Cheapest state

[SgtMaj]

Re: Cheapest state

MO is where most californians bail to. First of all they are cheap as far as taxes go, and then there's their estate laws which are VERY favorable. So it's a great place to live. That being said... locals hate the fact that all you californians are moving in there and driving up their cost of living with all your fancy homes and such.

 

[JRJ]

Re: Cheapest state

Californians don't drive prices up, its greedy locals taking advantage of their friends and neighbors. We are content to pay the fair going rate lol

 

[mikeandronda]

Re: Cheapest state

Missouri is cheap but its also full of hillbillies and for a reason.............Unless you have some skills finding a job that pays well can be a challange.......Im in Springfield and it may be different in st. louis or KC.......Feb. 1st is our move date to Fl. and both and my wife have allready secured jobs that pay much better and the area seems to be much nicer so its easy for me to not like Mo. ( Plus being from Wisconsin , the hunting and fishing aint even close to being as good here) All I got to say is just because a place is cheap to live in doesnt mean that will make enough money to have a better lifestyle.......... My 2cents.....If I wasnt moving to Fl. to be close to family it would be Texas.

 

[treedancer]

Re: Cheapest state

Missouri is cheap but its also full of hillbillies and for a reason.............Unless you have some skills finding a job that pays well can be a challange.......Im in Springfield and it may be different in st. louis or KC.......Feb. 1st is our move date to Fl. and both and my wife have allready secured jobs that pay much better and the area seems to be much nicer so its easy for me to not like Mo. ( Plus being from Wisconsin , the hunting and fishing aint even close to being as good here) All I got to say is just because a place is cheap to live in doesnt mean that will make enough money to have a better lifestyle.......... My 2cents.....If I wasnt moving to Fl. to be close to family it would be Texas.

Hey Mike, don’t trip on your way to Florida this Feb, You just might be run over by a geezer in a Winnebago, that might be me.

 

[mikeandronda]

Re: Cheapest state

Hey Im getting older....not a geezer yet ( Though I did become a Grandpa this yr) So I figure I will just go early......Before geezerdom hits When I moved to Missouri I figured I was done with winter.....At least bitter cold winters.......Florida here I come Where are you visiting Tree?

 

[treedancer]

Re: Cheapest state

Hey Im getting older....not a geezer yet ( Though I did become a Grandpa this yr) So I figure I will just go early......Before geezerdom hits When I moved to Missouri I figured I was done with winter.....At least bitter cold winters.......Florida here I come Where are you visiting Tree?

We usually go to Coral Springs, a couple of weeks in Feb, it’s in the Ft. Lauderdale/ Pompano Beach area.

 

[beerrun]

Re: Cheapest state

Well it's not NY. I am right there with you looking for a cheaper place to live. I will definitely miss the Catskills though. Its a beautiful area. The Hudson is even getting cleaner. A friend of mine just moved to Tenn. and she seems to like it alot. She went with pretty much nothing and shes doing alright so far. Plenty of jobs and decent cost of living. I just dont think I will ever get used to hearing people say "ya'll". So I am still looking.

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Cheapest state

Missouri is cheap but its also full of hillbillies and for a reason.............

Hey, I resemble that remark! Or at the very least I'm related to it. I have a lot of family in Springfield.

That's a beautiful part of the country though, and largely unspoiled. If it wasn't for my wife's job, I would move back there in a second. But it's hard to find a job that lets you take your infant/toddler to work with you, and as crazy as this world has become with perverts and abusers, that's just an invaluable perk (not to mention the savings vs. daycare costs).

 

[Slapfish1]

Re: Cheapest state

Delaware has got to be high on the list of cheap states. No sales tax. I own and acre of ground, with a house, pool, etc., and my property taxes for the year maxed out at $580.00, including school tax.
Not bad. It's also a great state if you own your own business. That's one reason a lot of the credit card companies are based here out of Wilmington, Delaware.

