Looking at moving to Oregon, but wondering if we even can (Bend: crime, house)

[trixie09]

Originally Posted by Brenda-by-the-sea

Baloney. Remember what Mark Twain said about "lies, damn lies, and statistics"? There are lots of ways of calculating tax burden, but not all people engage in activities that invoke all possible taxes. If you don't smoke or drink, for example, you won't pay two of the taxes that are often reckoned into these calculations. Don't hunt, fish or play the stock market? That lowers your tax burden also.

Judged by the most common and practical of all ways of reckoning tax burden -- percentage of income on average -- Oregon ranks 35 out of 50. Only 15 states have a lower tax burden than Oregon...and Iowa isn't one of them.

TAX BURDEN BY STATE

Brenda, I find myself giving you lots of reputation points! I was thinking the same thing. Tax burdens are subjective. And I've found that unless you move to New Jersey or parts of Texas with double the property taxes of everyone else, it all seems to even out.

[TravelingSilvers]

Well we don't have a Safeway around us so I can't compare prices.

BUT I do have my receipt here for what we pay for the Basic stuff.

$3.28 - 2% Great Value Milk
$2.18 - Loaf Wonderbread White Bread
$3.12 - 28oz JIF PB
$2.54 - 5lbs Great Value Sugar
$2.98 - 45oz Country Crock Butter w/ Calcium
$2.46 - 18 Large Eggs
$2.38 - Nabisco Crackers (Box)
$7.48 - 3lb 73/27 Ground Beef
$8.48 - 3lb 80/20 Ground Beef

Anyone want to post what the prices of these basic items are in their area for me?

[Brenda-by-the-sea]

Originally Posted by TravelingSilvers

Well we don't have a Safeway around us so I can't compare prices.

BUT I do have my receipt here for what we pay for the Basic stuff.

$3.28 - 2% Great Value Milk
$2.18 - Loaf Wonderbread White Bread
$3.12 - 28oz JIF PB
$2.54 - 5lbs Great Value Sugar
$2.98 - 45oz Country Crock Butter w/ Calcium
$2.46 - 18 Large Eggs
$2.38 - Nabisco Crackers (Box)
$7.48 - 3lb 73/27 Ground Beef
$8.48 - 3lb 80/20 Ground Beef

Anyone want to post what the prices of these basic items are in their area for me?

Wow! Talk about the classic American Junk Food diet! That looks like a Midwest shopping list from the 1950's! I don't think you'd find many Oregonians who want to eat that kind of one-way ticket to Type II diabetes and heart disease. People on the West Coast typically care more about their health than that. I don't know much about what the going rates for junk food staples might be here. My own shopping list comparison for this week might not be meaningful for you, but here goes:

$2.79 - half-gallon Silk soy milk
$3.00 - two organic red bell peppers
$1.79 - pound of organic broccoli
$6.99 - pound of Kretschmar off-the-bone turkey
$0.89 - pound of whole-wheat rotini noodles
$2.50 - 3-pack of hearts of romaine
$1.29 - pound of organic carrots
$0.99 - pound of organic pinova apples
$2.50 - 8 oz. bottle of blue agave syrup
$2.19 - bottle of Annie's organic papaya-poppie seed salad dressing
$2.50 - six-pack of multi-grain bagels
$3.50 - half pound of provolone cheese
$6.99 - 750 ml. bottle of Airlie Mueller Thurgau wine

Eat food -- not too much -- mostly plants.

[karlsch]

Originally Posted by Brenda-by-the-sea

My own shopping list comparison for this week might not be meaningful for you, but here goes:

$2.79 - half-gallon Silk soy milk
$3.00 - two organic red bell peppers
$1.79 - pound of organic broccoli
$6.99 - pound of Kretschmar off-the-bone turkey
$0.89 - pound of whole-wheat rotini noodles
$2.50 - 3-pack of hearts of romaine
$1.29 - pound of organic carrots
$0.99 - pound of organic pinova apples
$2.50 - 8 oz. bottle of blue agave syrup
$2.19 - bottle of Annie's organic papaya-poppie seed salad dressing
$2.50 - six-pack of multi-grain bagels
$3.50 - half pound of provolone cheese
$6.99 - 750 ml. bottle of Airlie Mueller Thurgau wine

Eat food -- not too much -- mostly plants.

