I am a Maximizer – give me all the data so I can make informed choices.
100% certainty is never a realistic option, so while I do not settle, I must aim to suffice.
The process of finding out what is sufficient is sometimes easy – like glancing at a nutrition label – and other times an insufficient system can make for the hardest decision of one’s career.
You have seen other posts on how to decide and this time I want to give you my full toolset (as of now) plus a real-life decision I needed to make. That decision:
To move to a rural location that would benefit me financially and my working team (RURAL), or stay in an expensive land of opportunity I just moved to not 6 months before (CITY)?
Distilled from my journal with only the barest of obfuscation of location and specific details, this is your guide to decide:
- Before It All: Remember Yourself
- Run the Numbers
- Full Body “YES”
- Occam’s Simple Decision
- Leads to More Opportunity / Options / Life?
- Imagine Making the Decision; How Do You Feel Now?
- Pro-Con List
- Ask Why / What-For x5
- What Do Your Virtual Mentors Say?
- Fear Setting, Fear Achieving
- –
Before It All: Remember Yourself
Prime yourself with the principles you live by, the few hills you will die (kill?) for. Some of mine:
- Don’t be greedy.
- Be more selfish.
- No.
- This too shall pass.
- Ends make the means.
- Wait for no one.
- Suffering Is.
- Be no bigger advocate for another as they are for themselves.
- Life is short and then we die.
These I aim to always keep in mind, so were not applied directly to the RURAL-CITY decision.
Run the Numbers
Money is important to me – it is the best means to many ends. Any sober, reasoning person will agree that money plays a star role in life.
Monthly expense and income numbers let me understand what I can expect where I am. Using a Cost of Living (CoL) calculator like NerdWallet or Numbeo, I can get the difference of how much it typically costs to live where I am vs where I might go. Cost of Living affects expenses.
Googling an income tax calculator will tell you the effective tax rate. Effective income tax affects take-home income.
Take-home minus expenses is the profit you keep for choosing to live in a certain place, have a certain lifestyle, and work doing a certain thing for a certain company.
More profit is objectively a better. Point earned for wherever, whatever increases profit.
Take-home Income – Expenses = Profit
Note: Annual or Monthly, it does not matter so long as the time used is consistent.
CITY has a tax of 32.54% (includes federal and state). CoL: +49% (1.49) national average
RURAL is taxed at 25.36%. CoL: -9% (.91)
I have current spending as C-Expenses in the CITY.Gross Income * .6746 – C-Expenses = e.g. ~$1000 CITY
Gross Income * .7464 – (C-Expenses * 91 / 149) = e.g. ~$1700 RURALRURAL is extra profitable, nearly doubly so. Even assuming one-time moving costs, that money is made up very quickly. GO!
A good place to be in. (Result numbers for example only – math not double-checked, like should that 1700 be 3955? 🤷‍♂️)
Why does profit matter? In one way, it does not: lifestyle ought not inflate with additional profit – that should be funneled back into the business of a lifetime, not a lifestyle. That lifetime, those future “yous” for the next 10, 30, 60, 100 years, will suffer less for the profit kept now – that makes chasing profit a very good thing to do.
Full Body “YES”
Head: Money is good. I would be a big fish in a little pond. Growing location. GO!
Heart: I like my place and my friends and all I have going for me. STAY!
Gut: I do not want little towns – grew up enough with those. Move again, start again? STAY!
Groin: Adventure! New starts! Better commitments! GO!
STAY seems to be the word of the day – my body holds out on taking the RURAL decision.
Occam’s Simple Decision
Staying is a simple decision. Yet…
Going fulfills overarching goals, clears my way. Financial Independence makes all else easier or unnecessary.
Right now, STAY is the simpler, yet an eye to the future means to GO.
(This is similar to “what makes all else simpler or unnecessary,” a tool lifted from Tim Ferriss that analyzes if a more complex/difficult short-term decision bags a net simpler life. Most Qs here are heavily influenced by if not a direct clone of Tim’s toolkit.)
Leads to More Opportunity / Options / Life?
CITY is full of opportunity. People, networks.
CITY gives the options now, but RURAL has lots of options later.
CITY is exciting and a fuller life.
