Moving from Northern CA to Southern ID (best, research)

[mustangjoey]

Originally Posted by volosong

I may be wrong, but in my experience, I couldn't register my cars/scooters in Idaho unless I had an Idaho address. The OP mentions that they will be living in their 5th-wheel until they find a place, so they won't have a permanent address.

You may be able to use the address at the mobile home park as your permanent address (not 100% sure on that), and then do a change of address later.

If you still owe on your motor home/5th wheel, you'll have to write a letter or contact the lienholder, who will then send something to the ADA county DMV to basically give them permission to change the registration and to register it in Idaho. Once they do that, the ADA county DMV will contact you and have you drive it down. It has to be present for them to verify the VIN.

[Mdfenton]

Originally Posted by mustangjoey

You may be able to use the address at the mobile home park as your permanent address (not 100% sure on that), and then do a change of address later.

If you still owe on your motor home/5th wheel, you'll have to write a letter or contact the lienholder, who will then send something to the ADA county DMV to basically give them permission to change the registration and to register it in Idaho. Once they do that, the ADA county DMV will contact you and have you drive it down. It has to be present for them to verify the VIN.

Thank you for this! We do appreciate all the Kim's help we have received on this forum. This is great information!

[Mdfenton]

Originally Posted by mustangjoey

Hopefully this doesn't come off as odd, but I've seen so many people ask for this stuff that I thought I'd post up my personal data in the hopes that it might help others.

I did some calculations on the difference in some of my bills from when I was in Southern California, but, as you would expect, there are some variances that will need to be explained.

Here are the raw numbers for us, but they will obviously be different for others.

Bill...............OC, CA....Eagle, ID....New Bill Percentage of Old
Mortgage......$2,750....$1,500.......55
Auto Ins.......$316.......$140..........44
Utilities.........$301......$269..........89
Gym.............$30........$10...........33
C/P/I............$360......$180..........50
RV Storage...$140.......$54...........38

Diesel is currently at the prices below:
Garden Grove, CA - $3.15 (CA recently passed two big gas tax bills that will raise gas prices a dollar a gallon or more in the future, research those)
Eagle, ID - $2.85
Difference - 10% cheaper

Other stuff seems pretty similar:
- Food seems about the same, or close enough for government work
- Dry cleaning seems close

Total for those bills (not including gas):
CA - $3,907
ID - $2,153
Savings - $1,754
Savings Percentage - 45%

We don't have car payments, and cc debt is very low.

Bills would be a MUCH larger savings if we were comparing homes of similar size, but we went from small to large and they are still much less.

I was lucky enough to work remotely, but got screwed by my work and lost my management position even though they said I could move and keep it. I ended up going (for now, at least) from a senior IT manager position to an engineer position, and lost a bunch of salary in the process. But, in comparing average salaries in Orange County to Idaho, it seems like the average senior IT manager position is about 20-25% lower in pay.

Here is where the data needs to be clarified a bit.

1. Mortgage - Our old house was a 60's Garden Grove house in a decent area with good schools. It was 1,633 sq. ft. and very average. Yard was small, lot size was about 6,000, and we did not have air conditioning. Our new house is 3,000 sq. ft. and beautiful, has air conditioning and is on a 10,000+ sq. ft. lot. Our old house sold for $689,000, our new house sold for $395,000. We put down $150k.

2. Auto insurance is much lower. Our rates went up in CA not long before we moved from about $280 to $316 due to an accident my wife had and me swiping a telephone pole and damaging our RV. Oops.

3. Utilities include water, trash, electricity, garbage and sewer. We didn't have a separate sewer bill in CA, and our rates were lower than they would be for a few reasons:
- We didn't have air conditioning, which would have probably raised our bill another few hundred per month easily.
- We recently went to solar because it made financial sense. We did a lease, and didn't have any out of pocket, and had a payment of $126 locked in for 20 years as long as we made more electricity than we used. Our old bill a few years ago would see $150-ish in the summer, but again, without air conditioning.

4. Cable/Phone/Internet - We probably pay too much for satellite TV, but like to watch things on a few different channels. We also have an RV, and like to be able to hook up our dish when we're camping. We rent a few movies here and there, so that will tend to add a bit to the monthly bill. In CA, we paid separately for all three, here they are all bundled into one CenturyLink bill.