Actually, a very small percentage of West Coast people have a shopping list similar to yours.

Most don’t want to spend extra for, according to multiple credible scientific studies, the nonexistent benefits of organic foods.

The "scientists" who claim otherwise are as credible as the creation scientists the religious fundamentalists manage to find.

[TravelingSilvers]

So because we eat that type of food we don't care about our health? Interesting
Shopping list from the 1950's? Well we are in the midwest, lol, so that sounds about right.
We live very active lifestyles and not to brag, but I'm pretty built and cut. I haven't eaten ANY food
that's cooked in grease for over 7 years. For being 35, people mistaken me for in my early 20's all the time. So it can't be that bad.
Also that's not a weekly grocery list. I had Milk and bread on my receipt, the other stuff I walked around the store pricing.
And yeah I've heard a lot of about Organic and that it isn't all that's it's cracked up to be also.

[Metlakatla]

Maybe "organic" per se isn't, but...that white bread you're eating is made of wood pulp, among other things. White sugar and hamburger aren't all that healthy either.

[mamh]

Ok! lets stop the fussing about what we eat ect.
For stores we also have WinCo Foods which is very reasonable..Before we landed up here in Salem I was use to commissary prices down at Travis AFB and Winco comes close to them ..We also have lots wonderful year around veggie & fruit stands too..
I may get shot for saying this but after hearing a talk on Organic gardening at a Master Gardeners class it takes a lot to have pure organic and is it worth the price tag....Hmmm..
Our prices out here are easy to take and its like anywhere else it takes time to figure out your neighborhood stores.
So please come out and visit , we don't bite, we smile and enjoy new people..
Good luck

[TravelingSilvers]

Yeah I (wife has to stay home with the kids) actually plan on driving (dreading that, yet looking forward to it) up there the beginning of May to check out some places. We've never really been out of the Midwest, so we're very excited to see more of the US.
I love the sound of year round veggie/fruit stands. I love my fruits, not so much veggies, but still.
Wife and myself always wish we had a better selection of fruit and veggies during the winter/spring months.

[Silverfall]

Originally Posted by delta07

We bought a 4 bedroom house, granted it's a small 4 bedroom house, 2 years ago and our mortgage is less than $900 a month. We did have a good amount of money for a down payment though. Deals are out there right now, especially in Bend, where foreclosures and short sales are the name of the game.

Yes I am assuming that someone doesn't have 20% down.

[Brenda-by-the-sea]

Originally Posted by karlsch

Actually, a very small percentage of West Coast people have a shopping list similar to yours.

Most don’t want to spend extra for, according to multiple credible scientific studies, the nonexistent benefits of organic foods.

The "scientists" who claim otherwise are as credible as the creation scientists the religious fundamentalists manage to find.

\

Most of the people I know got off the disease-producing red-meat-and-carb diet in the 1990's. It isn't so much a matter of organic or non-organic as it is one of getting sufficient fiber and antioxidants, and avoiding calorie-dense processed foods, red meat, saturated fats, and refined carbohydrates that send your blood sugar into a spike-and-crash cycle that makes you hungry again 2 hours later.
There was also a time when the average American smoked a pack or two of cigarettes a day and had a martini on coming home from work.

Regardless of what percentage of Oregonians have harkened to the slow foods gospel, the realities of morbidity do not conform to popular practice or majority rule. Because of their bad diet and sedentary lifestyles, 47 million Americans -- a quarter of the population -- have metabolic syndrome. That percentage is quickly increasing. Research shows a clear epidemiological link between metabolic syndrome and diabetes, heart disease, peripheral arterial disease, GI cancers and cognitive decline. How are we going to pay for the complications of all that with our overburdened health-care system?

There are a lot of people who think that they're immune from the morbidity associated with processed foods because they look fit on the outside now (a coronary calcium scan might show otherwise). And yet, they'll be waddling into the clinic waiting room in their 60's with their bellies hanging over their belts hoping for some pharmaceutical magic to reverse the cumulative damage they did to their liver and pancreas in their younger years. But Arthur-Daniels-Midland and Monsanto will be pleased. They're raking in billions by promoting a pathological diet to the American public. Think about it...if you were a huge food conglomerate would you want people to eat smaller amounts of food that achieves long-term satiety with relatively few purchases, or would you want them to eat an appetite-stimulating diet so that they eat...and eat...and eat?