Cali ExPats - Where are you living? (San Diego, Irvine: school, colleges)

[wehotex]

Originally Posted by bungalowbob

Where in the world is everyone in California relocating? The exodus seems to be growing.

i moved from long beach, calif to san antonio, tex to be closer to my family spread out betw corpus christi and san antonio. i am a texas native and was just tired of never getting ahead in so calif and the high costs of everything. i really miss it when mt friend calls me from a bar in san diego and wish that i could be there. but i like being close to family too, espec when my dad had a heart attack recently and i was able to go see him in the hospital. that would have been a lot more expensive flying from so cal. my only regret is that i didn't buy a home back in cali when it would have been so affordable. but i'm sure that plenty of people wish that!

[Charles]

Originally Posted by movingtohouston

Here in Texas we are part of a community. Kids are attending great schools (better than where we used to live)making real friendships. Cost of living is a huge factor here as well.

This (and many other posts just like it) totally supports what I've written for months: If you are single (and therefore don't care about schools and probably are satisfied renting and probably have no problem living near your work) and have at least a decent job then SoCal life isn't hard and it is great.

Once you have kids and you have to think about schools, a multi-bedroom home in a decent neighborhood (which in many cases means commuting), then Texas, Colorado, Oregon, Arizona, etc. look a lot better.

If I was single and 25, I'd have a cool job in El Segundo, I'd live nearby and enjoy it. That's basically what I did in the 1980s and 90s.

[irvm]

Originally Posted by lfranco

I miss the beach, mountains, desert, climate, people, scenery. I look forward to not planning my life around inclement weather.

California is in my blood!

While I'm sure you do miss the beach, mountains, etc. - if you were to be completely honest, how many days per year did you spend at the beach? In the mountains?

If it's like 99% of Californians, you could count 'em on the middle finger of one hand - just like the 'friendly' people in California wave at each other on the freeways.

[movingtohouston]

Originally Posted by Charles

This (and many other posts just like it) totally supports what I've written for months: If you are single (and therefore don't care about schools and probably are satisfied renting and probably have no problem living near your work) and have at least a decent job then SoCal life isn't hard and it is great.

Once you have kids and you have to think about schools, a multi-bedroom home in a decent neighborhood (which in many cases means commuting), then Texas, Colorado, Oregon, Arizona, etc. look a lot better.

If I was single and 25, I'd have a cool job in El Segundo, I'd live nearby and enjoy it. That's basically what I did in the 1980s and 90s.

What you say Charles is very true. If it were just my husband and myself we would have stayed and wouldn't have minded living in an apt for the rest of our lives. Shoot if dh had his way we would be living on a boat in San Diego. But our children come first and our best shot at giving them a home with a yard lies here in Texas. I do miss the beach a lot though.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by movingtohouston

What you say Charles is very true. If it were just my husband and myself we would have stayed and wouldn't have minded living in an apt for the rest of our lives. Shoot if dh had his way we would be living on a boat in San Diego. But our children come first and our best shot at giving them a home with a yard lies here in Texas. I do miss the beach a lot though.

I miss outdoor lap swimming all year round and unlimited outstanding cheap ethnic food and my parents. That's it.

You'll do fine in Friendswood. Lots of good jobs out there. I spent a lot of time at Johnson Space Center, pretty familiar with Bay Area Blvd, Clear Lake, NASA Road 1, the JSC neutral buoyancy pool out near Space Center Blvd, & Ellington there. I used to go running through those neighborhoods, really impressive, nice homes on the bay with docks, fully brick, big yards in the $300K-$400Ks. Went rowing on Mud Lake with some rowing club out there.

This is beyond awesome:

[KimK]

Las Cruces, New Mexico. Left five years ago and would not return to any part of California. I don't even visit as much any more.

[FutureFormerCalifornian]

We left Stockton 12/06 with just our savings and a contact (DH's best friend from college) in Oklahoma City. He's also an uber computer nerd who said the tech market is much better in OK than in CA.

Anything had to be better than the ghetto living there, the flooded tech market (DH makes more per hour NOW than he did in CA, never mind the lower cost of living) and my inability to find specialized office/software work because no quiero hablar espanol, so we came on a wing and a prayer. We LOVE it here!!! People are friendly and helpful. As of 11/1/07, it is a FELONY in the state of OK to harbor an illegal alien, (house or employ) so you don't have the immigration problems that we had in Stockton unless you CHOOSE to go into Hispanic neighborhoods on the southside.

