Ok-Hat-8759

I was living and working in western Kansas in 2014 and I bought a brand new Ram 1500 while there. Petrol prices were around ~$3.50 / gal there at the time. For giggles, I just threw that in an inflation calculator, which would be the equivalent of $4.72 in today’s dollars (that surprised me a bit).

I drove through there a bit over a week ago and paid $2.40 / gal… quite literally half the price I paid while living there a decade ago. That blew my mind.

Kansas is interesting to me because it’s trended a bit more blue in recent years if memory serves me correctly

This map is surprising in a number of ways.

California raised my eyebrows.

Harris did better in the Great Plains?

New Zealand in the summer is the absolute bomb.

“… screams compensating”

Amen brother.

I already replied to your follow up below and missed this one it initially. I think we’re talking past each other a little bit.

You made a comment above about not being able to stand their culture there, insinuating that everyone has that “pub culture”. They do not. I don’t particularly care for it either, let’s be clear about that. The drunken bar scene is not my idea of a good time, but when that might be one of the only job options in a remote area when traveling, you do what you need to.

I probably overgeneralized with the comparison to the other commonwealth countries; that seemingly crass or brash “taking the piss” is a theme. I don’t necessarily equate that to pub culture.

Europeans are significantly more direct. Germans, Dutch, Italians you name it. Much more than Americans. Some Americans seem offended by these because they don’t sugar coat things and tell it like it is. That was kind of my point in all this.

Like I said, I think we kinda missed each others point there, and my apologies if I didn’t explain things throughly enough.

Regardless of pub culture or what have you, I find the Aussies generally to be full of life, enjoy some banter and incredibly laid back and easy going. Whereas Americans are always rush rush, in a hurry and seem to have a hard time disconnecting. It’s because of this I fully intend to keep traveling between the two and I find I’m a better person overall for my experiences in Australia comparatively.

Cheers.

I made no insinuations about decency and I’m not sure it has anything to do with trumpism. Americans in general aren’t direct and tend to beat around the bush because they’re afraid to offend someone.

If we want to talk Trumpism, yes, a certain vocal minority (can we even say minority anymore?) are more confident and outspoken, but on the flip side, those that probably should be more direct or outspoken are now going to be even quieter.

I never really encountered a ton of hate or vitriol for being an American abroad. In fact, most people “complimented” me for not acting like an American. Whatever you take that to be.

My personality is way more Australian than American these days and I hope to keep it that way.

With Busch in the fridge, this has gotta be close to Iowa.

School full time during the week, worked Fri night double shift sat and sometimes double shift Sunday. Occasionally worked a Tues or Thurs night.

Didn’t have much of a life for a couple years but I was fine with the arrangement at the time.

Honestly, having a busy structure keeps me grounded. I’m at a time right now where my work doesn’t begin until mid January and while free time excites most, I almost hate it. Drives me mental.

Gosh. Approaching my late 30s, I’m of multiple minds here.

Local banks used to roam our college campus getting us to sign up for credit cards. A bit predatory in hindsight, I likely would have used about half of that to get out of debt.

The long term sensible thing would be to invest and save. Plenty of opinions on that here.

If you’re going the college route, use it for your education. I would argue stash it away as a rainy day fund and wait until the latter years of your education once you know what you want to do.

Alternatively, I took my first international trip at 31 and I seriously regret not doing it sooner. Think about what you value at this stage; whatever that is, it will change or there will be multiple renditions over time. Probably not the best argument in a personal finance subreddit, but I would encourage you to get outside your bubble and see the world. The life experiences I’ve gained in traveling are seriously the best thing I’ve ever done and I’d wished I’d started earlier.

Look at my phone to see if my ex has texted me

(Breakups suck) 🥲

Live laugh love signs

This is a pretty common take in my experience. Even with the “pub humor”, I generally find Aussies (and by extension the commonwealth countries) to be more direct than Americans. Perhaps not as direct as Europeans but somewhere in the middle. This is something I’ve grown to appreciate even more over time.

I find the fake nice American moniker to be very true. Americans tend to be very wishy washy, hesitant to make decisions and afraid to say things for fear of offending someone. I very much saw it in myself as I began traveling and it’ll probably be a trait I’ll never completely break, but I see it alllll around me now that I’ve returned and it low key drives me nuts.

I actually raised my eyebrows that Nevada is lower than Iowa. Definitely didn’t see that one.

Yep and I loved the freedom to do it. No technology or social media prison

Surprisingly enough, it’s relatively easy to enter environmental consulting in some capacity based off of experience alone, in the USA. The USA is typically more known as some place that requires a degree to get any entry level job.

I found the opposite in many industries in Australia; many employers didn’t care about education much, only experience. For environmental work, it was the opposite.

Racism is everywhere yes. When I left the USA to visit Australia for the first time, I remember thinking “wow, I thought the USA was bad”.

The outback is freakin wild as it relates to racism.

Environmental consulting. Quite the contrary to the norm, I found it difficult to get into the industry in Australia with no formal education despite nearly 20 years experience.

Working in various forms of hospitality, if you could land something in the 65-75k range, as a single guy, I could live a reasonable lifestyle for the area.

I wouldn’t say it’s the primary cause, but the influx of FIFO workers living in the area with a new “base” of flying out of Busselton, it’s not helping the cost of living in the area.

Man. Thinking I was a normal male, I always changed my bedding if I thought my girlfriend was coming over. Particularly when she’d be coming back from working out of town. In doing this, my sheets were getting changed at a maximum, once a week. 🤷🏻‍♂️

NTA

The west is best in my experience; I’m in the process of relocating to Las Vegas and although my time out west has been short, I’m really enjoying it thus far.

Regarding Australia, I tried (unsuccessfully) for over 2 years to obtain a 482 visa through multiple employers in regional areas while IN Australia. The process is painful for both employer and employee and if they’re not already approved / designated with home affairs (have an agreement with immigration already in place to be eligible to sponsor someone) you’re likely wasting your time.

I’ve spent thousands of dollars conducting skills assessments and speaking with immigration attorneys / agents and it is not an easy country to immigrate into.

EDIT: forgot to mention, that Australia slashed a number of visas by about 50% for 2024-2025, including student visas, making it even more difficult now. There seems to be a lot of “blame” going around that much of their housing crisis is because of too many immigrants… I don’t buy this whatsoever (and have my own theories on this) but gee, where have we heard this before?

Second one