Submitted by hjude_design t3_10fmut4 in providence
Hey, i know the gas issue has been like 70% of posts on this sub for a hot minute now, but as someone who doesn't live in Providence and plans on moving there, i can't really wrap my head around what's going on?
Should I be worried moving into Providence with this and budgeting for rent differently because of it?
Any insight is much appreciated, thank y'all
Whoa. I have three cars on my insurance, including a Porsche with full coverage, and it is under $900 per six months for me in Providence city limits.
Wtf are folks driving that it is so much?
Who do you use for insurance? I drive a 10 year old Chrysler 200 with no comprehensive or collision and a clean driving record and pay about $1100 for my 6 month premium
Progressive. 25 years clean driving record maybe helps? I’ve been with them over a decade too which gets me a few discounts
Darn, I was really hoping your answer would be somewhere I hadn’t checked yet 😂 I use USAA, but Progressive gave me a quote that was basically exactly the same as what I pay last time I looked
USAA is expensive. The customer service is amazing though. I'd definitely shop around. When I changed my insurance, I actually went through a broker, and it got cut in half.
Seriously want to know the answer to this. A clean driving record and old car will still get you $500/6 mo. premiums in the wealthy zip codes. I've seen a lot of insurance posts and quotes on here and I don't think anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard would get you a rate that low with accident rates this high.
More an issue of zip code than what people are driving.
Hmm. My zip code I would assume to have high rates- as I’m off Branch Ave.
I also have a perfectly clear driving record. Zero tickets ever. Zero wrecks with 25 years on the road
Woah how have you avoided wrecks here for 25 years?! I had someone total my first car when they blew a red light and the second car was nearly destroyed when someone plowed into me at a yield. Other friends have had drivers get arrested for DUIs or smash into a row or parked cars at full speed.
Like... seriously, how?! Did you just move here and do all the other years in a low risk state?
Most of the time in Boston. Defensive driving with the assumption people are trying to kill me. Motorcycling for about half that time with zero wrecks or drops either. Even at lights I’m checking my assumptions about other cars movement
> I have an old car and my insurance is insane. I know people paying $300 a month.
Holy cow! Rates must be way higher in city limits, which I guess makes sense.
I have a new car and it's $300 for six months, full comprehensive.
Shitty situation being in a place where it's so dense that having a car is annoying, but without enough infrastructure that not having a car is impossible.
Who is your insurance provider? I've never seen anyone get rates lower than 500/6 months because accident rates are astronomical out here.
Geico, which was marginally cheaper than USAA previously
Ahhh i see. I think I'm the problem then here. Moving from NYC with my partner, so looking around there prices seem relatively cheap and our income could support us well there. 🙃. What's it they say about dying a hero or living long enough to become the problem rip
Nah I understand and I am fortunate on income. I love this state, but if I'm being honest even many of us with good incomes would tell you that things are starting to spiral out of control here for what you get. So it's cheaper, but disproportionately so for the scale, economy, and social life. Like, the same old city, none of the value that used to be a selling point.
Like, I think we lost our way sometime when gainfully employed people started turning off their heat and calling this living.
The economy and social life are good. That’s why people are moving here
Low pay, few companies, big issue with brain drain after graduation (being a young professional was crazy isolating). We even topped the lists of worst cities to date (citing, notably, the poor job prospects for college educated men). Is some of this changing post covid? I assume very slowly.
I'm not sure if you've been here for a while, but going from 1200 2 bedrooms pre-covid to $2500 2 bedrooms with zero quality of life improvements is embarrassing to admit to friends in other states-- it's Providence, not Berlin.
Without knowing anything about your field or anything, I will say that the economy is absolutely doing well. If it weren't the housing market demand wouldn't be as bad as it is.
> I will say that the economy is absolutely doing well. If it weren't the housing market demand wouldn't be as bad as it is.
Well, not necessarily. As we've seen, people who are employed in Boston or NYC on paper are coming here to live as remote work becomes more feasible. I would be logically possible for RI to be a completely residential state, with no economy of our own outside of the service industry.
However, that's not what indicators would, well, indicate. to wit:
> The department said six employment sectors – construction, finance and insurance, information, manufacturing, professional and technical services, and wholesale trade – reported more jobs in December than they had in the month prior to the pandemic shutdown.
The full article speaks more of the good and bad signs of our economy. The bottom line is that RI economy is doing well, but its rate of improvement is slowing.
https://pbn.com/r-i-unemployment-rate-dips-to-3-5-in-december/
Oh, remote work is definitely a factor since there's definitely people priced out of other markets. But, there's plenty of other indicators that show an overall health.