Oklahoma reminds DH and I of the San Joaquin Valley we grew up in in the 70s. I went to a Christmas thingie at the local senior center where public school children sang CHRISTMAS SONGS :::horrors, where's the ACLU???::: to the older folks. There were huge XMas and Nativity decorations all over OKC and surrounding areas. People don't bend over backwards to be PC. Someone told me there was an active chapter of the KKK in our little town (which reminds me of Galt, sans the Mexicans, LOL) so I asked EVERYONE I thought would remotely give me a straight answer. Yes, 30 years ago there was but not any longer. One person I polled has a bi-racial child in the school by our house and the child and the non-white spouse haven't had any problems here.


Our mtg is lower than our rent was (we live west of OKC, caught between metro living and Green Acres.).

The weather is absolutely schizophrenic and is my biggest gripe since moving. It snowed today and was a whopping 24 degrees when I left this afternoon. It was in the 50s yesterday and will be about that tomorrow. I'm used to having a doggie door for the pets but it's just too cold to put them outside for any length of time (one of them is VERY old) so we had to set up an Xpen in the living room with pee pee pads for the colder weather (ew, icky). I had never seen Junebugs before.... our little Boston Terrier stalks them and keeps them at bay. I'd never heard cicadas before and I was convinced something was up with the powerlines because our big tree is near the lines.

[MtnSurfer]

I agree with most of what was said from most Cali ex-pats. I moved to CO with my family when we had our third child around the same times Charles did. We both worked for Northrop Grumman and probably made a decent wage. But even then our family couldn't afford getting into a home on a single income. My wife wanted to stay at home and on only one salary we were getting no where fast. So tired of the increasing cost of living, crowds, smog, traffic, etc... we moved to CO.

It was a good move for us in many ways. My pay went up, cost of living went way down, less crowds, traffic, smog, crime, etc...

The hardest part for me is the lack of ability to get to the coast. We really love the Rocky Mtns. so are enjoying them. But I told my wife I want to get back to the coast some day. I grew at the beach and love the sea. Even as an adult I enjoyed going to the frequently. So we plan on exploring the PNW next. We will trade 300 days of sun for 300 days of clouds if we can have the other things that go along with it (eg - close proximity to coast and mtns. as well as other major cities).

Obviously no place is perfect. But there are a lot of other nice locations to live which have the 'potential' to offer someone a better quality of life. It just depends on the criteria one uses to measure 'Quality' for them. As Charles mentioned it varies based on one's life stage - single v. married with a family.

[ecam222]

I live in the tri-state area of PA/NY/NJ. I left the north/central part of CA in 2001, because of happenstance...a job lay-off and needing a new place to live. The timing was such, that I moved close to a family member and found a job right away. It is not that I wanted to move out of CA. I love CA and miss it more than anything. So does my adult son, who I have raised there. If I ever win the lottery, I'd be back there in a flash. Yes, we've endured earthquakes and the big one in '89, but all in all, my mind is full of so many wonderful memories that have stirred the five senses.

[Cali-girl]

I am in the position of living in 2 states: my native California and recently, southern New Mexico. My husband, who is also a native Californian, also looks forward to when we can return to our beautiful state. Traffic on the freeways is waaaay down due to so many leaving; last time I was on the 118 to the 210 I counted 25 cars on the freeway. The 101 to the 405 is a breeze although still some slowness through the Valley by Topanga & Warner exits. In OC, Jamboree is nothing like it used to be-not too busy at all - even at the McArthur intersection. 101N to Santa Barbara to SLO is like it was 20 years ago.

When in NM, WE MISS TRADER JOES!!! And Whole Foods and Lazy Acres Market in SB! And good hair stylists! And Sephora! And Ralphs! and Costco! and Longs and CVS! *There are no pharmacies here except for 3 small Walgreens.*

The best thing about southern New Mexico is that we are 5 hours from Tucson and from there just 3 hours from the Coachella Valley. (As you can tell, we have our route mapped out.) Thankfully we do not get snow here (I hate mud season and the feeling of going out in the freezer) and the weather is similar to Barstow/Hesperia with the exception of frightening electrical storms during the summer.

~Cali-girl