TL;DR: FI was offered a job making a ton of money, but he could literally be placed anywhere in the US and that's scary to us to be so far from home.
FI came home last night and told me that a guy he works with does something like "traveling maintenance" work, which means he takes jobs and signs a contract to work at a place for like 3-5 years, and then the job is over, and he can either accept another position somewhere else doing the same thing (if one is available) or he can find a permanent job somewhere or doing something else. He asked FI if he was interested in doing this, because "we're young and don't have any children or anything really tying us down" like a mortgage, etc. The job pays something like $35-$50/hour. The only 'problem' is the jobs are all over the place. FI could get sent to a town 10 miles from us, or to the other side of the country. And once you're there, you're there. There's no test driving to see if you like the area and we really can't afford to just fly out somewhere to poke around and see if we like it, so we really would just be taking a huge leap of faith and potentially moving away from everyone and everything we know.
Pros:
-It's a lot of money, and FI and I have been living paycheck to paycheck for a long time. We aren't even able to put anything in savings because of us just not having enough left over after bills, groceries, etc.
- The guy is right, we don't have kids or a mortgage to worry about. We really could just pack our stuff and head out tomorrow, or at least after we gave notices to our jobs. My job requires a month's notice in order to get paid for any vacation time I haven't used. It's not a huge deal but that would help cover moving expenses.
-We've always known where we live now was a temporary thing. We want to eventually end up in Georgia where he's from and where he and I met.
-This would give us the chance to see other places instead of potentially living in the deep South our whole lives.
Cons
-Wherever we go, we are there until the job ends. From what I understand, FI is contracted to complete a job so we could be there between 3-5 years, regardless of how much we like/dislike it.
-After the job ends, there's no guarantee another will come available. According to the guy FI works with, there usually is one lined up already but this isn't a guarantee. However, FI and I discussed being able to put money in savings with this higher paying job to be able to accommodate us in the event that he didn't find anything right away.
-We're both very close to our families (me probably more so) and we're/I'm hesitant to potentially be so far away from them. I've always pictured when we had kids we could just pop in at my parents' or his parents' and let them spend time with their grandchildren, but that wouldn't be possible if we're on the other side of the country.
Pros and Cons aside, I'm leaning more toward yes we should do this. When FI and I talked about it, I told him that I was open to doing this at least for the next 8-10 years, but I feel like after that we need to settle somewhere for good because I feel like at that point we are going to have kids that are old enough to be building lasting friendships and it's not fair to uproot them all the time. But I told him that for now nothing was really keeping me here and wherever he goes, I go. And he said he was hoping I'd feel the opposite way because he's scared to do this and leave everything behind. He even said that he's not 100% sure he would have followed me back here after I moved out of Georgia if his boss wasn't going out of business and had to let him go. Soo I responded that if FI doesn't want to do this, then we won't, but he doesn't know what he wants lol.
I'm not sure what I'm looking for here, other than telling you guys about our dilemma, but if you have any thoughts or advice or have experience with making big life changes like this, I'm down to hear them! And if we do this and move somewhere close to one of you guys, promise you'll be my friend?