That certainly doesn't mean everyone is doing great or anything close to it, but compared to a decade ago or even longer, it's basically a renaissance period for the city/state economically after having a slower than normal recovery from 2008.
Thanks, this was more what I was hoping to find and you described the remote economy well. The state still seems to be stuck with salary bands from a decade ago and job openings are only half the story if every employer is lowballing salaries. I would be interested in seeing more salary data overlays, but that can get hard to find.
Please don't come. I'm sure you're nice but we don't need more new yorkers
Would it be better if i just went to school here and am originally from chronically impoverished Philadelphia
Buy. Don’t rent. PVD has the worst landlord / tenant relations in the country. Landlords in PVD will take one look at your NY address and ‘adjust rent accordingly’ before offering you a lease. It’s not worth it.
There are regularly posts on here from people who are miserable in neighborhoods where they feel like it's loud, dangerous, or just a poor fit. Buying in a city you don't know that varies street-by-street is a massive gamble. The landlord thing seems completely unfounded as you can see what the rent is upon viewing and none of my transplant friends has ever had this amount renegotiated before signing.
Not in Providence. Rent in Providence, buy in the suburbs. The tax rates in the city just make it not worth it.
Eh… they don’t seem remarkably worse here than anywhere else I’d consider. Bought a mansion in the city limits for under $400k in 2019. Seems like a steal to me compared to a studio condo in Boston
It's like many areas in the country-- there is a private gas company that has a monopoly and they do whatever they want with pricing. They need to be be publicly controlled or more heavily regulated.
Gas heat and HW has been costing me $200 a month this winter so far for about 1100sq ft. It has gone up, but I don’t feel it’s gone up as much as some people might describe. If you’re moving from a southern state, Providence is gonna seem very expensive to you. If you’re already in a northeast city, it’s relatively inexpensive.
NY has been on a similar trajectory with actual fuel prices though I think New York State does a better job of tamping down the utility delivery costs.
I was going to post on here earlier today and decided not to, but once in a while (say every six weeks) a recruiter will contact me about jobs in other areas of the country. And then I look, and to get the same level of say walkability and pleasure (this is to say, going too far from the ocean you better give me some good alternative things to do, and straying too far from places that don't get touring bands coming through is also bad) the prices are basically the same or worse every place I've been tempted to look. Yes, it's easy to so "ok sure Providence is cheaper than California or Chicago or whatever" but it's also cheaper than Charleston or Raleigh or New Orleans or Bend, OR or Lafayette, CO (etc. etc.) these days. Sure, if you want to move to the sticks you can get cheaper cost of living, and yes there are still some midwest cities (mostly in Ohio, even Detroit is expensive these days if you want to live in the "cool" area) where you can live cheaply and have some cool stuff (like Buffalo, but fuuuuuuuuck no on the snow sorry).
If you like, you can be like the r/wallstreetbets folks and just blame Jerome Powell for it all, but it is certainly not unique to Providence. And at least Providence has things going for it like a supply of water that they don't have to fight 7 other states for (hello Arizona what the hell is up with that housing market)
Induction cooker
Don't move to Providence!
People voted Democrat. Bummer
Yeah, if we voted Republican, we could be thriving like Mississippi, or Alabama. Or we could get more absolute liars like George Santos. Or we could get neo-fascist policies like DeSantis'. Or the unparalleled corruption like during the Trump years.
We could also have an opportunity to send what little welfare dollars we have to retired quarterbacks. That'd be cool.
Yeah. If only we voted in a grifter with CTE as governor. Oh well. Missed opportunity.
Time to change your drool bucket.
Dammmm right brotha, people missing out just look at Mississippi and the other glorious bum fuck states. Poorest in the country! We're number 1!
Mountain_Bill5743 t1_j4xtpfm wrote
OP, Providence is just flat out expensive. Like, have a 6 figure household income or it wouldn't be financially prudent to relocate. Many units are dealing with 300-400+ gas/electric combos. This has to do with geopolitics, but also the really limited infrastructure and dependence New England has on natural gas due to its geography. You can read more about those complexities here: https://www.iso-ne.com/about/what-we-do/in-depth/natural-gas-infrastructure-constraints
That being said, the silent income killer here is a car. I have an old car and my insurance is insane. I know people paying $300 a month. The insurance isn't even as bad as the cost of replacing my car every few years due to people smashing into me and this was before car prices shot up (not looking forward to my next totaled out car).