.

Our only TX location is in the DFW area (Garland, IIRC).

Pretty much any plant location I'd move to is somewhere cheaper than Chicago, except for the bakeries we have near-ish EWR, PHL, and PDX.

Congrats on 164k! :cool: