conversation: User (dSaipher): "I'm going to preface this by saying myself and my current S.O. have been together ~10 years. I purchased a home, on my own, about 5 years ago and we are not married though we absolutely plan to be in the not-so-distant future. Rather than dive into the inner workings of our relationship let's just assume that we are married for the sake of the thread. She has a 4 year degree in Business Management and I work in a trade. I have about $12k saved in cash and about $10k (maybe more) in liquid assets (tools, equipment, motorcycle, etc). I make about $60k a year and she makes $40k. I'm going to do my best to include as much information as I can but i'm ultimately looking for some benchmarks so-to-speak as to what a realistic offer would be to accept as this offer will require us (me) to sell the house and relocate about 400 miles. \n\nAs I said above, I work in a fairly specialized trade and have absolutely no problem finding work. She works, currently, as a Project Manager for an engineering firm in the midwest with their focus on Oil and Gas. The "promotion" is within the same company but will require her to relocate about 400 miles from where we currently live and will (from what I understand) be assistant manager of business development directly under the VP of the company, but still managing her current clients along with other, new, unspecified duties. \n\nI won't focus too much about the 'emotional' aspect of relocating because, for the both of us, it's mostly a non-issue. We're currently living in a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house which I am currently paying a mortgage on. There is going to be an obvious change in lifestyle while trying to relocate as far as where we are living, at least for a period of time, compared to what we have now so that is obviously a difficult hurdle to overcome considering we'll probably have to down-size at least short term. \n\nSo let's look at the numbers: Current mortgage is $65k, house appraised (withing the last 6 mons.) at $85k. \n\nTo maximize my profit in a sale situation I would have to drop about $5k into the house (renovations, upgrades, etc.) which i'm not prepared to do all at one time, hence, taking a fairly large chunk of my savings if I were to spend that out of my own pocket. \n\nOn top of renovations and such, I stand to lose (I estimate) about 5% in the homes' value in sales and fees associated with selling that I don't feel I should have to "lose" on someone (the company) else's account. Meaning: they want her to move and  *truly* want her in that position bad enough they should be able to come up off of that amount of money. We're not selling for  fun or our *own* will to relocate, this is a position the company pursued her for specifically, we're perfectly happy where we're at. \n\nAccording to several different online resources the cost of living will be about 12% *higher* in the area that we are asked to relocate too. \n\nI assume that the cost of relocating is going to be somewhere around $5k between moving expenses across several trips, temporary housing, food (no kitchen all the time), etc. (This might be one area in which i'm severely over estimating the cost, hence, the post). This all assumes we're going to try and keep up our current standard of living to a certain extent (still have car payments, insurance, student loans, etc to pay for).\n\nRight, so on to the salary (her salary not mine). I personally don't feel as though anything less than a 20% salary increase will be near acceptable but she is willing to give up a certain amount of standard of living for an opportunity to "move up" within the company and further her career (which is fair to a certain extent). The 12% increase in cost of living is obviously a big factor in that. \n\nBroken down, in my mind, I feel as though $20000 is a reasonable number as far as a straight up-front money goes, not including a salary increase.  5k for the repairs, 5k for moving expense, 4500 for loss on home sale, and a 5k immediate cost of living "bonus" if you will. The problem is that she feels as though this number is far too high, it's *"Half of her yearly salary"* "there's no way that's a realistic number." I feel as though she is severely underselling herself and willing to accept far less than what the position is worth from a financial aspect. \n\nI'm also worried that she is willing to accept a salary that would essentially equate to a lateral move, money-wise, while taking on broader responsibility. While this isn't my area of expertise it's difficult for me to quantify exactly what her "worth" is to the company in both positions so maybe some of you can help put that aspect into perspective. \n\nUltimately, as I said before, I feel as though the company should be willing to 'court' her (us) to a certain extent if they are truly serious about wanting her to be in that position but she is still extremely timid in asking for more due to 'embarrassment' or 'greed' or whatever. I admittedly don't have a firm enough grasp of what a reasonable request would be in a situation like this so I figured i'd look for a bit of outside insight. I'm going to keep thinking about this and I may add things as I think of them and will do my best to answer any questions you may have. All insight is greatly appreciated!"
  Self: "Have you also run the numbers for renting out your existing home?"
  hopingtothrive (hopingtothrive): "Your mortgage payment must be very low. With a combined income of $100k and an increase in the future it makes sense to hold the house and rent it out. You never know how the new position will work out."
  