I am moving to a new city. How do I plan and prepare - financially - for the move?
Some of the costs you might incur include: Utilities and cost of living vary from city to city but maybe not that much.  For basic planning purposes you can probably figure to spend as much as you are now, maybe a little more.  And adjust as needed when you get there.  (And adjust if, for example, you're moving from a very low cost of living area or to a very high cost of living area.) The cost of housing varies quite a bit from city to city, but you can do this research using Zillow, Craigslist, other places. Now, on to moving itself.  The cost of moving can vary hugely depending on how much stuff you have and how much work you want to do.  On the cheap end, you can rent a U-Haul or one of those portable boxes that they plant outside your old house and move for you.  You'll do all the packing/loading/unloading/unpacking yourself but it saves quite a bit of money.  My family and I moved from Seattle to California last year using one of those portable box places and it ended up costing us ~$1400 including 30 days of storage at the destination while we looked for a place.  We have a <1000 sq foot place with some furniture but not a huge amount and did all the packing/loading ourselves.  If we had wanted full service where people come pack, load, unpack, etc, it could have been 2-3x that amount.  (And if we had more stuff, it could have been a lot more expensive too.  Try not to acquire too much stuff as you just end up having to move it around and take care of it all!)  Your employer may cover moving expenses, ask about this when talking about job offers.  Un-reimbursed moving expenses are tax-deductible in the US (even if you don't itemize).   Since you're just starting out, your best bet is to overestimate how much you think things will cost, then adjust as you arrive and settle in for a few months.  Try to save as much as you can, but remember to have fun too.  Hope this helps!
"How will making energy cheaper help?  The issue is that average earnings have barely moved since the 70's, inflation has sky-rocketed for necessities and for assets.  My dad was making the same as I am now when he bought their first home for $40,000.  My smaller place cost me $300,000+.  That isn't fucking sustainable.  Natural gas, gasoline, electricity, those are all tiny slices of pie in comparison to food and shelter.    Then the American government makes all these shitty chess-play moves that they think will stimulate the economy but they don't take into account that civilians aren't entities that behave like ideal statistical models.  They don't fucking understand that people are concerned about the viability of their futures.  The whole thing is nose-diving into the ground.  Read the the book ""The Death of Money"" by James Rickards, America is fucked and the politicians don't care because they will be financially OK and will pass the buck on to the next generation to deal with." "I do a lot of my own legal work, even sued the IRS, and I always win**.  I would not attempt to do this myself.  I'd run straight to a tax professional***.  But if I did attempt this myself... My position is that I did a 401K to IRA rollover in good faith.  Such a rollover is perfectly common.  eTrade saw the paperwork and knew I was rolling over a 401K, and knew or reasonably should have known this rollover would be to an IRA, since rolling over to a cash account is a completely insane act which no-one would ever do.  I would gather and prepare to present every document that supports this notion in any way.  I would then take a hard look at my documentation and see how well I can support that argument.   Then I would research cases in tax court to see how the courts treated situations like yours.   I would not roll over the money to another IRA account until I had done that.   And I would move quickly.  This is a hard problem and there are no pat answers.  It depends a lot on the finer details.  One last thing.  Next time you do a move like this, start small.  Move $2000 over. ** My real skill is swallowing my pride and knowing when I'm wrong.  I settle those, and only fight the guaranteed winners.  *** This is not the usual SE kneejerk of ""hire a professional"".  I almost never do; but I would here.  It's an arcane area.  Also acting on a professional's advice is a ""get out of jail free"" card regarding penalties or punishments." I am on my cellphone so it's a bit hard to flesh out, but the thought of these cities is that drawing Amazon will naturally draw other companies in, as opposed to being appealing to many companies but not appealing enough for a headquarter move (assuming favorable conditions are not infinite).    So for example, If there is an Amazon HQ, there can soon be a Google or FB base nearby as well (think Bank of America and Wells Fargo in Charlotte) and the natural attraction these pose for peripheral/symbiotic firms.  But if there is just a small Google and FB and Amazon office, you may not expect there to be as large of an appeal to other companies to move in (Starbucks, Car2Go, Lyft). "Note: I am making a USA-assumption here; keep in mind this answer doesn't necessarily apply to all countries (or even states in the USA).  You asked two questions: I'm looking to buy a property. I do not want to take a risk on this   property. Its sole purpose is to provide me with a place to live. How   would I go about hedging against increasing interest rates, to counter   the increasing mortgage costs? To counter increasing interest rates, obtaining a fixed interest rate on a mortgage is the answer, if that's available.  As far as costs for a mortgage, that depends, as mortgages are tied to the value of the property/home.  If you want a place to live, a piece of property, and want to hedge against possible rising interest rates, a fixed mortgage would work for these goals. Ideally I'd like to not lose money on my property, seeing as I will be   borrowing 95% of the property's value. So, I'd like to hedge against   interest rates and falling property prices in order to have a risk   neutral position on my property. Now we have a different issue.  