A Couple of Tips To Ease Your Move to Las Vegas

My second move to Las Vegas (August 2015) was 3000% calmer than my first (August 1994). On June 30, 2015, after my nearly 98-year-old father passed, I decided that my business (CDC Gaming Reports) needed me back in Las Vegas. Just 40 days later, I hosted a house-warming party in my completely furnished Las Vegas apartment — finishing an effort where I actually made a few dollars.

Of course, the main reason the second move went so smoothly (especially in selection of apartment and neighborhood) was my prior knowledge of the valley, but I also learned a couple of things that saved a few dollars (and were a lot of fun to pull off).

First, Las Vegas is a buyer’s market for second-hand furniture.

This time out, instead of hiring an expensive interstate moving truck, I put everything I owned (except for my art collection and family heirlooms) on the market via a third-party-run estate sale held after I sold the house (which took one day). “Everything” included furniture, books, CDs, DVDs, kitchen gear, yard supplies, electronics, and any clothes I hadn’t recently worn. Then I left for Las Vegas. (Note: I also exchanged my dark blue Hyundai Sonata for a same-year white Hyundai Tucson.)

The day after I arrived, I signed the apartment lease (and viewed the unit for the first time). Next stop: Lynn’s World, a local consignment shop, where I purchased a Henredon bedroom set, a hand-painted dining set, a beautiful and highly functional office desk, and a living-room sofa (with storage stool and chaise) for $2,300, including delivery and setup two days later. The electronics came from RC Willey and everything else (especially for the kitchen) has been acquired at local house sales.

Las Vegas is a wonderful place for second-hand sales, through consignment shops, professionally run estate sales, and individual garage sales. The gaming industry (still the main workplace of the Las Vegas valley) moves their executives around a lot and that, combined with the many Nevada retirees who are “moving on,” creates a never-ending supply of quality second-hand goods. Even though I pretty much have everything I need, I still check out estatesales.net to see if there’s anything nearby I can hit on a Saturday (when remaining items are 50% off). The only item you can’t buy second-hand in Nevada (for good reason) is a mattress.

Second, most Las Vegas residents can get good free TV via an inside-installed antenna.

I haven’t paid for cable television for over five years. In Ohio, I had a rather expensive TV outside antenna on the house, but in Las Vegas, I can get over a dozen channels (even more if I were interested in religious or Spanish-language programming), including many in HD, using an inside-installed flat white antenna ($25 on Amazon) that’s about the size of a sheet of paper. As Las Vegas is a valley with few high buildings outside of the Strip, many residents can access TV the old-fashioned way, which is totally free and totally legal. Though I don’t use one, an over-the-air DVR can be found on Amazon for a one-time charge of $230, with streaming options to other devices in your home.

What I do use (and adds tremendous enjoyment to my life) is a Roku box – a four-inch-square very user-friendly “smart-TV” device ($40-$100 one-time purchase) that picks up, via the Internet, the big-time paid channels (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu), 1,000 totally free channels, and (for me) some stimulating Broadway theater, Metropolitan Opera, and European classical-music choices. My monthly Roku bill is about $35, but my viewing choices are far better than anything I could get via cable. Because of my business (which I run out of my home), my Internet runs at 100 mbps, but according to my tech team, a single Roku works well on a 25 mbps connection.