 

[Haut Medoc]

Re: Cheapest state

Welcome to iboats, Slapfish......​

 

[thurps]

Re: Cheapest state

Great replies. I lived in eastern Kansas for a few years a long time ago and made some spelunking trips into Missouri. Beautiful state from what I remember. Lots of water. The home prices seem more than reasonable (realtor.com) compared to here. Looks like a road trip in the spring. Thanks again.

 

[BLU LUNCH]

Re: Cheapest state

Here in Northern Ct I'm 1 hour from the ocean,less than 45 minutes to the mountains, a couple of hours from NYC and Boston, we have all four seasons but it's so expencive to live here and really high taxes to boot.......

 

[Expidia]

Re: Cheapest state

This is always a fun subject especially if you develop a "plan" for your move.

When contemplating places to move there is a great book that I started buying 10 years ago. You don't have to even buy it since you can go into a Borders or Barnes and Noble, sit down with a cup of coffee and look through it. It comes out every 5 years I think.

I've purchased the last two printings when I was trying to decide where to move someday, because I'm sick of the Great Northeast (read COLD Northeast).

This place has like an average temp 8 months of the year under 60 degrees, resulting in a real short boating season.

My personal choices top spot right now (me not you) after looking over the entire country with this book several years ago would be a move to Atlanta GA (1 inch of snow a year . . . YAHOO). I grew up in Boston and moved to NY 34 years ago. I need to be near a big City with good job growth and also for the cosmopolitan aspect of living like the arts and entertainment. But this is what's important to me "only". Your needs are going to be different, probably 100% opposite. So it's not only the cost of living you need to focus on. You need to weigh out all the categories in this book and come up with a list of Cities that will work for you.

I've already taken vacations in Atlanta about 6 or 7 times for the purpose of checking everything out!

I love NY (where have I heard that) . . . I can hop a train (or drive less than 3 hours) and be in the middle of Times Square, have dinner in Little Italy, go see a play on Broadway and than hop back on the 11 pm train to home again. Done this many, many times over the years.

Yet I was able to raise my Family in Albany, the capital of NY which has one of the lowest crime rates in the country and great schools. But it's time for me in the coming years to say good bye to the cold weather! I ski, but I'd rather hop a plane and take a ski vacation than live here through the 8 month Winters.

The beauty of this book is that it breaks down something like 351 cities into apprx 11 categories and you can match them up to what's important to you like crime, "cost of living", hospital care, school systems, jobs, transportation, climate and more . . .

For instance, the company I work for . . . Their headquarters are in Richmond, VA (a great City IMO) and they are moving their headquarters to St Louis. I feel bad for the employees that are moving because St Louis in 2007 had the highest crime rate in the nation. The Suburbs I'm sure are a great place to live, but your realtor is not going to tell you that they were rated #1 for crime. 5 years ago the highest crime rate was Miami FL. Detroit took top honors in 06.

These are the types of things that you need to know when you are making a moving decision, What suits you is probably not right for someone else, so this book will allow you to screen through all areas of the county and zero in on what's right for you.

The newest version just came out in March of 07.
I'm ordering my new copy as we speak, since I was waiting for the latest version to come out.

You won't be able to put this book down!

see: placesrated.com/pr-book.htm

It list there for $24.95, but Amazon.com sells it for $16.95. If you order $25 worth of stuff the shipping is free, so buy a pound of coffee or something like that.

The author is David Savageau.

PM me with your opinion on my tip to you once you get a chance to flip through this book!

 

[TD_Maker]

Re: Cheapest state

DON'T MOVE TO FLORIDA!!!! I am a Florida native, and this state has gone downhill in a hurry. We have become one of the most expensive states to live in due to very high real estate taxes, and extremely high home owners insurance. For instance: I live on the East Coast. Home worth about 250K. Insurance is $5100 this year. Taxes: $2200 Before the Hurricanes, my insurance was $900 per year! Good ole State farm!

The real estate market is in shambles. The big developers came in and flooded the state with housing, and the investment flippers are now stuck with houses worth 1/2 of what they paid for them; consequently, this state now leads the country in foreclosures. Thousands and thousands of homes now sit empty or on the auction block. Economist say the market will take YEARS to recover.

