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Cost of living was definitely a factor when my husband and I left NJ for Vermont 10 years ago.
We were making decent money, but still felt it was hard to get ahead because of the high property taxes, car insurance, etc.
It wasn't the only factor. We also had just started our family and want to raise our children in a more rural area with low crime rates and consistently good schools (the school near our NJ home was good, but quality varied greatly from town to town in Essex County). Plus, we're both really laid back and wanted to get away from the frantic hyper-competitive rat race that Northern NJ had become.
One thing people should be aware of if leaving NJ for cost of living reasons is that salaries in many other parts of the U.S. are lower. We still come out ahead financially when we add up all of our expenses, but a decade after moving here our household income is less then when we left N.J.
Meanwhile, expenses in NJ, especially housing, seem to have skyrocketed. I couldn't afford to move back if I wanted to. The cash I'd get from selling my new home on two acres here wouldn't be enough to buy a condo in my hometown.
It doesn't matter if you don't know anyone personally - that would be a rather small sample. Go down to metro Atlanta and see all those yellow NJ plates in the suburbs (I highly doubt they are tourists). There is plenty of outflow, especially young people. The demographics in NJ have definitely shifted toward middle aged to elderly and immigrants. Small children don't count as they will leave too when older if they have the opportunity.
I see the same syndrome in St. Louis, Missouri. We are awash of NJ plates here. Many Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and Maryland plates as well, but NJ seemingly the most.
My husband and I are looking forward to leaving NJ in the next 3-5 years. At that point we will be semi-retired. We honestly can't get out of here soon enough. We are looking to go out west and looking at Northern California, Oregon or Washington state. Between the weather, taxes, corruption, traffic, milions of people everywhere, competitiveness, and having our lives micromanaged to death by rules and regulations at every level, we are done.
All of those are damn fine choices, particularly Oregon, if you retire, because there's no sales tax. Also, since you are New Jerseyans, in Oregon, you'll even have your gas pumped for you!
I see the same syndrome in St. Louis, Missouri. We are awash of NJ plates here. Many Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and Maryland plates as well, but NJ seemingly the most.
Doesn't anyone who moves to Missouri get new licenses and license plates?
Missouri is the last place I'd ever live, and I formed that opinion solely because of what I've seen of Missouri posters on City-Data.com.
Doesn't anyone who moves to Missouri get new licenses and license plates?
Missouri is the last place I'd ever live, and I formed that opinion solely because of what I've seen of Missouri posters on City-Data.com.
Sad, and probably unfair, but true.
Really Mightyqueen, that's somewhat surprising, because in the St. Louis forum, I think we have some really fine regular posters. Many have helped me along to get better acclimated to the city.
As far as the license plate issue goes, I think it's one year, it's rather lax here. Also, Missouri is a rather large state, at 70,000 square miles, you could fit almost 10 New Jersey's into this place. Little bit of Ozarks, KC is probably the easternmost "Western" city, while St. L is the westernmost "Eastern" city. Lots of variety, but no ocean! But overall, any place you live in is what you make of it.
Really Mightyqueen, that's somewhat surprising, because in the St. Louis forum, I think we have some really fine regular posters. Many have helped me along to get better acclimated to the city.
As far as the license plate issue goes, I think it's one year, it's rather lax here. Also, Missouri is a rather large state, at 70,000 square miles, you could fit almost 10 New Jersey's into this place. Little bit of Ozarks, KC is probably the easternmost "Western" city, while St. L is the westernmost "Eastern" city. Lots of variety, but no ocean! But overall, any place you live in is what you make of it.
I know you can't judge an entire state by a few posters, and I know the worst one is not from St. Louis. As a matter of fact, that's a city I think I would enjoy visiting. It's just that the people who I've seen say the most astonishing things as far as ignorance goes seem to have all been from Missouri! (As an example: That black and white people should not intermarry because it's the same as mating dogs and cats. This one especially disturbed me, because now you're insulting members of my family.)
