Moving to North Carolina

Hello there, It's been a while since I wrote on my blog, last time we talked I was still in college, studying for interviews and working on small projects.

Today I'm in North Carolina, I'm about to start my first job after college as a computer scientist, and I want to talk about my experience traveling and moving with only a couple thousand dollars to my name and basically nothing else.

Not as easy

Let's start with the first problem I encountered when moving, it's something that a lot of people will NOT identify with because it's really rare this day and age and that is: I have no credit score.

Yep you heard me, I have none, it's not a bad credit score and it's not a great credit score, it just doesn't exist.

Now a lot of people told me: "hey having no credit score is better than having a bad one" and well that's true, but that's still not helpful, when moving to a different state you are on your own. I traveled all the way from California (I'm from cali if you didn't know already) to North Carolina, which means I only know a couple of people here and have no backup from my family or close friends.

That means that If something goes wrong the money I have in my bank is basically all I have, and that's the problem with not having credit, I cannot pay for rent/food/amenities/ if I don't well use that money on my bank account.

Which means I have to be extra careful until I start work (in two days) and until I have enough money on the bank saved up for emergencies.

So for those people that haven't built up a credit score, this is my recomendation, build one, it's not a big deal and you don't have to be in "debt" that's something I thought I had to do to build a credit score, but there are simpler ways to build it.

The good

I won't get into details because this blog is not about my finances so let's move on to the nice things about North Carolina.

First of the snow, damn does snow look so pretty on cities; It really makes everything look cleaner (until it starts melting). As someone from cali, I had no idea how nice snow was (but had no idea how cold it got either ;_;)

The next thing that's amazing is getting to meet my longtime friends from North Carolina, I'm so happy to finally meet them in person after playing games together for so long.

Next my apartment complex, it's a little pricy for the small apartment I got but it has a lot of amenities that would make my stay impossible had they've not been there because of my situation.

they have a very beautiful common area, with free wifi and coffee, a gym and a pool (It's snowing so no pool available right now); but the most important thing about this apartments is that the area looks wholesome and safe, and that takes a weight off me when going to work etc.

It's also close to one of my two work locations so that's great, I will have google fiber which I'm very excited about, unfortunately it won't be installed until the 21. So that's two weeks without internet (which is why I am so grateful for the free wifi in the common area of my apartment complex)

I'll finish this blog saying that it has definitely been an adventure, learning to live by yourself is hard when it's your first time, and even harder when you have a limited budget until your first paycheck. You can't just buy everything you know you need, you have to only buy key things. I am very grateful for my friends here in NC that have made my stay easier, and helped me get everything I need from giving me free stuff to driving me around so I can buy the things I need.

Now that I have a steady job, I think I'll start writing a little bit more about open source software and games, since that's what I plan on working on my free time; who knows maybe I'll even show off a game I make sometime soon.