STAY – it opens doors and enables me to rally with the best.
As a virtual mentor puts it, get to a city to rally with the best.
Imagine Making the Decision; How Do You Feel Now?
Go RURAL?
I would feel like I was betraying some folks – arrangements left, distance decaying what I have built in the CITY. More money makes lines go up – a swell thing. It removes direct oversight in the CITY, granting flexibility or reprieve. A resigned feel lies with me – leaving does not feel relieving.
Do it if wanting a restart and / or needing less stress and / or losing my network.
Stay CITY?
I am letting a few people in the business down. I look forward to getting to build my established social life. I enjoy the water, but hold anxiety for what is next. The stress…
Do it if stress is managed (water plays as big part) and / or network continues to grow.
Pro-Con List
(An item cannot just be the lack of being on the other list, i.e. a positive on the GO list is not a negative on the STAY list.)
| Go Pro | Go Con |
| Big fish | Small town |
| Pay | Leaves network |
| Years off of retirement | Leaves friends |
| Less stress | [Poor] airports |
| Commitment psychology | |
| Importance to the team | |
| Better office | |
| Fewer social disturbances |
| Stay Pro | Stay Con |
| Develop network | Eventually move out / away from water |
| Water | Commute |
| Simple choice | |
| Chemistry / vibe | |
| Concerts / culture | |
| Medical resources |
STAY! But barely, leaving me with more questions on the decision than I feel answers.
Ask Why / What-For x5
Asking the Qs of each answer previous:
Why go RURAL? What for?
- Asked by the team for its positive impact.
- To gain money and prestige.
- To be independent and secure.
- To work on my things without the anxiety of falling behind.
- To regain the sense of control and chill felt in childhood.
Why stay in the CITY? What for?
- Simple decision left up to me.
- Delayed answering of ‘where to live,’ ‘what to do,’ ‘who to meet.’
- I like comfort and staying delays or negates hard conversations and choices.
- I like knowing outcomes, answers.
- Knowing is power and I am a coward to be powerless (or, irrational?).
Oof – getting deep. I like neither answer, yet I dislike CITY’s answer less.
What Do Your Virtual Mentors Say?
(What I know of these folks, advising in their voice.)
Tim Ferriss: GO – what is the worst case? The best?
Aaron Marino: GO – make an impact and do not let others hold you back.
Scott Galloway: STAY – get to a city (or stay in one!) and get rich slowly.
Andrew Huberman: STAY – you seem not very convicted to GO.
No help here either – I ought have asked more folks!
Fear Setting, Fear Achieving
For each decision option, explore the best realistic case, the all-too-real worst case, and what could be done to cap the downsides:
GO, the Best: Money rolling in. Many new connections with me, the big-city intellectual. Financial gains and I make off like a bandit.
GO, the Worst: RURAL sucks. Small town sucks. I make no friends of my colleagues. There is little to do in yucky weather. I have lost the network formed in CITY for little gain. (And I add, what of any need for medical care? Does not look as swell.)
GO, Cap: Travel. Maintain long-distance networks. Start activities with colleagues. Be the social butterfly. Get on Meetup et. al again. Take up projects and get back into solo activities (e.g. games).
STAY, the Best: Grow long-term network. Form friendships and a community. Get to know the CITY and experience culture in all new ways. Experiment with the beach, dance, entertainment, and other forms of life. Finances pop without RURAL and I continue on the path of FI.
STAY, the Worst: I must move off the beach to both a lower quality and higher cost of residence. I wreck my network. Finances tumble and I am stuck. I cannot keep up with demands and scrutiny as they are. My team and the company moves on without me.
STAY, Cap: Ask for network growth. Keep scrutinizing values and time and effort. Get assurances for housing. Optimize the work. (And I add, I can always choose to move later!)
–
In the end, I have decided to stay in the CITY, with a quarterly review of the opportunity value of staying or going. For such a large life change, deliberation is required!
This toolkit has come a long way since 2021 – I look to grow it, improve it, apply it always.
What are your heuristics and go-to methods for making decisions? What did you think of this “how the sausage is made” look at my journal and more?
Tell me what’s up in the comments and cheers to your new year here ~
Jimmy Chattin 