NicksGamingStuff's Blog
Sep 09, 2011
Moving to Las Vegas Part 2
Yesterday I bought car insurance and the premium came to about $550 for both mine and Max's car. I am glad I picked the apartment I did because the rates there are significantly cheaper. We have high coverage, low deductibles, accident forgiveness and road side assistance. I have never purchased insurance before but the price seemed ok. I also had my mom put the car in my name, it cost $15 at the DMV and they said the new title would arrive in 4-6 weeks. I wonder if the Nevada DMV will take the temporary piece of paper to register. I have almost all the stuff I am going to take boxed up and I think between Max's car and mine we should be able to fit it all. If not there is always UPS but I will have to repack the stuff for shipping. Geico said I can get renters insurance for about $200 a year for $20,000 coverage. Is this a good deal. They said since the apartment does not have central heating that is what made it expensive. I can get a discount for insuring both our cars and apartment with geico, but I am going to explore other options. The apartment has a heat pump, but I doubt this will be satisfactory, besides who needs heat in the desert? We are bringing our tennis stuff, I am sure there are tennis courts around. We are lousy players but have fun so if anyone is up for a game let us know. I decided to keep my 24 Hour Fitness membership since I feel I can spare $25 a month to have a place to go to stay fit. I will likely be going a lot before I start working since it is something to do. We are vowing not to gamble one penny until we have some disposable income, but I am going to try to go even further to avoid gambling 100%. I doubt this will happen but until we both have jobs we can not spare one penny in the casino. My co-workers are sad I am leaving, yet some are jealous I am embarcking on this adventure. I just cannot wait to have my own place that I am paying for for the first time. We need a mattress. I have looked at overstock.com and seen some ok looking memory foam ones for $400. We have also thought about one of those fancy aero bed ones. I realized it would cost more to rent a uhaul or do the door to door pod thing than to buy a new bed. I don't want some strangers mattress off of craigslist so if anyone knows about memory foam beds or where to get a good deal let me know. All of our sheets are queen sized, ironically for a couple of queens as my mother told me. I wrote this on my iPad so I apologize if things are messed up. I will write a post about driving from San Francisco to las Vegas and the actual move of our stuff. Sep 05, 2011
Moving To Las Vegas
As all of you know my spouse and I are moving to Las Vegas in 25 days! I would like to keep a blog here about our experiences moving as it may provide some pleasure for our readers. Anyway here goes the story:The idea to move to Las Vegas came to me in late July after booking my trip to do the Mystere/Zumanity & Las Vegas gay scene article for this website. I had heard the cost of living was low, but was put off by the common phrase "Las Vegas, nice place to visit but terrible place to live". Well things at my current job at the card room had been going terrible for the past few weeks and I reflected on a promise I had made to my self, when I dread going to a job and cry on the inside when I wake up and realize I have to go to work later that day, it is time to move on. The parts of my job I am unhappy with are not important as I know I will encounter similar or worse struggles when I move to Las Vegas. Anyway I researched several apartments online and was surprised to find some apartments as low as $350 a month. Upon more research I learned that apartment, as well as several others were in a very bad part of town (near the Boulevard mall which I know is ghetto because it has a Sears). Upon further research I found a nice little apartment near Sahara and Decatuer that was only $495 a month. I researched the car insurance costs at all the different apartment complex locations and found this one to be the lowest. Although it did not include cable/internet/wifi like some of the others did, the safer environment and lower insurance costs are a significant savings in the long term. The things I keep finding out about Las Vegas just amaze me. The smog check I have to get to register my car in NV is only $20, even less with common coupons. Here in CA it is at least $75. Car insurance for my spouses car and mine with the minimum deductible and maximum coverage is around $110 a month! Items at the Whole Foods in the Town Square shopping center are about 25% less than they are at the Whole Foods by our place here in San Francisco. I could not believe that huge tub of sushi there was around $10 here in SF a smaller package of sushi is $15 minimum.
Since I only make $11 an hour+ tips ($15 a day if I am lucky) I realized that I would be making about the same amount of money if I took a pee-on job like I have now in Las Vegas and I would be actually able to live off of it. When I graduated college I had hoped to have a living wage paying job within a few months but found my self stuck in a cycle of $10 an hour jobs with no bites on the career type job application process. I feel that at least on the pennies I will make living in LV I can live off of it. Here in SF for $500 a month you are lucky to get a parking space.
