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I moved to the Summerville area 2 years ago from Illinois (Northern suburbs of Chicago) - and can't wait to get out of here!! In the process of listing the house. My wife & I had thought that moving someplace w/ a lower cost of living would be a GREAT idea. Boy, were we wrong, because along w/ a lower cost of living comes LOWER PAYCHECKS!
Both my neighbors on either side of my house are from out of state, one from Michigan, one from Florida. They are BOTH looking to get out, too! It appears that many ppl move here from other areas for a couple of years, like it for a while, and then realize South Carolina isn't what they imagined!! The schools are the worst, crime is rampant, and the weather isn't that much better. This past summer was H-O-T. The winter is bitter and cold (and I'm from Illinois!). Not only that, but everyone around here is still STUCK in the Civil War. What's up w/ THAT???
South Carolina is a GREAT place to vacation, see the sights, go to the beach. Living here.....not so great. We are sooooo outta here!!!!
I moved to the Summerville area 2 years ago from Illinois (Northern suburbs of Chicago) - and can't wait to get out of here!! In the process of listing the house. My wife & I had thought that moving someplace w/ a lower cost of living would be a GREAT idea. Boy, were we wrong, because along w/ a lower cost of living comes LOWER PAYCHECKS!
Both my neighbors on either side of my house are from out of state, one from Michigan, one from Florida. They are BOTH looking to get out, too! It appears that many ppl move here from other areas for a couple of years, like it for a while, and then realize South Carolina isn't what they imagined!! The schools are the worst, crime is rampant, and the weather isn't that much better. This past summer was H-O-T. The winter is bitter and cold (and I'm from Illinois!). Not only that, but everyone around here is still STUCK in the Civil War. What's up w/ THAT???
South Carolina is a GREAT place to vacation, see the sights, go to the beach. Living here.....not so great. We are sooooo outta here!!!!
Sorry it didn't work out for you but I know many people from the northeast that live in SC and love it. It doesn't mean living here is bad, it just isn't for you. Just like I would never live in Illinois.
I moved to the Summerville area 2 years ago from Illinois (Northern suburbs of Chicago) - and can't wait to get out of here!! In the process of listing the house. My wife & I had thought that moving someplace w/ a lower cost of living would be a GREAT idea. Boy, were we wrong, because along w/ a lower cost of living comes LOWER PAYCHECKS!
Both my neighbors on either side of my house are from out of state, one from Michigan, one from Florida. They are BOTH looking to get out, too! It appears that many ppl move here from other areas for a couple of years, like it for a while, and then realize South Carolina isn't what they imagined!! The schools are the worst, crime is rampant, and the weather isn't that much better. This past summer was H-O-T. The winter is bitter and cold (and I'm from Illinois!). Not only that, but everyone around here is still STUCK in the Civil War. What's up w/ THAT???
South Carolina is a GREAT place to vacation, see the sights, go to the beach. Living here.....not so great. We are sooooo outta here!!!!
OK, I'll bite.
Might I ask if you researched the area before moving there? One of the first things I inquired about through online sources was the average income, housing costs, cost of living and comparable salaries nationwide...how much could we make, respectively, and how much we WOULD make...next making sure a job and salary was secure prior to making the move, and then only considering houses that were within our means.
I'm going up at the end of the week and we're going to spend a week there - granted, no-where near enough time to get a real sense of the community, but at least a feel of comparison...to see how our family is received and talk with a few familiar people who previously left here for the same reasons and employer.
Gotta say, it's H-O-T everywhere this year...but slightly cooler there than it is here, so I'll take it.
I like the cold, always have. I'm the nut dancing in the front yard calling to the sky for snow when it hits 32 degrees down here. In a sweater and jacket, certainly.
Sorry it didn't work out for you but I know many people from the northeast that live in SC and love it. It doesn't mean living here is bad, it just isn't for you. Just like I would never live in Illinois.
OP, what I'd really appreciate an answer to is: what changed? Why was it, as you suggested, "OK" for a few years but now not? Did the local personalities wear you down or did the 'environment' change?
I've always noticed that once someone decides to leave an area, it suddenly becomes 'the worst place they've ever lived.' I've always been pretty happy everywhere I've lived, b/c I like to adopt the local lifestyle, rather than change it. I have a friend who is a very pushy, loud New Yorker, always in a hurry. He moved to the NC mountains, and quickly became upset b/c everything wasn't like it was in NYC. I will even pick up the local accent after a while. To me, half the reason to move to a place like SC is to become one of them, not bring my own agenda. When I'm up in the country, I wear overalls, not a suit.
Not only that, but everyone around here is still STUCK in the Civil War. What's up w/ THAT???
I'm sorry you don't like it. I can understand how, being from Chicago, it was not what you expected it to be. Things sometimes happen like that. If it was what you had expected it to be, I probably wouldn't call it home.
But I'm curious about this comment. I constantly hear that "Southerners are stuck in the Civil War". Yet, in the south, I don't often hear anything about the Civil War. Sometimes I think transplants take all the cultural differences that southerners have, and the way of life that we have, and just mash it up into one phrase about the civil war. So, do you mean this literally, or figuratively?
The Charleston area is one of the least affordable areas in SC. If you didn't cash out a lot of equity when you moved there or had a job transfer it is understandable that it might be hard to make ends meet. That's why we are heading to the Columbia area were we can be close to Charleston and Myrtle Beach but it is more affordable.
My wife & I had thought that moving someplace w/ a lower cost of living would be a GREAT idea. Boy, were we wrong, because along w/ a lower cost of living comes LOWER PAYCHECKS!
Not wanting to sound rude, but did you not realize this when you moved? Major metropolitan areas tend to have higher salaries to offset the higher costs of living. I would guess that living near Chicago, salaries are high, but so are housing prices and rents. We live relatively close to San Francisco where paychecks are a nice chunk of change, but cost of living is through the roof.
Maybe my husband and I are just super retentive, but in planning our move, we sat down and have attempted to figure out what would be financially best for our family. We took into account state income tax, tax deductions, house payments, all insurances, property taxes, heating/cooling costs, water and sewer, gasoline prices, sales taxes, and everything else we could possibly think of and then compared what we're paying now in CA to what we will be paying when we move to SC. We then took into account that we will be on my husband's salary only until I find work (if I choose to do so). What we came up with was that even after the reduction in salary, we'll be better off financially in SC than we are currently in CA. So, for us, looking at the raw numbers, it's a financial win for us. I just assumed that other people did the same thing. Maybe not.
I guess if I can find something positive to say about your post it would be that it serves as a great warning to people not to jump blindly into something as major as a cross country relocation. I just feel that people should research their financial decisions and then make the best possible choices based on that research. I wish you luck in returning to the Chicago area and want to thank you for being an example of what could possibly happen when you make a major move without a lot of planning.
By looking at city data . com the temps are mild in the winter and somewher on this forum I thought I heard someone say 40's and 50's . Please explain. And how hot is hot? Im thinking 90 ??
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bitter cold?
