I Need Your Help!!

Yep! That's right!! I need the help of the blogger community because I may have a "situation" and I'm not quite sure how to solve it.  So here it goes...

There's a chance that I may have a job offer which requires me to relocate & I'm not sure where to start looking...for apartments, condos, lofts, whatever.  I don't know where I want to live - directly in these cities or on the outskirts, so blogger friends if you live anywhere in the areas, please please please help me out!

My choice cities:

• Boston, MA
• Chicago, IL
• Hartford, CT
• Florham Park, NJ
• San Francisco, CA
• NYC
  

I've crossed San Fran off the list, I do not want to live on the west coast.  Not that there's anything wrong with the west coast, I just don't want to live there.  I would love to live in NYC, but I don't think I could afford it & lastly Hartford - well that's just off the list cause it is.  I hate Hartford lol.

All of the cities above are pretty expensive & I'm not sure if I can really afford to live in the city right now; I'm thinking outskirts would be much more affordable.  Here's my problem though: I own a home (which I would have to sell or rent out), I have a lease on a pretty new Acura TL so I think I've crossed NYC out totally because it doesn't even make sense to take a car with you to NYC. 

The company is only offering $10K in relocation, which isn't bad, but for someone like me with a mortgage payment and a new car payment, $10K isn't much.  In essence, this means I will be making a mortgage payment, car payment, rent in a new city, and all of my other bills that I have to pay.  I think it's probably best to sell the house & I will definitely look into that!

So folks - right now my top choices are Boston, Florham Park, & then Chicago.  Does anyone live close to or know anyone that lives close to these cities?  If so, are there any suburbs around them that are fairly safe AND inexpensive?  And by inexpensive I mean $800 - $1000 a month in rent.  Because this job, like my current job entails quite a bit of travel, I probably won't be driving my car much; however, I need to live somewhere that is accessible to public transportation - (train/subway) so I can get back & forth to the office and the airport.

My next task is finding a moving company that can come to GA, pack my stuff up & move it to one of these cities.  I know of a couple of moving companies such as UPack, Allied Van Lines, & Mayflower & need to contact them for a quote.  

Nothing is finalized yet; I had my 3rd interview on Friday, January 15th, but the guy that I interviewed with said I did an excellent job & he was quite impressed.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the best!  My recruiter has already advised me that she wants me to fly into Charlotte on 1/29/10 for my final interview if the 3rd interview went well.  I'll know more on Monday hopefully & when I find out, I'll be sure to give yall the low down! :)

Thanks in advance for all of your help, I definitely need any help/advice I can get right now!

What A Week!!!

This week was a long week, it was a stressful week, I thought that I was going to scream at every single person I work with. I mean it was almost a bit ridiculous! Some days I just can’t get enough, other days I’ve had waaaaaay too much!

So what’s up you ask?!?! I’m moving back into my condo after 2 years of not living there. I purchased the condo back in 2005, lived in it until 2007 & then moved to a bigger city to start on my MBA. After a year of working full time, traveling both in and out of the US, and trying to keep up with course work, I realized that I was failing miserably at school & something had to give. Because I’ve got a totally awesome (yes stressful) job, I knew that my MBA had to be put on hold for a while. At least until I could get my comfortable in my job. I moved back to the town that I semi grew up in (military brat remember) & got an apartment. I didn’t move back into my condo immediately because I was renting it out. Renting a property that I wasn’t able to check into on a monthly basis – bad idea, terrible idea actually. My condo is empty, I’ve started to assess the damage done by others and it’s ridiculous that people could be so careless with something that doesn’t belong to them!

Most of my weekends will be spent getting the house back into a condition that I would like to live in! I had a professional carpet cleaning company come in to salvage the carpet!! Thankfully, the carpet looks great post cleaning, minus the marker spots in the master bedroom. Next week I expect to have the condo professionally painted & now I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the paint color that I picked out! Anyways, it’s a really warm gold tone & I like it! I’ve already put up wooden blinds in both bedrooms, but still have to replace the blinds in the living room and kitchen. I’m also toying with the idea of hardwood floors. I haven’t made a decision one way or another, but I think hardwoods would look great in my place!

I hope the next couple of months fly by & the transition from my apartment to my condo goes smooth! Boy have I learned some lessons from this landlord thing, I don’t think I’ll ever try to do this again; at least not until I have more time to manage it personally! Trying to manage such a thing from another Country, let alone another State is horrifying! It angers me that people don’t respect the property of others, but I guess we all live and learn huh?

On a lighter note, I have fallen in love with Banana Republic’s pants. I heart that place!! 36 inch inseam pants means that I can now wear dress pants AND high heels to work, I don’t have to sacrifice one for the other AND thanks to my corporate card rewards program, I have tons of Banana Republic gift cards! Ladies you know what that means right?! TIME TO SHOP!