***CLIFF NOTES VERSION: Trying to determine if we should move to Jacksonville (St John's County), FL, Northern Atlanta, GA (East Cobb, Alpharetta, Roswell), or Southern Nashville (Williamson County - Nolansville, Brentwood, Spring Hill, etc)***
For anyone that reads this all the way through & can offer insight - thank you! For everyone else - I get it - I wrote a book. Feel free to skip over it if you'd like
Howdy all - long time viewer of posts to this site - first time I'm actually posting to it. At a dilemma...
I'm from Northeast Ohio. Born & raised. Spend time in the Navy and travelled a good amount.
I'm married - 44 years old, wife is 42 and we're fairly active (motorcycle, biking, working out, I hunt/fish, going out, etc). We have 3 school aged kids: boy 10, boy 14, girl 16. The oldest kids are big into lacrosse. Good public schools are important.
Also have 2 dogs - 1 of which is a young Doberman who needs a decent backyard with a fence.
We are sick & tired of the cold, wet and snow in Ohio and want to move south.
I'm an I.T. guy - currently a director. I'm open to being an IT director, manager, or even senior admin/engineer - if the company & price are right.
Wife is in finance (currently a credit union). She can work anywhere - and I'm the primary breadwinner.
We initially planned on going to FL. Made a trip down this summer, looked at homes, neighborhoods, etc. Loved Ponte Vedra & St. Johns among other areas. Problem is - I'm not getting a lot of bite's for work that pays the minimum I feel I'm worth and what I feel I need to make the move. Housing prices are a bit higher than I'd like (and going up) - but I feel confident we can find a house we'd love in our price range for the kids, dogs & "stuff". Just not feeling warm & fuzzy about the job market now. I also have a few friends down that way.
Benefits of that location are: no state income tax, milder weather & cost of living compared to rest of state, rest of state is a road trip away for vacations, lots of beaches & water to enjoy (we will probably get a boat eventually). Excellent weather year round - especially compared to Ohio. Get's cold occasionally in winter - but very do-able for us. Lots of sun!
Negatives are: gators, heat, bugs, chance for hurricanes (albeit slimmer than rest of state)
We also have some friends in northern Atlanta. So we're considering that location. Don't know a whole lot about it - but there's a ton of jobs there and I feel my chances are better at getting work. We find Georgia's southern charm beautiful. Weather is just fine by us year round.
Benefits: Lake Lanier could be fun (though I hear it gets crowded), weather is nice, southern charm, lots to do in Atlanta, more job prospects,
Negatives: Traffic, state income tax, cost of living highest of the 3 locations (but not by too much), just don't know enough about the area! I also think I'll feel somewhat landlocked like I do now (I'm an hour from Lake Erie when most of my life I was 1 minute away)
And recently, we started looking at Nashville. Mainly south of Nashville. Again - don't know a whole lot about it. Don't know anyone there.
Benefits: Cost of living is reasonable, Nashville is country music capital & we love country music, no state income tax, seems to be plenty of job prospects, houses reasonably priced for us the further south we go from Nashville,
Negatives: Weather is better than Ohio, but they still get 2 months of 20 degree and below in winter & average 3" of snow per year, Too many unknowns.
So - from the above, it looks like we should be patient & wait for me to land the right job in Florida, or dig a little more into Georgia. But - I know at least from a high level - all 3 locations are attractive to us.
I'd love to get more insight/input from anyone who's got some recent experience from any of these locations - or who's lived in all 3 locations and/or is in the same line of work!
I'm getting inpatient because, as they say on Game of Thrones....winter is coming! (we want to make the best decision for us, yet as soon as we can).
Thanks everybody! Feel free to ask more questions if need be too.
PS: We're planning on taking a road-trip this weekend to do some scouting. Initially we're planning on going to the part of Nashville we're considering. But - maybe we'll just scratch that & head to Georgia instead...
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