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My wife and I visited your state. We fell in love with it. I was wondering how the cost of living compares to where we live now.
We reside in Pittsburgh, PA. We are used to the change of season and we get a good amount of snow, but not as much as Vermont.
As homeowners, our current house is assessed at 111,000. We pay 3,100 dollars a year in property taxes. The funny thing is our county (Allegheny) is ranked in the top 10 for property taxes in the country. We are a region with a lot of old people and the county reassess every 8-10 years. They never assess at what you pay or sold the house for. On average most homeowners are assessed at 70 percent of what the house is truly worth. It is stupid and doesn't make sense, but that is how it is. The house could sale anywhere from 175-200k.
The wage tax for our city is 3% on top of state and federal. We also pay a 52 dollar a year tax for emergency services. My gross pay is around $1,800.00 every two weeks and nearly $500.00 in taxes are taken out and about 200 dollars more for my benefits.
My wife and I combined make around 80k a year currently.
Are taxes much more or less in vermont? Is it overly difficult to find a job paying 50k a year? How much could I expect to pay for a decent house? With our credit and decent paying jobs we could probably get approved for over 300,000.
There are so many Vermont threads with answers to these questions that you could probably find all of your answers on them. I'll just say that if you don't have a firm job offer in Vermont all of your questions are irrelevant. The cost of living is high here for a rural state, but we moved from the Chicago area in 2011, and all of our costs have decreased except for utilities. We're retired and pay essentially no income tax and get a large property tax adjustment that makes our property tax much lower than in Illinois.
If you and your wife could find jobs here earning $80K you would be above average for the state and could buy a very nice house for $300K. Before you even attempt to do that, I suggest that you figure out whether you would like rural living. The largest "city" in Vermont has a population of only 42,000, which is smaller than Altoona, PA. Would you move to Altoona? I'm basically a hermit and love it here.
My wife and I visited your state. We fell in love with it. I was wondering how the cost of living compares to where we live now.
We reside in Pittsburgh, PA. We are used to the change of season and we get a good amount of snow, but not as much as Vermont.
As homeowners, our current house is assessed at 111,000. We pay 3,100 dollars a year in property taxes. The funny thing is our county (Allegheny) is ranked in the top 10 for property taxes in the country. We are a region with a lot of old people and the county reassess every 8-10 years. They never assess at what you pay or sold the house for. On average most homeowners are assessed at 70 percent of what the house is truly worth. It is stupid and doesn't make sense, but that is how it is. The house could sale anywhere from 175-200k.
The wage tax for our city is 3% on top of state and federal. We also pay a 52 dollar a year tax for emergency services. My gross pay is around $1,800.00 every two weeks and nearly $500.00 in taxes are taken out and about 200 dollars more for my benefits.
My wife and I combined make around 80k a year currently.
Are taxes much more or less in vermont? Is it overly difficult to find a job paying 50k a year? How much could I expect to pay for a decent house? With our credit and decent paying jobs we could probably get approved for over 300,000.
Any insight would be appreciated...
We visited Vermont last year. When we got there I told my husband I was disappointed that we had traveled a thousand miles and what we were seeing looked a lot like where I grew up in the North Carolina mountains.
I'm more familiar with Vermont than most Pittsburghers. I've spent the last three winters in Vermont. My son has lived there for three years. Vermont's cost of living is extremely high compared to Pittsburgh's.
It's a very rural state. There's a lot of rural poverty. The state is 98% white. Imagine a whole state like central PA. Even Butler County is more densely populated. Vermont's entire population is 624,000. Butler County's population is almost 400,000. Jobs are few and far between. Many Vermonters were multiple part time minimum wage jobs to make ends meet. Take the previous poster's advice and only move there if you can secure employment in your respective fields with higher salaries than you are currently earning. 80k will need to be over 100k to have a comparable standard of living.
I've posted tax comparisons between Pittsburgh and Vermont previously in this forum. You might want to search for one of my older posts about it. I did a comprehensive comparison that included state and local income tax, property tax, sales tax, etc. The tax structure is completely different in Vermont. Vermonters complain that property taxes are high, but they really aren't higher than Allegheny County's.
However, Vermonters pay significantly more in state and local income tax. Somehow they base property tax on income---meaning you're not going to qualify for the property tax adjustment pauldorell gets. For example, your income puts you in the 7.8% tax bracket for Vermont state taxes. Pennsylvania's state tax is a flat rate of 3.07. Vermont local income taxes would depend on where you live. They don't have the same type of services we're used to in Pittsburgh. Some areas don't have trash collection. You have to take your trash to the dump yourself.
If you're trying to go to Vermont to save money, Vermont isn't for you. If you're wanting to move to Vermont for a slow paced, rural lifestyle, you might enjoy Vermont.
The proprety rates around here are round 2-2.5% of the assessed value which could be higher or lower than selling price. Figure around 4000 on a 200k house.
There are NO local income taxes in Vermont, but one progress rate for the whole state.
Married Rates:
0% on the first $8,000
then 3.55% on income between 8,000 to 67,400
then 6.5% on income between 67,400 to 154,700
There are 1% additional local sales taxes for items purchased, but they don't apply to clothes or unprepared groceries.
