Moving to Stevensville, MT (sales tax, living, license plates)

[alison10]

Ha, thank you Montana Griz.....on the first post, I didn't want to overwhelm anyone with so much info. I truly appreciate your advise!

[GLS]

Originally Posted by alison10

Thanks for the input everyone, I do not take offense, these are the honest answers I was looking for, so thank you to all of you. Here is some feedback on some of your answers....

We were told there is a train that goes from ND to about 2 hours away from Stevensville so that might be what we do so that the trip is quicker and my husband doesn't have to drive in the bad weather. I won’t mind driving the 4 hours to pick him up every couple of weeks.

My husband is already in North Dakota and has been since Thursday and it looks like he already has a job. My husband is Indian, his tribe is from ND so he has tons of family there and that's who is staying with now. He did tell me that in Williston, there is nowhere to stay, all the motels are filled so we are very lucky his family is there to stay with.

As far as what flyingcat2k had to say, thank you for your comments but believe me, we aren’t blindly moving up there, despite never being there. We have spent hours discussing this amongst the two of us as well as talking to all of our family and getting everyone’s input. My husband has had many opportunities since being in North Dakota as lots of his cousins work on the rigs so we really aren’t concerned that he will find a job. We and are prepared for the times that he will be away and know that it will take some time getting used to but we are a strong family and know that we will survive just fine.

In response to what Montana Griz is saying about the difference in size of Ventura county vs the size of the entire state of Montana, there will be no culture shock. I was born and raised in a tiny town with less than 1,300 people. There is not one stop light in my town, I graduated with 12 people, most of whom I went to pre-school with. I grew up shooting guns. riding horses and dirt bikes, I learned to drive our dune buggy when I was 5. I love camping, hiking, fishing, all the outdoor stuff. I grew up with the cold weather, part of our PE at school was skiing at Mammoth Mountain or June Mountain. This was the very best way I could have ever imagined growing up and we are so excited that our son will get to grow up similar to my upbringing. My parents still live in my hometown so we love going home and walking to the market and seeing people that I’ve known my whole life. Small town living is much more our style. While we think the beach is absolutely beautiful and love the idea of living next to the beach, we love the mountains even more. On our family days, we head to the mountains for hiking and a picnic, that’s our ideal day, just being out in nature.

I completely understand the local opinion on Californians based on the examples given by Timberwolf232. I know you aren’t implying we are that way but just to clarify something about us.... When we got married, we said that we are giving ourselves 5 years to by a home, if we don’t do it, we will move to Montana….we did it in 3 years. Neither one of us come from money, so we had to scrimp and save all we could in order to buy our home and all that comes with it (closing costs, escrow, fumigation, furnishing the house, repairs, etc). We got no help at all from anyone which is really how we prefered it but we did it based on our determination. Our home was a forclosure, we bought it for $400,000- but when it was sold a year and a half prior to that, it sold for almost $700,000- so should we ever decide to sell, it will financially help us and our kids. We are not going to sell our home when we move, we want to keep it, either to sell later when we could make a profit on it, keep it to use as a second home or keep if for our kids for when they get older. Any way we go with it, we will have a plan.

We are very anxious to get up there and enjoy the slower life, I look forward to finding some volunteer opportunities as I do volunteer work here with the elderly. Not to worry people of Montana, we aren’t headed your way to mooch or bring any negative energy!!!

You have fulfilled four requirements for potential success:

1. He already HAS a job in ND.
2. Family for support network for you and son in Stevensville.
3. Family for support network for husband in ND.
4. A "Montana attitude" for accepting constructive warnings and
suggestions.

It still will not be easy, but surviving today's economy and Winter in Montana never are. Good luck.

PS: If your husband has the fortitude to work on an oil rig, he is not likely to be the type who drives his Prius to work, and tries to pass out Tofu sandwiches.

[alison10]

GTS....I am cracking up at the thought of my 6'2, 290lb hubby driving a Prius or attempting to eat anything Tofu....I'm going to tell him that, he'll think it's funny. He's actually really excited to be a "rough neck", he likes physical work and he's like a mule so he can definitely handle the labor intensive work. He's already getting used to the weather, he's not freezing even with the blizzard they had the other day so that's a good start. Thanks for your optimisim for us!