I plan to go to dealer school, I am split between the recommended PCI in Henderson and another recommended, but not rated as highly learntodeal.com aka Casino Gaming School. Learn to deal is closer to my apartment but the facilities are a bit more rustic than I would like. I will visit PCI before I make a decision. My apartment is letting me prepay a 3 month lease since I will be moving without a direct job available. It is amazing the 3 months there is still cheaper than 1 month here in S.F.
Anyway I will be at G2E hoping to make some good connections to the gaming distributors, so if you are there meet up with me I will likely be tagging along with the wizard. I will keep this blog updated with the status of my endeavors.
Comments
I'd be very interested in following your progress/adventures involved in the move.
Does your SO have a job lined up or some type of career field to find work?
Best of luck to you and your spouse! Keep us posted on the ups (and downs) of moving to Vegas. Looking forward to reading more.
I'd think the nearer school would be better, but I agree that you should look carefully at the more distant but more highly recommended one. Its nice that it has a long history but is that owner actually doing the teaching? Who are the instructors. How much experience do they have? That more recommended school has a very flashy website but the Nick Kallos one seems to give more information.
What games did you decide on learning first? The PCI school offers a variety of "twofer" packages.
Good luck to you.
Good Luck Nick. Did this not too long ago myself and I haven't looked back. It has been a wonderful place to live so far.
I look forward to your continued blog entries about your move.
Thanks for the story...look forward to following your updates. BTW thats funny....is the area a ghetto because of the Sears or is the Sears is just a defining point within the ghetto?
Sears is definitely the defining point of ghetto ha ha, actually several people told me that other apartment was in a very bad area and the car insurances rates are more than paying the extra bucks for a place in a nicer area. I have definitely shopped beyond my means in the past, but once I'd got married I realized I never had to get or do nice stuff for myself since I'm stuck with the same person forever (which I am happy I did, I would consider my wedding the best day of my life and it has been almost 3 years). Although our relationship is not what I had imagined a married couple would be ( I reflected on leave it to beaver episodes) we are best friends, love each other and isn't that what the ideal relationship should be?
Sears still has stores?
Comments
Actually, I would start out with the renter's insurance even though you do not yet have much "stuff" to insure. Its a city with a high transient rate and large numbers of burglaries and you don't know yet about pipes or flooded appliances. With all this stuff about bedbugs, stay away from used mattresses!
glad your mom has a sense of humor.
a heat pump is supposed to heat and cool, no? very unsatisfactory in cold climes IMO but might work pretty good there. I hope they last longer than they used to, one complaint I heard around here used to be that they would only last 10 yrs. They have probably improved. Anyway perhaps you can tell the apt insurance folks you do have central heat, how else would a heat pump work?
In Colorado I payed $125 for renter's. Started out as about 20k in coverage and eventually was about 45k. It covers a few other things like accidents if you hurt someone else on the ski slopes. I originally got it because with it I was getting $60 per 6 months off my car insurance so it was virtually free.
Check craiglist for a wholesaler. Usually he wont advertise it but you can usually tell. Picked up my $900 set for $350, Had to help him unload it when he delivered. What the retailers don't know, won't hurt them.
Always remember to keep an open mind when you
make a drastic move like this. I can guarantee that
almost nothing will work out the way you think it
will. Some things will be better and some will be
worse, just go with the flow. You're young and can
bounce back from almost anything. Just have fun,
and you'll have experiences that will stay with you the
rest of your life. And you're right, if you don't have an
edge or a ton of money you can throw away, stay
away from gambling.
You should get the renter's insurance if a burglary, flood or fire making your things disappear would severely impact your life. If you could manage without the stuff and have some spare cash to replace the important things, don't bother.
The premium seems reasonable. Is there a deductible?
Take renter's insurance, it is cheap and worth it. When I had it the agent quoted me price and actually said she doubled my coverage without asking since it was something stupid, $15 for $50K more.
Do keep it an "adventure" not a "move" in your mind. When I moved my co-workers were divided down the middle, half or so thought I was nuts and the others wished they had the guts to move like I was doing. That always made me feel good about myself.