what dissappointed me about moving to East TN (Knoxville, Kingsport: incomes, health care)

[MrsMtnsOnTheMind]

Originally Posted by Z.Roe

You are in Gatlinburg. That's about like living across from the main gates at Disneyworld. Or next door to Circus Circus in Vegas. Get it ? Go to the beautiful Smoky Mountains in September. Drive the park where you rocket through at a breakneck speed of 5 feet per hour behind all the LAZY tourists who cut a black bears life expectancy by half due to a 24 hour Carbon Monooxide haze. That's the SMOKY part. You didn't think that was fog............did you ? Oh yeah, Global Warming, extinct Rhino's ?? Who cares! Wait till you see the cool little freaks the poisonous park pumps out around say.... the yr. 2100. 2 headed deer, one - eyed salamanders, KKOOLL !! I digress. Yes milk is high, but you were talking about that great paying job your husband got, right? Tourism Industry I'm sure.

That wasn't very nice

[CookevilleWeatherGuy]

Originally Posted by dakota7

I recently moved to Greeneville from Seattle. I thought Washington was expensive, but this place is the most expensive place I've ever lived. The sales tax here is almost TEN PERCENT!!! And it is charged on EVERYTHING, including groceries!! I do most of my shopping in Asheville or Georgia because the taxes are so much lower. Property taxes are much more reasonable here, however. Propane costs about 40% more than most other places, and they charge an "environmental" fee of $6 every time you get a fill up. Tennessee says they don't have an income tax, but, in fact, they do. If your income is derived from interest and/or dividends, they hit you with a 6% income tax -- combine that with an almost 10% sales tax and it gets expensive quickly.

On the plus side, the mountain scenery here is beautiful and the food is wonderful and the people are great.

OH Whine, why don't you??...sheeez, Seattle is one of the most expensive places in the United States to live...you can buy 3 homes in TN for what one might cost in the burnt coffee capital. 500K for a 3/1 home..forget that!

You are crying about pennies, not REAL money...so what if you're hit with a little environmental fee...so what if you're taxed on groceries, so what if we have the Hall Tax..and how do you know that propane is "40% more than most other places"...that is simply not true.......it's better than having to take a 2nd mortgage out just to pay property taxes...it's better than having to deal with that suicide-inducing Seattle weather....

Some who move here want to tell us how they did things in Michigan (for example) and how terrible things are....my welcome mat is always out for anyone moving here...but it gets closed up in a hurry when all they do is complain, complain, complain...

By the way, Welcome To Tennessee!

[luvmyanimals]

I have to agree with Cookvillewetherguy. I will welcome anyone to come for a better life but gee, please leave your complaining behind. Things may not be perfect here but where you came from was it so much better? Is that why you moved away, because it was wonderful there, and here is hell on earth? My family is generation after generation tennessean, and I'm proud to call this state home. I have traveled and lived in alot of places but I always seem to find my way back home. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

[gemkeeper]

I don't think that dakota7 was putting TN down in any way that should cause offense to other posters. She was making a valid observation and comparison.

We do want relocating residents to research their new home area in depth, to know what costs (financial and emotional) will be involved in their move, and to give themselves an adequate adjustment time to their new home.

But, I don't believe that dakota7's adjustment or accessment of Gatlinburg or TN will be improved by unkind retorts.

I hope that you do find some happiness here in E. TN, dakota7 and that you will adjust your living expenses in TN to allow for those sales taxes. They just take getting used to and you will see that you are saving money in so many other areas. You will eventually be thrilled to pay a sales tax to get out from under the high cost of living in the Seattle area!

[NCTarheel07]

I used to live in SE Michigan, now living in Eastern North Carolina. I read the thread starters first few posts and they are right on. Milk is redicolusly high here in the southeast and east coast in general. $4.99 for store brand milk is crazy. Milk was always $2.79 a gallon at Meijers. Meijers is IMO the best grocery chain in america. They only operate in MI,IN,IL,OH, and KY though. If they came southward to TN or NC, the people would start to realize how much better they are from walmart. I loved not having so many walmart stores across SE Michigan. Most walmarts in Metro Detroit did not sell groceries and were not supercenters. Meijer and Kroger dominate over walmart in a good portion of the mid-west. I miss 4am trips to meijer. I cant find any stores in my area open 24 hours a day.

