List the house in May. Get our son into a school in NYC. Start apartment hunting in June. Move by August.

That was the plan for months. We told our family. Started sorting through our stuff. Mentally checked out of California.

Then life did what life does — it threw us a few curveballs.

So Monica and I are hitting pause. Here's what changed, and what we're actually doing now.

The School Problem

Our son got waitlisted for every gifted and talented school we applied to in NYC.

Most folks don't know this, but the G&T process in NYC isn't what it used to be. When our daughter got into a city-wide gifted program about 15 years ago, kids earned spots based on test scores. Merit mattered. Performance mattered.

Not anymore. Today it's a lottery.

Tens of thousands of parents apply for programs with a handful of kindergarten seats. We ended up deep on waitlists for schools with only two kindergarten classes of 25 kids each. I'm talking #644-on-the-list kind of deep.

That alone would've made us hit the brakes. But there's more.

The Economy Isn't Helping

The war in Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, and that single waterway carries roughly 20% of the world's oil. When a fifth of global oil supply gets cut off, it ripples into everything — gas at the pump, groceries, shipping, manufacturing, you name it. Prices are up across the board and they're not coming back down anytime soon.

Hospitals are feeling it too. Even the ones that pay nurses well are cutting back on staff and overtime. Monica and I don't need the overtime, but we had plans to pick up extra shifts to pad our savings before the move. That option is drying up fast.

The Housing Market Shifted

We live in a highly sought-after neighborhood. Homes here usually move fast.

Not anymore. Neighbors have listed their houses and watched them sit for 2-3 months. Some pulled their listings after nothing but low-ball offers. Others got no offers at all.

Between high interest rates, sky-high home prices, and real fear of losing jobs, buyers are sitting on the sidelines. Look at what's happening to tech workers. Look at what AI is doing across entire industries. The job market feels shaky, and that shakes everything downstream.

If we list now, we could end up stuck — either with a house that won't sell, or with an offer so low it wipes out the equity we were counting on to fund this whole move.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Monica and I sat down and ran the actual monthly numbers for both cities (both assume our son is in public elementary school starting this fall). It's not even close.

That's over an $11,000/month swing — from comfortably ahead to underwater.

Here's where that gap comes from:

* Currently covered by my employer in California

Even with Manhattan parking, higher car insurance, and paying for health insurance out of pocket, our NYC expenses would only run about $1,300/month higher than Sacramento. That's real, but it's small potatoes compared to the real killer: we'd trade two $100+/hour jobs for one nurse's $6,463/month paycheck. Over $10,000 in monthly income — gone.

And here's the part that really got me: our rent in Manhattan would be $4,500 for a 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom apartment. Right now in Sacramento, our mortgage + property tax + HOA adds up to about the same — for a 4-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom house with a 2-car garage and a rooftop patio.

Same monthly housing payment. Completely different leftover income.

Our Jobs Are Too Good to Walk Away From Right Now

Let me be real with you.

Nurses across the country would kill for these jobs. I'd be an idiot to give them up and hope for the best.

The original plan was to:

That plan still makes sense someday. But "someday" isn't this August.

I Take Risks — Just Not Reckless Ones

You know me by now. I take risks other people won't touch.

Monica and I packed up our whole life 9 years ago and moved across the country with no guarantees. We figured it out. And we've missed our family every single day since. That's the biggest reason we wanted to move back — especially so our son could grow up closer to them.

But wanting something and sprinting toward it blindly are two different things. Being risk-tolerant doesn't mean being foolish.

NYC Hasn't Gotten Better

We checked in with former coworkers still working at NYC hospitals. Their honest answer: nothing's really improved. The ratios are still brutal. The pay still doesn't stretch. The working conditions haven't changed since we left.

Moving back would mean trading two $100+/hour jobs with light schedules for a single $6,400/month paycheck — and hoping equity and the business fill the gap. On paper it could still work. But the cushion we thought we'd have is thinner than it was six months ago, and the destination isn't any more welcoming than when we left.

What We're Actually Doing Now

We're playing it day by day. No big announcements. No dramatic moves.

Here's where things stand:

The Lesson in All This

When we first started Nurses to Riches, I talked a lot about the power of big moves. Moving to California changed our lives. I stand by that 100%.

But part of growing up financially is knowing when to move and when to stay put.

Sometimes the smart money play is to sit tight, keep earning, and wait for the right moment instead of forcing one because you had a date circled on a calendar.

A six-figure nursing job with a flexible schedule is hard to replace. A house in a good neighborhood with locked-in equity is hard to replace. We're not trading those in for a plan that doesn't line up with reality anymore.

We'll get back to New York eventually. Just not on the schedule we thought.

Thanks for riding along with us through this one. We'll keep you posted as things develop.

— Jason

P.S. A lot of what you just read — running the numbers on two cities, comparing net pay after taxes and housing, stress-testing a big move before making it — is exactly the work we teach inside the Accelerator. If reading this got your wheels turning about your own situation, here's what's available to you:

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