Naturally, no more building also means most of the people who build houses or rely on the housing market are also hurting (Of course, the mass influx of illegals has not helped either.) Real Estate agents are scrambling for other work. For the first time since the 1940's, there are more people LEAVING Florida than moving into Florida.

 

[treedancer]

Re: Cheapest state

This is always a fun subject especially if you develop a "plan" for your move.

When contemplating places to move there is a great book that I started buying 10 years ago. You don't have to even buy it since you can go into a Borders or Barnes and Noble, sit down with a cup of coffee and look through it. It comes out every 5 years I think.

I've purchased the last two printings when I was trying to decide where to move someday, because I'm sick of the Great Northeast (read COLD Northeast).

This place has like an average temp 8 months of the year under 60 degrees, resulting in a real short boating season.

My personal choices top spot right now (me not you) after looking over the entire country with this book several years ago would be a move to Atlanta GA (1 inch of snow a year . . . YAHOO). I grew up in Boston and moved to NY 34 years ago. I need to be near a big City with good job growth and also for the cosmopolitan aspect of living like the arts and entertainment. But this is what's important to me "only". Your needs are going to be different, probably 100% opposite. So it's not only the cost of living you need to focus on. You need to weigh out all the categories in this book and come up with a list of Cities that will work for you.

I've already taken vacations in Atlanta about 6 or 7 times for the purpose of checking everything out!

I love NY (where have I heard that) . . . I can hop a train (or drive less than 3 hours) and be in the middle of Times Square, have dinner in Little Italy, go see a play on Broadway and than hop back on the 11 pm train to home again. Done this many, many times over the years.

Yet I was able to raise my Family in Albany, the capital of NY which has one of the lowest crime rates in the country and great schools. But it's time for me in the coming years to say good bye to the cold weather! I ski, but I'd rather hop a plane and take a ski vacation than live here through the 8 month Winters.

The beauty of this book is that it breaks down something like 351 cities into apprx 11 categories and you can match them up to what's important to you like crime, "cost of living", hospital care, school systems, jobs, transportation, climate and more . . .

For instance, the company I work for . . . Their headquarters are in Richmond, VA (a great City IMO) and they are moving their headquarters to St Louis. I feel bad for the employees that are moving because St Louis in 2007 had the highest crime rate in the nation. The Suburbs I'm sure are a great place to live, but your realtor is not going to tell you that they were rated #1 for crime. 5 years ago the highest crime rate was Miami FL. Detroit took top honors in 06.

These are the types of things that you need to know when you are making a moving decision, What suits you is probably not right for someone else, so this book will allow you to screen through all areas of the county and zero in on what's right for you.

The newest version just came out in March of 07.
I'm ordering my new copy as we speak, since I was waiting for the latest version to come out.

You won't be able to put this book down!

see: placesrated.com/pr-book.htm

It list there for $24.95, but Amazon.com sells it for $16.95. If you order $25 worth of stuff the shipping is free, so buy a pound of coffee or something like that.

The author is David Savageau.

PM me with your opinion on my tip to you once you get a chance to flip through this book!

You might want to show the people that are moving this survey that shows that report is flawed. The city of St.Louis separated from St.Louis County in 1876,it and I believe Baltimore Maryland is the only other major metro areas that are separated from their counties.

http://record.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/8214.html



< As the week ends, we continue to receive calls of congratulations from our colleagues around the nation that say, "It's great about the World Series--but sorry to hear about the crime problem," and since experts ranging from the FBI to criminologists have roundly denounced this annual city ranking, we've worked with Mayor Slay, his staff, as well as our own RCGA research staff to set the record straight.

While the flaws of the study have been widely spotlighted by criminologists and St. Louis City officials, the fact that it was picked up by a number of newspapers around the country suggests that it may be helpful for each of us to have a clear rebuttal to utilize as we are talking to business colleagues and associates about the unfortunate misrepresentation that it makes of St. Louis.