For instance, if someone had opened a fixed mortgage on a home for $500,000, and the housing value plummeted 50% (or more), the person may still have a fixed interest rate protecting the person from higher rates, but that doesn't protect the property value.  In addition to that, if the person needed to move for a job, that person would face a difficult choice: move and sell at a loss, or move and rent and face some complications. Renting is generally a good idea for people who (1) have not determined if they'll be in an area for more than 5-10 years, (2) want the flexibility to move if their living costs rises (which may be an issue if they lose wages), (3) don't want to pay property taxes (varies by state), homeowner's insurance, or maintenance costs, (4) enjoy regular negotiation (something which renters can do before re-signing a lease or looking for a new place to live).  Again, other conditions can apply to people who favor renting, such as someone might enjoy living in one room out of a house rather than a full apartment or a person who likes a ""change of scenes"" and moves from one apartment to another for a fresh perspective, but these are smaller exceptions. But with renting, you have nothing to re-sell and no financial asset so far as a property is concerned (thus why some real estate agents refer to it as ""throwing away money"" which isn't necessarily true, but one should be aware that the money they invest in renting doesn't go into an asset that can be re-sold)." Unlike other responses, I am also not good with money.  Actually, I understand personal finance well, but I'm not good at executing my financial life responsibly.  Part is avoiding tough news, part is laziness. There are tools that can help you be better with your money.  In the past, I used YNAB (You Need a Budget).  (I'm not affiliated, and I'm not saying this product is better than others for OP.)  Whether you use their software or not, their strategy works if you stick with it.  Each time you get paid, allocate every dollar to categories where your budget tells you they need to be, prioritizing expenses, then bills, then debt reduction, then wealth building.  As you spend money, mark it against those categories.  Reconcile them as you spend the money.  If you go over in one category (eating out for example), you have to take from another (entertainment).  There's no penalties for going over, but you have to take from another category to cover it.  So the trick to all of it is being honest with yourself, sticking to it, recording all expenditures, and keeping priorities straight.   I used it for three months.  Like many others, I saved enough the first month to pay the cost of the software.  I don't remember why I stopped using it, but I wish I had not.  I will start again soon. "If you want to be really ""financially smart,"" buy a used good condition Corolla with cash (if you want to talk about a car that holds re-sale value), quit renting and buy a detached house close to the city a for about $4,000/month (to build equity. It's NYC the house will appreciate in value). Last but not the least, DO NOT get married. Retire at 50, sell the house (now paid after 25-years). Or LEASE a nice brand new car every year and have a good time! You're 25 and single!" Housing, eh? Housing costs are driven by salaries and land availability. Over in the Bay Area, $1500/mo for a nice 1-bedroom apartment is a good deal... but a decent software engineer with ~4 years' experience can get $120k, easily. The standard benchmark of affordability of housing is spending a third of your income on it a year: that guy can afford about $3,333/mo on housing. (If you don't fritter away the money and can keep your cost of living down and save money, you can really clean up, especially if you move elsewhere later.) So, to stop thinking about it in terms of dollar value, first try to think of it in terms of time: 33% of someone's salary or a third of their time at work going for housing is pretty nominal. Beyond that, think about it in terms of opportunity cost: If you saved that extra $20, what exactly would you use it for, and how much of that goal does it represent? "Budgeting is a tool for planning, not for execution. It sounds like you don't have a problem BUDGETING (planning what to spend on what things) but rather with the execution of your plan. That is - living frugally. This is primarily an issue of self control and personal psychology - not an issue with the mechanics of budgeting and finance, which explains why the most popular personal finance ""gurus"" (Dave Ramsey, Suze Ormond) deal as much with your relationship to money and spending as they do with financial knowledge. There is no easy answer here, but you can learn to spend less. One helpful thought is to realize that whatever your current income is, someone in your community is currently making less than that and surviving. What would you do differently if your real, actual income was $100 or $200 less than it is currently. If your food budget is a concern, learn to cook cheaply. (Often, this is more healthy.) You mentioned schooling, so I assume you are on or near a college campus. Many colleges have all sorts of free-food opportunities. (I used to eat free vegetarian meals weekly at a Hare Krsna temple. Price of admission: listening to the monk read from the Bhagavad Gita.) Fast food is, of course, a complete no-no on low-budget living. It probably goes without saying, but just in case you haven't: cancel cable, get a cheap phone plan (Ting is excellent if available in your area), and otherwise see how you can squeeze a few dollars out of your bills. On the subject of frugality, I have found no book more enlightening than: Money Secrets of the Amish: Finding True Abundance in Simplicity, Sharing, and Saving"