[ElkHunter]

Originally Posted by alison10

GTS....I am cracking up at the thought of my 6'2, 290lb hubby driving a Prius or attempting to eat anything Tofu....I'm going to tell him that, he'll think it's funny. He's actually really excited to be a "rough neck", he likes physical work and he's like a mule so he can definitely handle the labor intensive work. He's already getting used to the weather, he's not freezing even with the blizzard they had the other day so that's a good start. Thanks for your optimisim for us!

You might caution him that the Blizzard that Williston got on Thursday and Friday was a typical "Spring" blizzard. It was a blizzard, but it was in the mid 20's for temp. Earlier in the year they got blizzards that were -5 to -15 degrees and with windchill the temp felt like -45 to -50.

It's a good time of year to get used to their weather though. If he's still on the rigs next winter, he'll be ready for it. It take special clothes and a good attitude.

[alison10]

Timewise for him to get laid off, it was perfect. We think it's a great time to get up there, merge into spring and then gradually get used to the winter months. He's definitely got the good attitude and we bought him some extra warm clothing made especially for the extreme weather. I check weather.com everyday and have seen the negative temps....good thing my hubby is super hot blooded and has some insulation :-)

[flyingcat2k]

Now that things are flushed out (sometimes the "photo" is a little fuzzy on-line), it looks like you do have things in order. Soapbox speach withdrawn.

Good luck with the new job.

[NW Crow]

FWIW, Amtrak base ticket from Whitefish to Williston is $78 + tax each way + $30-50 for gas for each of 2 300 mile round-trips to and from Whitefish for the drop-off and pick-up would make total one round-trip cost = around $240-280 total cash outlay (+ wear & tear on the car). There "might" be discounts available sometimes, but not right now.

Time outlay: 3 hours in car to station +1/2 hour at station + 11 hours on train= 14 1/2 hour trip at minimum each way for the commuter. 6 hours total for the drop off / pick up person. At least 41 total hours travel per roundtrip this way. That is usually worth a lot in pay or relaxation.


Considering all that, one might also look at airlines. It is a slot machine loking for the best deal and maybe you could find better, but my first check came up with a cost of $720 roundtrip and there would be about a minimum 20 hour total travel time commitment per roundtrip for commuter and drop off person (the site I checked had no non-stop flights).

[nature's cathedral]

Why not Rapid City? Much Closer, many great things around it! Lovely mountains, horse pastures, rocks, etc!!! Stevi nice but marginally so to Rapid City. Much better job opportunities. Better Taxes. Cheaper cost of living. Skiing, hunting, etc.....

[oldtrader]

Another advantage of Rapid City. No State Income Tax in South Dakota.

[rangerider]

You sound like great folks to have for residents here, but I, too, would at least consider Rapid City. I've spent some time in that area, went to college down in Chadron, NE. Rapid has a lot of things going for it; since it is the only town of it's size for quite aways, it is highly diversified and economically much more stable than the Stevi-Missoula area. Having Ellsworth AFB there helps a lot, too.

If you enjoy the outdoors, the Black Hills are a great place to recreate. Granted, there's not the high country we have here, but still a decent amount of area to hike and climb. It's an I-90 crossroads, lots of tourist traffic, decent shopping if that appeals to you, and the cost of living isn't too bad, tho I'll readily admit it's been awhile since I've been around that country. And, it has some bedroom communities that would afford reasonable living expenditures. There are a number of threads on the Rapid City area on City-Data's South Dakota site.

But..no state income tax but high sales taxes in Rapid, close to 6%. 2% of that is city so if you bought your stuff elsewhere..

And no train service; it's about 8 hours to Fargo, don't know where your hubby is working but it's a long drive through desolate country, esp. in winter.

And the Californian thing; many times, we Montanans forget that we are #4 in size, CA is #3. Montana as well as California is quite diversified by area, and unfortunately we have seen many more urban dwellers come here to try and make our state conform to what they felt was "in our best interests." We forget that a fair chunk of CA is people much like us, esp. in the northern half. Logging, agriculture, fishing, tourist trade, shopowners, etc. So if someone raises an eyebrow at your origins, don't worry too much; could be they haven't been out of their backyard enough to know that CA, like MT, isn't all the same herd.

That being said, I'd still swap license plates the minute you got the sheets on the bed.