Golden Monkey

I started my master's at 40 and started on a PhD a couple of weeks ago at the age of 44.

That's what I did too (the university employee/tuition remission, not the husband.) I wouldn't have wanted to do it any other way.

I'm in the same situation, only I already have housing. I've been out there to visit twice now, (the last time for a week,) so I think I got a little bit of a feel for how the area is. I don't know about the complexes you mentioned. I get the idea that that light rail is quite safe, though crowded, and obviously its route is very limited. As far as crime goes, the closer you are to campus, the better the neighborhood is, generally speaking. South Scottsdale (right across the river from campus) is pretty nice, IMO, even though it's the older part of Scottsdale, and you might be able to find housing there. I'll be staying there temporarily from next week. The drawback to that area is that there is only one bus line that runs north/south to the ASU area, but it's also close enough to bike (or even walk if you like walking,) which I plan to do.

Bayonne is a good suggestion. Also, Jersey City Heights (on the cliff right above Hoboken,) Jersey City, Weehawken, and Union City.

Thanks. Good info. I've settled on buying a car, probably in late fall/early winter. Fortunately, I have a grocery store across the street, and another one a few blocks away, so at least I won't starve before then.

Yeah, I only turn in pdfs too. It eliminates all kinds of problems.

That's good to hear about Powerpoint. Keynote was the only Mac-only application I used, and I gave my Macbook to my sister (I'm not nearly as huge a fan of Apple as most people.) Keynote was the only thing I was worried about giving up.

I haven't much need for MS Office or iWork since OpenOffice came along, though the one application that I really like is Keynote in iWork. I haven't tried Impress in OpenOffice, yet, but it says it can save PowerPoint files.

I got some amusement from looking at prices (mostly from Carmax,) because it's interesting to see which cars seem to depreciate a lot, which cars' owners apparently don't drive much before selling, etc. A random sampling of the $16-$18k range in used cars will get you: $18K: 2004 BMW Z4 with 72k miles $18K: 2011 Ford Fiesta with 15k miles $16.5K: 2008 Ford Mustang (V6) with 45k miles $16K: 2003 Mercedes C230 with only 32k miles (!) $18K: 2009 Honda Fit Sport with 33k miles $17K: 2006 Nissan Maxima with 68k miles Meanwhile, dealers' sites for new cars are listing: $18K: 2012 Hyundai Elantra $17K: 2012 Honda Civic LX $18K: 2011 Honda Fit $17K: 2011 Ford Fiesta $18K 2012 Ford Focus S $17K 2011 Toyota Yaris $18k 2011 Toyota Corolla My conclusion is that if you want to buy something stylish, fun, impractical, etc., used is the way to go. For instance, you can be the only grad student driving a Benz, or if you want to drag race at green lights in a Mustang (though you'd better spring for the V8 if you're going to do that,) you can buy one of those for the same price as a new, or low-mileage grad-student issue econobox. If you're about to buy a boring econobox like me, it doesn't make much sense to buy used instead of new, unless you're going to buy an older econobox (for instance, you can get a 2005 Hyundai Accent for 10K.)

I ran into the same thing the last time I bought a car. A loaded, used Honda Civic with 30k miles was as expensive as a new one with fewer options. Since reliability was a lot more important to me than a moonroof, I just bought new instead. Just out of curiosity, I looked up a 2007 Honda Fit Sport (41k) miles compared to a new 2011 Honda Fit Standard. The 4-year-old car with 41k miles on it is $15,599, while the new one is $16,670! I did find some good prices on cars with iffy reliability reputations (for example a 2007 Dodge Caliber for $9000,) but I really don't enjoy waiting for tow trucks a whole lot.

I've been pricing used cars too, and have found that finding something with low miles (like less than 50k,) a recent model year of a make/model with a good reputation for reliability, and good gas mileage is really hard to find a good deal on. The gas prices now have driven up the prices of used compacts/subcompacts that get good mileage, and they're not depreciating the way they used to. Since there's nothing like new car reliability, I've just decided to buy new instead. I just read a story on Yahoo, though, that predicted prices to drop from this fall through the winter, so I'm not going to buy anything for a while.

Well, if it's money that's important to her, she picked the wrong degree to pressure you into. I could understand an MBA, JD, or medical school, but if she thinks people with MFAs make a lot of money in general, she's pretty sadly mistaken. Average pay for MFAs in California And I think that number of $58k listed is being pretty generous. That's assuming you can get a job with an MFA in the first place.

Just curious as to how your mother got the impression that people with MFAs tend to get $100k jobs? Did she mistake the letter "F" with "B?"

I got my Master's while working full-time for the university, so that worked out well. During the first semester, I worked a different full-time job off-campus, and that didn't work out so well. I will hopefully be doing some freelance work at home during the PhD, but I'm not sure yet how that will work out. If you get the job, I'd accept it and just see how it works out later. If you have to quit to pursue grad school, they probably won't mind, and jobs are really scarce right now.

Sorry, didn't see your question until now. When I moved out here in 2006, I remember that I compared Fedex Home, UPS, and USPS, and for whatever reasons (cost was the most important, but there were others too,) I picked Fedex home. I think a lot of it at the time had to do with the fact that they penalized you less for going overweight, or something like that. Also, there was a convenience factor. Using the website, it was really easy to weigh/measure my packages at home, print out a shipping label, and then drop them off at Kinko's over a matter of days without waiting in line at all. This time, it's slightly more complicated, because I don't own a car anymore.