"I am stunned if there is a criminologist out there who will support this." Those are the words of Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno Press, and very author of the study, as reported Tuesday, Oct. 31, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, regarding his company's annual rankings of crime rates in the U.S.

Morgan is right. No criminologist would take this seriously. In the first place, the "ranking" looks only at the City of St. Louis and not at its suburbs, or even the surrounding urban district making up our region's central city area. This methodology puts St. Louis at a huge disadvantage. Why? Because the City of St. Louis is tightly confined by boundaries established in 1876 and is, therefore, geographically far smaller than most other major cities.>


< "The first set of crime stats I reviewed for St. Louis were surprisingly low compared to other major cities. What was surprising to me was that the St. Louis Metropolitan Area consists of 2.8 million people, and this particular study was based on 350,000 of them. You've got some very high saturation points [in a handful of inner city neighborhoods] that are skewing the statistics for the City."

All in all, it adds up to what nationally-syndicated Washington Post urban affairs columnist Neal Peirce, one of the nation's leading experts on cities, noted about last Fall, calling St. Louis "one of the most remarkable center city transformations in the nation.">

 

[Expidia]

Re: Cheapest state

Hi Treedancer
When I mentioned St Louis is the #1 city for crime in 2007, I was quoting this article that I had googled and it came up as you said in many recent publications. I happened to come across it since many employees will be moving there so I Googled it to see where it stood, crime wise.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0921299.html

I knew when I mentioned that recent article I'd hit a chord with many people, especially if you live in or around St. Louis!

It's like if Jay Leno mentions a City in a bad light, he'll get thousands of calls and people sending letters and emails in.

I looked up it's standing in my most recent Places Rated book (printed in 1997) and out of 342 U.S. St. Louis was listed as # 264 out of 342 Cities 342 being the worst which was Miami.

When averaging all the categories out: Weather, Schools, Cost of Living etc Under the category of "putting it all together" St Louis placed 56 out of 342 Cities.

56 is a very respectable score overall (351 being the worst score)!

St Louis tops out in the 90's in four categories. It's best categories were: Transportation 95.25 (100 being the best possible score), Education 90, Arts 96.04, Recreation also in the 90's with a score of 94.89.

What holds St Louis back is the other 5 categories where it placed an average score of 20.79, 70.93, 35.03, 25.63, 28.57 these other areas drag it's over all score down to 56 which is still a great score and puts St Louis ahead of 295 other cities!

That's why this is such a great book to read. It does all the work for you. And it has a ton of info in each category on exactly how they arrive at the numbers.

Great coffee table book (sure to get a conversation going). Great reference book when planning a vacation.

The new version will be arriving in several days that I just ordered from Amazon. It will be interesting to see how their City planners have either moved the City upwards over the past 10 years or if it's losing ground to other cities.

I'll report back! I have no connection with this book, I'm recommending it because this will be the 3rd version I've bought and I think it's a great unbiased service for people on the move.

Great gift idea too for friends or relatives that are planning a move or planning on retiring to another state.

The city where I live Albany, NY placed at # 60 and St. Louis even placed 4 cities higher. I raised my family here and I've lived here 33 years after growing up in Boston (Boston placed at 49 and hit a 99.75 in Education and a 99.42 in the Arts followed by two other categories in the 90's). Albany has no categories even in the 90's (a score of 90 or better gets highlighted in the book).

Albany's highest category was only 83.67 and that was for transportation (which is not even one of my priority categories).
It's best category was the Cost of living at 22.95 and Climate at 26.72 (1 being the best, 351the worst). But for my future needs I'd like to move to a city in the top 10 area in climate and enjoy an extended boating season instead of an abbreviated one.

Keep in mind I'm looking at a printing of 10 years ago which probably took the author another few years prior to that just to gather the statistics.

Cities don't change much over time. It will be interesting to see which cities are trending up and which cities are trending down over the last 10 years.

We shall see in a few days when the Mar/07 version arrives at my door.