Thank you! What are drawbacks to living in vermont? In your opinion? To me it seems expensive, but you are paying for a better quality of living. I notice a huge difference with the air quality and fresh food/produce quality in vermont compared to here.
Thank you! What are drawbacks to living in vermont? In your opinion? To me it seems expensive, but you are paying for a better quality of living. I notice a huge difference with the air quality and fresh food/produce quality in vermont compared to here.
A lot of people on these threads complain about taxes, but I don't think in the aggregate they're much different from most other places. I paid higher sales, property and income taxes in Illinois. Another complaint, which is valid, is that there aren't enough well-paid jobs. That is mostly because it's a rural state that, as a matter of public policy, has favored tourism and farming over industrialization for several decades.
Good local food is widely available here, but it's not particularly better than what you could buy at Whole Foods anywhere. Actually, a lot of the local food isn't organic, and the local apples from most orchards are on the scrawny side. We have a good food co-op in Middlebury which is almost on par with Whole Foods. Farmer's markets are fairly common, but quite expensive for the most part. Surprisingly, there are many very good restaurants around.
Heating is expensive in most of the state unless you have a $500,000+ house with 3-foot-thick insulated walls. You can easily spend $2000 per year on heating alone. You will also notice that most businesses turn their heat down to save money.
I'm sure others will bring up drugs, which, a bit incongruously, are present. Heroin is becoming a problem. I live on a rural road and have found used syringes lying along it. However, I think this may be a problem in many states at the moment. On a daily basis it has no effect on most people.
A different weakness here, particularly if you don't live in one of the largest towns, is the lack of competition in many services. If you want something done to your house, you're on your own. We lucked out and found some pretty decent roofers who did a good job very quickly at a reasonable price. However, when we replaced a leaky, rotting bay window, it was a different story. A couple of people we contacted didn't call back, and we actually went ahead without a detailed estimate. The guys who did the work, like many here, primarily did other things, like landscaping, most of the time. Roughly speaking, they were competent at what they did. What I notice all the time in these situations is that the people are relaxed and pleasant to deal with, but if this were a city, due to competition and specialization, I could easily find someone who would be more competent, work twice as fast and charge half as much. There is a trade-off in rural living.
Another more general sociological aspect of life here is that the state is made up of two broadly different groups of people. The natives are often modest rural New Englanders who live within their means and, except for a special Vermont independent spirit that dates back to Ethan Allen (who refused to let New Yorkers push him around), tend to be somewhat conservative. The other half consists largely of relatively wealthy liberals from the large urban centers on the coast. Howard Dean is a wealthy New Yorker. Bernie Sanders grew up in Brooklyn. An awful lot of the people living in the Champlain Valley were once upper-middle-class suburbanites living in New Jersey or New York. For the most part these two groups get along, but there are some real differences.
Some of the Vermont threads indicate that younger people may find it boring here. If you like constant stimulation from other people, you may conclude that there aren't enough people. And if you don't like the outdoors, no one here will be able to relate to you.
Surprisingly, there are many very good restaurants around.
The restaurants are amazing, even in the less populated areas.
It's difficult to accomplish the most simple tasks. Many businesses close early. It's mindboggling to figure out when workers get haircuts.
If your washing machine breaks, you'll drive many miles to a laundromat. They close too. There's someone working the laundromats too, which is bizarre for people who live in cities with unmanned self-serve laundromats that are open 24/7.
You'll need to buy specialty items via the internet, or you need to leave the state for stores with the best selection. I'm talking TVs, computers, and probably washing machines too.
You'll be a flatlander even though Pittsburgh isn't flat. It will take a long time before locals accept you, but there are plenty of transplant flatlanders for you to create a social life.
There's a ton of snow. The entire state does a good job of plowing the roads. As a Pittsburgher, you'll have no problem driving. Their mountain roads aren't as steep as Pittsburgh's hills. But you will find yourself cleaning a foot of snow off your car multiple times per day. The same applies to shoveling your sidewalks and driveways.
It really is a battle against the elements, but you win by being a do it yourselfer who doesn't need the help of others. You have to be easily adaptable to change and self reliant. Your wardrobe will be practical clothing and shoes instead of fashion statements. It's necessary and your very survival could depend on it without warning. You will wear long underwear indoors and many layers of clothing so you can keep the heating bill down. When the snow is gone, spring is mud season. That's exactly what it sounds like. Everything is muddy. Everywhere.
"It takes eternity to accomplish anything" should be the state motto. But it's beautiful and breathtaking.
Hi zman63. I moved my family to Brandon, VT in 1998, and have never regretted it. Every day for the first 5 years or so, I would marvel and enjoy the house, town, state, culture and the feeling that they "let you be." It was as if we stepped back in time. With most of the family gone, we are looking to buy a smaller place in Vermont. We'll never live in a large metro area again, especially with the uncertainty in the world. Re: property taxes, the total bill is about $6900, but we actually pay out of pocket about $2600 because of the recurring education tax credit every year.
Last edited by vter; 10-20-2013 at 12:38 PM..
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