What would it take for you to move far enough away so that you wouldn’t have regular contact with the people you regularly interact with?
As I do my taxes I think about this perennial issue. Living in CA, I pay a shit ton of taxes. Near 10% in state income taxes, near 10% in sales tax, high gas taxes, and what I think are high property taxes. Our schools are just okay depending on where you live, we spend money like drunk sailors though it has gotten slightly better recently - I think that’s more to do with the economy. We are spending billions on a useless bullet train. Not only that, I’m pretty into guns and CA introduces new legislation every year that attempts to ban a significant portion of my firearms.
Suffice to say, I hate the CA government. I hate that by living here I support it. But the weather is really nice, I have a wide support network with family and friends. I’m local to work and don’t even take the freeway. Snow sports are close, beaches are close, camping is close, etc. But then I look at other parts of the country - places with no sales tax, no state income tax, no capital gains tax, more free gun laws, less government overall. And it’s really appealing. And, with the housing prices in CA, most other places seem like typos when I see their prices.
So what would it take for you to move? Is state government enough to give up everyone you know where you live?
Absolutely. In our case it was the severe cold snap on January 6-7, 2014. We were doing well with our own business and my husband had always sort of dreamed about moving back to the west coast, where he lived until he was three.
Then the cold snap hit. We lived in central Illinois. I think it hit -17F the night of January 6. Lots of upper Midwesterners and Canadians will scoff at that, but it scared me and pissed off my husband. I didn’t sleep because I worried about our daughter being too cold in her corner bedroom. We didn’t try to leave the house for three days. We hated every minute of it.
So we moved to the west coast (Washington, not California). We left behind his parents in Illinois and mine in Michigan. Friends. A house we had renovated. My daughter’s lovely preschool. The horrid, stinking climate made that worth it to us. Now instead of having pleasant outdoor weather for maybe 3-4 weeks of the year, it’s fine outside all year long. So it rains? So what. You don’t have to shovel rain.
Do it. We’re a mobile and highly connected society.
I love California! My family has been here since the Gold Rush.
It would take something hellish awful to pry me away from my roots here. Maybe a neo-Nazi government, with mass deportations of illegal immigrants, a multi-million person ethnic cleansing. I’d feel obliged to fight against that, perhaps giving personal shelter to people hiding from deportation.
I packed up and left California for college and really haven’t gone back. I miss it all winter long and honestly a good part of the rest of the year too. I don’t thinkmy wife is capable of leaving Colorado while her parents are alive so I think my best shot at this point is to get the kiddo to go to a California college and then stalk her out there. The only problem with that plan is she’s 6 months old.
I live in Overland Park Kansas(suburb of Kansas City) and we have lots of ex-Californians living here. They love the lower prices and the fact its not so crowded or crazy. Yeah it gets cold here and no mountains or beaches but you can always travel to those. Having connections back in California makes a great vacation destination.
Overland Park has been rated one of the best places in the country to find a job, best places to live in the midwest, best cities in the US, best places to raise a family, best cities for kids, etc…
Really though the big thing in a move is your job and career. Once you do that you can work on the other stuff like making friends. I have inlaws in southern California and they love the great weather. However he makes a ton of money or they could never afford it.
I’ve done it a bunch of times. I work in the media and, for ten years, that meant regional radio stations. Moved every 18 months to two years, pretty much always to somewhere new where I didn’t know anyone. It’s just a fact of life in what was my chosen industry at the time.
I’ve done it quite a few times, and may do it again.
It’s always been a good move for me. The largest part of luck is being able to see and jump on opportunity, and being mobile is a huge advantage when it comes to doing that.
My mom is 86 yo and we try to visit her a few times a month. Moving out of state would make that very difficult. It would take a hell of a lot to make me move.
That, and I only have one more house payment. I can do without that for a while thank you very much. I would hate to have to start that whole process over.
If, when we retire, Pennsylvania’s marijuana status hasn’t changed, we will be moving. We haven’t chosen which state yet because our options are likely to enlarge between now and then. The exploring/planning has begun and is enjoyable in and of itself. My kids have begun lives in different states, yet we still manage to get together pretty often.
I enjoy cannabis, it makes my already fantastic life a bit better. It would be nice if i didn’t have to be a criminal in the eyes of the state.
I want to be wherever my daughter and grandchildren are, so if she ever talks her husband into moving to the east coast, I’ll be doing my best to join them.
I wouldn’t leave California because of the government. Yes, the taxes are high, but they are going to things that directly benefit me. There is no free lunch. A lot of people come to California from other states looking for work or to study at its top public schools (UC, Cal State–or even community colleges), and that puts a strain on infrastructure and services. In order to maintain a vibrate economic and cultural center, which includes decent beaches, state forests/parks, etc., you have to be willing to pay for it. I look at the big picture, rather than just the cash in my pocket at any given moment.
However, the drought could change things a lot for the worse in the long run, if it continues. That could make me leave (or spend less time here).
wouldn’t take me much, but where would I go? California? Nyuck Nyuck Nyet! Oregon? nah don’t think so. Midwest? Hell NO! people that complain about the heat and humidity of the southeast have never lived in Kansas. I would go back to Georgia but, wife thinks its excessively hot and humid there:rolleyes: never been to the northeast, I hear its nice in the fall from my sister who lived in maine a few years. no thanks. Idaho sucks donkey ass but its better than anywhere I’ve lived so far except GA and I was in the Army so things like rent and utilities and income and stuff were much less of a worry than me just picking up and moving there on my own.
When I was 18 YO, I joined the military and got to live in a lot of places the next 24 years. The closest was about 350 miles from my family and the furthest more like 6K miles. This was well before Skype and free long distance phone calls. I’d call about once a quarter; write about once a month; and go ‘home’ on leave about twice a year.
My wife and I did just this a couple of years ago. I had lived in Seattle for 21 years and we owned a house for about 17. I loved Seattle and the rain and gloom didn’t bother me for many years; there was altars something interesting to do and friends to see regardless of the weather. But I got older and staying out all night lost its luster. Friends had children and life got busy. The constant gloom stated to get to us. The final straw was a particularly long wet stretch where one day we came home and water was coming through the dining room ceiling in several spots. We decided to do some needed repairs to the house, sell, and get the hell out.
Add to that, the traffic just kept getting worse and worse, and with Amazon’s hiring plans and the 520 construction that was going to have a major impact on our neighborhood, there was no let up in sight. I spent too much time in ththe car, angry about crawling along. We now see some of our good Seattle friends more often as they come to visit us then we did in town since being on the wrong side of the lake or in the wrong neighborhood meant they might as well have lived on the moon given the after work congestion.
Now I live in California and wonder why the hell we didn’t do this sooner.
I would have a hard time leaving PA. I don’t care for our state government very much and I admire other places but I’m used to this place. I know the streams, the woods, the surrounding states, and the various aspects of our cities. To start over in another state ---- I don’t see me doing that.
All that aside, given a solid cash reserve, I could see me going kitty-corner to the other side of the state very easily.