Right now we're in the red, but because the wife is going to school to become a nurse and change careers. That and my pay cut have cost us a lot, but we moved here with a lot in savings to anticipate such things. When she is a nurse, I've calculated that we'll probably be only at about 58% of our salary in CA but have more money left over each month with a much nicer house, living near people that we love, and in a state that we are absolutely in love with.

Overall, for me I'd calculate that my salary would have dropped about 25% but expenses dropped by about 45%.

I'm so glad we made the move. We LOVE it here and moved for a lot of reasons not including salary and expenses.

Thank you for all this information. We are very excited to make this move and become part of Idaho for the state that it is. All these numbers are such a big help with the comparison. Thank you for taking the time to write all this out to help us and others who will read this thread!

[mustangjoey]

Originally Posted by Mdfenton

Thank you for all this information. We are very excited to make this move and become part of Idaho for the state that it is. All these numbers are such a big help with the comparison. Thank you for taking the time to write all this out to help us and others who will read this thread!

I got some flack for it, but you're welcome.

[IdahoBroker]

Thanks for those that posed detailed data like MustangJoey did. That was a great summary with great insight!

Unfortunately, one thing that is very different here is there is almost no cooperation between rental agencies since none of them pay leasing fees to other management companies or Realtors. That often forces a person moving here to apply to multiple companies just in case a vacancy opens that they like. Be very cautious about renting off of websites like Craigslist because many times the people posting the ad don't even own the house, they just want to collect applications so they can get peoples mailing address, birthday, social security numbers, etc. They can make more money using those the wrong way than collecting rent!

Good Realtors will be glad to help you find a rental (even if they don't get paid) since they know it offering good enough service that you will remember them when it is time to buy a home. It also is a benefit if they work with investors since they will have first hand contacts of landlords in the area and know which property managers are better to work with.

Many of my clients come to visit for a week on a general house hunting trip to get a feel for the area and try to figure out where to rent and end up buying a home on their initial trip instead. Online data, good photos, Google Maps, etc., makes it much easier to find data before you arrive to help make the process go much smoother once you get here!

Hope this helps!
Jim

[Lila40]

Originally Posted by Mdfenton

Hello, my husband, myself and our two daughters are making our move next year to Southwest ID. We have been planning our exit for some time and we are down to next year getting out of this state. We can no longer take it. From everything we have read we absolutely love ID. Looking into Canyon county, and Ada county. Sticking to rural areas as much as we can. I homeschool both our daughters and I like the ID homeschool laws, but a little different for me not having to "report" anything to the state. We will be coming saving up for at least 6 months living cost. Making the move up in our 5th wheel, and staying in it at parks, until we can find jobs (hopefully soon). Does anyone have any advice on making the move? Maybe best ways to go about getting a house/apartment to rent? Getting our residency in ID? I have heard some horror stories about Californians' moving to Idaho and the way they were treated. We do NOT want to bring any CA with us. We want to fully embrace the Idaho ways!

We are in Northern CA and thinking of moving to Boise area as well. We are so tired of the housing prices
Around here and really want a house with land. Are you still looking at making the move? We are planning a
Visit there sometime in early spring to check out the area.

[CAHntr]

Kudos to Novatoman, MustangJoey and IdahoBroker for good and useful info. As usual.

[mod cut]

[LadyKatie3]

One thing not mentioned here is how amazingly cheap food is if you shop at Winco. I swear I don't work for them! (-: all the mega families of Idaho shop there..

[mustangjoey]

Originally Posted by LadyKatie3

One thing not mentioned here is how amazingly cheap food is if you shop at Winco. I swear I don't work for them! (-: all the mega families of Idaho shop there..

One of the governor candidates just said on a commercial that one of his economic plans is to remove the sales tax on groceries (which 14 other states also do), so if could get a little bit cheaper if he wins.

Interesting info.

[Syringaloid]

Originally Posted by mustangjoey

One of the governor candidates just said on a commercial that one of his economic plans is to remove the sales tax on groceries (which 14 other states also do), so if could get a little bit cheaper if he wins.

Interesting info.

If that candidate is the one I think it is...no way. He isn't the best option for our new Gov.