I do enjoy visiting my relatives, when I go to east tennesse, so Im familar with the area. I love the scenery, and the mountains are a good change of pace from the flat cornfields of the midwest. If I wasent living in NC, East Tennessee would probably be my 2nd choice. You just got to take the bad with the good with living in the south.

[MrsMtnsOnTheMind]

Originally Posted by dakota7

I did know about the super high sales tax in Tennessee before I moved here. And I lived most of my life in Georgia, where the sales tax was 3% for most of my life. Now the sales tax in Ga. is 7 or 8%, plus they have an income tax of 6%. We did have it made in Washington when it comes to taxes: Washington has no income tax, and we did all of our shopping in Oregon which has ZERO sales tax. Like many states, Washington exempts groceries from their sales tax. Whenever I happen to be in Georgia or North Carolina, I make a point of buying whatever I need to avoid paying Tennessee sales tax, especially the tax on groceries - in Ga. they tax groceries at only 2% in most counties. One of my primary reasons for moving to Tennessee was to get back to southern country cooking and good BBQ. You cannot find good BBQ or country cooking in the Pacific Northwest. I had a hard time finding anything to eat there with any flavor at all.

You can always join a food co-op, that way you don't pay any sales tax.

[marmac]

NCTarheel07 says ---I USED to live in SE Michigan.--$4.99 for store brand milk is crazy. Milk was always $2.79 a gallon at Meijers.

That is an unfair comparrison as dairy products ere sensitive to price swings and adjust quickly when the price goes up.
In order to be fair you should have posted the price of milk --TODAY--at Meijers in SE Michigan.

Yesterday, in the #1 dairy county in Minnesota, I purchased a half gallon of 2% milk and paid $2.49 . That is in line with what you are now paying in Eastern NC.
I would guess the price of milk today at Meijers in SE Michigan would be very close to what you are paying today in Eastern NC.

[AlisonL]

I paid $4.59 for a gallon of milk last night. Who knows what the price will be next week. I don't complain too much as I consider it a necessity. When we move, I expect to pay more for some things and less for others. It all evens out in the long run.
Move to Maine and you'll soon stop complaining about high prices in TN.

[SmokyMtnGal]

There is a chain of "farm stores" in the Knoxville area which are really convenience stores that started many years ago by selling their dairy and farm (eggs, etc.) products. These stores remain today and have added selling gas, lottery tickets, etc. to their offerings. These stores remain true to their routes and sell their dairy products at a very reasonable cost. Their current regular gallon of milk price is $3.50 and their gas is always a penny cheaper than the other gas stations closeby.

Good deals on dairy do exist. Sometimes you have to seek them out or work a bit but Tennessee has tons and tons of places to shop that are reasonable.

My cousin has little ones that really go through the milk and she mixes store bought milk with powdered milk and her kids don't know the difference (kind of a half powdered milk half regular milk). The pediatrician says that they are doing great. Just a thought there as well.

I could go on and on about bargain shopping as it is a passion of mine...I'll shut up now

[mbmouse]

Originally Posted by SmokyMtnGal

There is a chain of "farm stores" in the Knoxville area which are really convenience stores that started many years ago by selling their dairy and farm (eggs, etc.) products. These stores remain today and have added selling gas, lottery tickets, etc. to their offerings. These stores remain true to their routes and sell their dairy products at a very reasonable cost. Their current regular gallon of milk price is $3.50 and their gas is always a penny cheaper than the other gas stations closeby.

Good deals on dairy do exist. Sometimes you have to seek them out or work a bit but Tennessee has tons and tons of places to shop that are reasonable.

My cousin has little ones that really go through the milk and she mixes store bought milk with powdered milk and her kids don't know the difference (kind of a half powdered milk half regular milk). The pediatrician says that they are doing great. Just a thought there as well.

I could go on and on about bargain shopping as it is a passion of mine...I'll shut up now

Whites in North East TN sells their brand name milk (Whites) for $3.46 a gallon and it tastes (according to hubby and boys who drink it) just like Mayfields that is now selling for over $5.00 a gallon.
I too am a bargain shopper SmokymtnGal, so don't feel alone hehehehe
I also try to grocery shop once a week and do it all at once verses by a few things here and there every day or so. This does save money. I have a circle route I always take. I hit three stores in two days, buying meat in one place one day while I am in that area, dry staples in another and dairy in another. Saves gas and time which saves money. I am also very lucky to be 6 miles away from a VA grocery store where my office is. So that one day I buy meat, I buy it in VA. And seeing as I am feeding teenage boys, that saves me a lot!