By the way, that and the other types of things to which I took exception were in general-subject forums, not on the Missouri forum or its sub-forums themselves. I have not been there, I don't think.
I do judge by the posters of on this site , so there for I would not live in : The South , Kansas , The Dakotas , Arizona , Nevada , Texas ,and Michigan. I also look at Ivy league university's in a different light because of some of the posters on this site and the Internet in general...
I know you can't judge an entire state by a few posters, and I know the worst one is not from St. Louis. As a matter of fact, that's a city I think I would enjoy visiting. It's just that the people who I've seen say the most astonishing things as far as ignorance goes seem to have all been from Missouri! (As an example: That black and white people should not intermarry because it's the same as mating dogs and cats. This one especially disturbed me, because now you're insulting members of my family.)
By the way, that and the other types of things to which I took exception were in general-subject forums, not on the Missouri forum or its sub-forums themselves. I have not been there, I don't think.
Oh my.....
That's unfortunate. I will say this, if it makes you feel any better, that when I went to grade school back in the mid to late 70s, I heard a lot of similar language, in Essex County NJ!!!! Lots of 2nd generation Italian American families, language you heard similar from their kids, after the riots in Newark in 67 there was an exodus of people to the burbs. I think this was a big part of the mentality.
What I am trying to say is there is a racist @-hole and a bigot on every street corner in this country. It doesn't matter if it's Missouri, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Luckenbach Texas, or for that matter, the Suez Canal, Panama, or Haiti.
My SILs live in NJ and my husband grew up there. One of his sisters is a teacher in NJ. She said many teachers at her school retired last year and they all sold their homes and moved to FL.
I think many folks who move here are in for a rude awakening. I'm in the metro Orlando area now. Here are some stats: we had 40+ new students enroll at out local high school in January (things are very transient here). HALF of them are homeless. Our school district has 41,000 students and half are on free/reduced lunch.
In our first neighborhood in Florida (summer 2010), there were two daytime home invasions by a gang member from Orlando. He just kicked in two random doors at 1PM. 4 doors down and that would have been me sitting there with my kids. Would we be alive right now? Who knows.
We moved from there (due to a crazy neighbor shooting guns 200 feet from our home) and are now renting. Last Saturday at 1:30AM, two males wearing hoodies were in our driveway trying to get into my SUV. They stole a GPS from the guy two doors down. Our neighbor came home and scared them and an officer rang our doorbell at 1:30AM to tell us about it. So I was considering moving back to the area of FL where I grew up, which is ranked 7th best in FL based on student test scores. Well, in a neighborhood that I liked over that way, (1) someone just had their car window smashed and posted on this forum about it and (2) I checked the HOA docs and the neighbhorhood has had a rash of crimes where you walk out to you driveway in the AM and find your car up on 4 cememt blocks and all 4 wheels and tires gone. What the heck???
A college friend of mine had a neighbor who was robbed at gunpoint last weekend in his driveway by a 14 year old!
The South is feral and it's getting worse by the day. There is no way to sugar coat this. Kids in the classrooms are wild and out of control. Parents complain that we are "teaching too much math!". Our county is nothing but meth labs and povery stricken young families. (service industry jobs)
The quality of life in the NJ 'burbs can't be beat. We might even end up moving up that way. I had a teacher friend who moved from FL to NJ and she loves it.
FL is not the paradise everyone thinks it is. It is downright dangerous these days because people are running out of UE benefits and there are no jobs for the youth (50% UE rate for youngsters in FL)
The high taxes in NJ are a concern for young families like ourselves. How can you pay $8,000 a year in taxes on a home that you buy for $200k? I would worry about losing my job and falling behind. Then again, maybe there are actual decent paying jobs in NJ. I keep hearing that people are leaving NJ, but where are they going? Texas? What a cesspool. Florida? Ditto.
If we were to return, we would be looking in the area of North NJ and NW NJ. I despise the rat race, but I also think the South in 20 years will be wasteland.
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