 

[mikeandronda]

Re: Cheapest state

Hey TD, The reason we are moving to Florida is I am gonna start working for my Dad who owns a Polaris/Victory/Tracker boat dealership. You know all the big boy toys in one can hope for. My wife also has recieved some job offers that are much better then we have here so Its a big jump for us money wise. Both sides of our families live in Fl. as well. We are on our way on Feb. 1st and let me tell you I hate cross country moves.....no fun, but I am really looking forward to getting there.

 

[arboldt]

Re: Cheapest state

Well, I've got to say Michigan has got to be right up there in the list of cheapest states. Our governor has cut school funding for most of her 8 years, the Dept Natural Resources is closing state parks and laying off people, highways are falling apart. .. Wait, do you mean 'cheapest' like 'chintzy' or 'cheapest' like 'least expensive?'

I've lived in Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Indiana, Ohio. In 1981 I moved to South Bend -- could live either IN or MI. I asked the chief financial officer for the company I worked for then, and he told me one state had higher rates but more offsets. By the time you add in income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, license plate fees, etc etc they were within a few dollars of each other. Not sure if that would still be true, but you do have to look at the whole picture.

Even more importantly, *where* in the state. I live 1/2 way between Detroit and Chicago (about 160 miles each way). 10 years ago during the boom times, I could have doubled my salary to move to Detroit or Chicago but my cost of living would have gone up 3-4 times.

In every state there are areas of higher and lower cost. Pay your money and make your choice.

When my bride and I married, we decided we wanted to live in a small city (that is 20k - 100K metro area) near woods, water, and wilderness, within 2.5 hour drive of a large city. Preferably a college town so education would be valued. 36 years later, we still haven't been able to live in such a place -- all the towns are much too big. Actually, central Missouri came the closest to this -- I loved Columbia, but the job I had sucked bigtime. (Now I wouldn't live within 300 miles of where Missouri and Tennessee meet because of the New Madrid fault .)

But we have usually lived in areas of lower cost of living. As the presidential candidates were quoted over the past week, Michigan is having a one-state recession for the past 7 years. Until the last 5 years, jobs usually have been pretty good -- now, no.

You really need to figure out what kind of things you like. I've often said I hate winter, but the 2 1/2 weeks of summer more than make up for it.

Seems like every few months there's another magazine with its list of the top places to live, all different. Everyone has different values and priorities. We like small-town easy living and lack of congestion. Others really like big cities (knock yourself out!).

My parents had the right idea. I wish we could do the same, but doubt we could afford it -- 6 months south central Minnesota, 6 months southern Texas. Best of both worlds -- if you're retired.

I don't think I'd ever live in California not only for high taxes but other restrictions by well-intentioned persons with no concept of unintended consequences. But as costly as California is, isn't Hawaii even more so?

Bottom line, where ever you live, is it really worth it to you?

 

[TD_Maker]

Re: Cheapest state

Well....... Good luck then. You will find Florida to be a big change for you. Just be prepared. The State is far from the Jimmy Buffet and Palm Tree dreams many people have in their minds when they relocate here. The threat of Hurricanes is no fun. My entire home was destroyed in Hurricane Andrew, and another home was severely damaged during our storms of two years ago. This is exactly why insurance is so high here. Our schools constantly rank among the worst in the country. This is why the lawmakers are talking about adding a state tax here in the next several years. Truthfully, it is needed if the schools are to get better. Here, a teacher starting out will make about 28K per year. The average teacher will make about 34K per year. I should know, I was once a teacher in Florida.

Unfortunately, my entire family has relocated out of this State (Native to Florida) and settled in Kentucky and Missouri. They have found the real estate to be roughly 30-40% less expensive than Florida, and of course, taxes and insurance are much,much cheaper. I have purchased 25 acres with lake frontage in Kentucky. I paid about 2/3 of what a 80 x 125 ft building lot here would cost. Both my kids have left for college in other states, so I am ready to move. Unfortunately, my home has been on the market for a year and a half with no lookers. I guess i am stuck for awhile.

Good luck to you and your wife.