Friday, March 28, 2008

Another Voicemail: Needs Info on DC



Hello reader from Tuscaloosa, Alabama! Thank you for calling! Good luck with your internship, and as a matter of fact, I do happen to know of a couple of DC-area personal finance blogs! (Which is a good thing, as I know next to nothing about the city itself.)

SingleMa
Mapgirl
Dual Income No Kids
Punny Money
CleverDude
Mrs. Micah
One Big Mortar Board
Money & Values
My Money & Politics

They even get together for the occasional happy hour!

If anyone else has any advice for our caller on her move to DC, please post a comment! (Or post one at her blog, Broke Is Beautiful.) Or you can respond with a voicemail of your own, by calling me with the Google voice button.

9 comments:

mapgirl said...

Have your reader email me at mapgirlsfiscalchallenge at gmail dot com. I'm at work with no headphones so I can't listen in.

I have done the DC intern-thing and though it's been about 15 years since I did it, I know a lot of good tips for slogging the intern track around town. My friends did some creative things to find housing, etc. Perhaps I will do a whole post on it...

Ms. M&P said...

I live in DC too! I also interned here about five years ago. I also came from the south and was NOT expecting the sticker shock I got. Things are waaay more expensive than where I was from and definitely more than Tuscaloosa. I would recommend getting familiar with the cost of living difference just so there's no surprise. Then, there are all kinds of tips to save and earn money. I'm sure mapgirl will cover them well, but if Tuscaloosa wants to email me too I'm happy to share what I know. I'm at moneyandpolitics at gmail.

Madame X said...

sorry I missed you, mrs. M&P-- I edited the post!

HEALTHY AMELIA said...

I’m in DC, too, although I never was an intern :( I’ve lived here since 2000 so I’ve got a tip or two, though.

And I'd be up for one of those Happy Hours, for sure :)

Anonymous said...

LOL I'm loving this new feature on your blog. How fun!

I'd be happy to share a few tips with your reader if she'd like to contact me. Just one word of caution right now - from Alabama to DC is like night and day. There's always plenty to do, night life can be lots of fun, the people are VERY diverse, depending on the career field employment options can be endless, it's easy to get around but the traffic is cuh-ray-zee, and housing is EXPENSIVE!! After all of that, I still love it! LOL

Anonymous said...

Zed's Ethiopian!!!

Feel free to contact me as well

Anonymous said...

Hi!

Advice for DC...well if you have any particular questions you can contact me @ mrsmicah a.t gmail d.t com.

I think it's a pretty expensive place to live. We're in a 1-bedroom apartment for $150 more per month than my friends are renting a little 2-bedroom house for in rural PA.

So I'd advise a roommate. Actually, my little sister might be in DC looking for a roommate this summer...she's interning in either DC or abroad but I've told her she can't have the couch all summer, just until she finds something.

I've heard that the DC Craigslist is another good place to find them.

If you get a SmarTrip card, it'll save you $0.10 per bus trip and it'll cut down on the number of paper transfers you have to work with (it does automatic metro-to-bus or bus-to-bus transfers). You can buy them many places, including metro center. And then you can recharge them at any metro station.

Don't shop in the high-end parts of down, the food really is more expensive there. If you have a car, gas is also cheaper in the less-nice parts of town.

If you're scared of living in DC proper, there are some fairly inexpensive places right outside on the Maryland, Prince George's side which aren't quite as rough. I find their slogan ironic, though, "Prince George's County---a liveable community." Um...I could ramble on forever, so I'm going to stop now. But e-mail me if you have any questions!

Ms. M&P said...

Thank you for adding me, Madame X!

I second all the tips here and encourage anyone moving to DC who wants tips to email me if they like. ;)

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