You can pretty much always get a table or a spot at the bar. In my experience though the music volume is such that it gets a bit annoying to sustain a conversation over it, although it depends on the exact type of music. I love Thirsty Scholar though, great food and drinks, super nice staff, and it's never as crowded as similar places in the area like Trina's.

Yes okay that makes sense! I would say a combined salary of $80K is doable (tight but doable). It sounds like your experience would qualify you for jobs in university libraries, archives, special collections, etc. which there are definitely a lot of in the Boston area (more than there are in other areas of the arts and nonprofit sector). Those jobs also tend to pay relatively well in my experience too, like $50-60K although it depends on the university, exact responsibilities, blah blah. But I think you guys should be fine! Good luck!

If you're relocating with your partner presumably you'd be living together and splitting the cost of a one-bedroom? In that case a salary of $50K is perfectly liveable in Boston. However, I would honestly be surprised if someone in your field with your number of years of experience is actually making $50K - I would budget lower and expect to earn a pretax salary of around $42K. I've worked in the museum/art nonprofit sector for 10 years and make under $70K. I'm sure this isn't anything you haven't heard before, but the field you're in is very competitive; there are relatively many jobs in those fields in Boston, but there are also a ton of well-qualified graduates coming out of all the schools here. What kind of work experience did you have in college? If it was something like a work-study job or similar admin/entry-level experience that won't make you stand out at all in job applications or allow you to negotiate for a higher salary. If you did have a higher level of responsibility that would allow you to apply for more mid-level jobs then you could maybe earn around $60K, depending on the organization and exact industry. Also, I know you just listed two arbitrary examples, but assistant curator and PR assistant are two extremely different jobs with extremely different levels of responsibility and experience required - it's basically unheard of these days to become a museum assistant curator without a PhD (except at maybe very small/regional museums, which in turn are not going to be able to offer a high salary). I'm not saying any of this to scare you off of moving here - you can definitely earn a perfectly liveable salary here working in the area you want to work in, although you would also need to rely on cost-saving measures like splitting costs with your partner, living with roommates, whatever, to make it doable. I do however think you should realistically adjust your salary expectations downwards even from $50K.

Filed via turbotax and got the MA state refund within a week.

It's $$ but I love Healthworks