One Month In.... (Orlando, Bell: to buy, school, college)

[Bellamouse]

Originally Posted by StreetSmarts

I never include tax rates as a reason to live in a place.

I know retirees do it a lot, but I think younger and middle aged families think more about quality of life and the people over the tax rates.

This is a silly notion. We are solidly middle class and taxes is a HUGE reason for moving. Taking huge amounts of our spending cash totally affects our "quality of life". Working like a dog only to have over half of it seized (and misspent to boot), means we do not enjoy our life. We just work and work and work and every year have/do less and less and less. You are sorely mistaken if you think that only seniors care about taxes.

When it costs $500/year to register your cars, $8-12K/ year in property taxes, 5% state income tax, enormous gasoline taxes that amount to well over $1.00/gallon, and 10.25% sales tax, you'd be a complete idiot NOT to consider all that. Imagine paying $1000 per month JUST for your property tax??? Insanity! And there are many more taxes where we came from - those were just the big ones. They also tax all the utilities (gas, elec etc), cell phones, cable and now they are taxing streaming services (Hulu, etc). There is only so much money left to be taxed on. Not to mention tolls on many of the major highways including Interstates. Then there's red light camera fees, insane parking fees ($8.00/hour at a metered street spot, $36/day to park in a garage) and the list goes on and on and on and on and ON.

[Spring Hillian]

Originally Posted by StreetSmarts

Noooo. I dont drive anything close to a Ferrari. I have a Silverado Altitude Edition. Nice truck but def not anything close to a Ferrari. My Ferrari comment was to the person who think FL is a tropical paradise filled with boobs and yachts.

And I'm not saying whether or not I make great money or not, my point is I will not let taxes affect where I would choose to live. Werent you in real estate sales? I'm sure you were making more than I.

I didht have you pegged as a p/u driver. :-)

Parts of FL meet the boobs and yachts category. Plenty of it in S.Fl.

I cant honesly say whether or not taxes would make a difference but it would depend on what
a differnt place offers. For me it's simply a bonus of living here since many parts (not all) of FL meets
my wants and needs.

No, I was not/am not in the real estate biz. I was a paralegal in FL for 20 years but have been
in advertising/marketing for the past few years. Much more flexible and has given me more free time.

[smarino]

I was going to comment on the high number of posts to this recent thread, but then I read a few of them here and there. Mostly a lot of the usual suspects locked into either Boosterism ( I love everything!) and the negs (Gotta move, gotta move, gotta move). That sort of thing goes where it always goes. Nowhere.

Coming from Volusia county, which has a really marginal bus system, Orlando's looked doable to me on my last visit. The buses were generally new and had soft upholstered seats. They looked and felt more like charter buses compared to the uncomfortable buses we have here, and Orlando does a much better job of routing them and stuff. I was quite pleased w/ my time on them. The Mouse is not an attraction for me, and the downtown looked to at least be trying to make something happen, w/ a little success here and there.

I would think it's even hotter there than here though (which is a crazy idea in itself, as we are sweltering in South Daytona night and day), so that, and other things, changed our minds on moving to Orlando until we can get back home to Hilo.

[Spring Hillian]

You should have seen dwntown Orlando 30 years ago before the huge courthouse, bus lanes and a generally crowded feel. I really liked the old (pre 2000) downtown when Orlando was just starting to change over. The bus system has had time to develop and its nice to hear they did a good job.

Originally Posted by smarino

I was going to comment on the high number of posts to this recent thread, but then I read a few of them here and there. Mostly a lot of the usual suspects locked into either Boosterism ( I love everything!) and the negs (Gotta move, gotta move, gotta move). And that sort of thing goes where it always goes.

Coming from Volusia county, which has a really marginal bus system, Orlando's looked doable to me on my last visit. The buses were generally new and had soft upholstered seats. They looked and felt more like charter buses compared to the uncomfortable buses we have here, and Orlando does a much better job of routing them and stuff. I was quite pleased w/ my time on them. The Mouse is not an attraction for me, and the downtown looked to at least be trying to make something happen, w/ a little success here and there.

I would think it's even hotter there than here though (which is a crazy idea in itself, as we are sweltering in South Daytona night and day), so that and other thinks changed our minds on moving to Orlando.

[Travelassie]

Originally Posted by seain dublin

LOL....FL law also requires you have car insurance but at least one out of four FL drivers don't have it, and get away with it.

Let's not pretend like FL is strict when it comes to road safety. You have 80 year old people renewing licenses till they're 88 without being screened, who cares if they're capable of driving.

No car inspections allow anything and everything on the road.

Thanks for the laugh.

Those folks get away with having no insurance till they get caught. When they do their licenses are suspended pending insurance.

[StreetSmarts]

Originally Posted by Bellamouse

This is a silly notion. We are solidly middle class and taxes is a HUGE reason for moving. Taking huge amounts of our spending cash totally affects our "quality of life". Working like a dog only to have over half of it seized (and misspent to boot), means we do not enjoy our life. We just work and work and work and every year have/do less and less and less. You are sorely mistaken if you think that only seniors care about taxes.

When it costs $500/year to register your cars, $8-12K/ year in property taxes, 5% state income tax, enormous gasoline taxes that amount to well over $1.00/gallon, and 10.25% sales tax, you'd be a complete idiot NOT to consider all that. Imagine paying $1000 per month JUST for your property tax??? Insanity! And there are many more taxes where we came from - those were just the big ones. They also tax all the utilities (gas, elec etc), cell phones, cable and now they are taxing streaming services (Hulu, etc). There is only so much money left to be taxed on. Not to mention tolls on many of the major highways including Interstates. Then there's red light camera fees, insane parking fees ($8.00/hour at a metered street spot, $36/day to park in a garage) and the list goes on and on and on and on and ON.

I didnt say that, I said I would never let taxes affect where I choose to live. I can see coming from Manhattan, spending half of your income on a crappy apartment. But If I were this person, its not like I'm going to say, well....... I really want to live in NC but I'm going to choose FL because FL doesn't have a state income tax, saving me 7% of my income. Thats what I'm saying.

[StreetSmarts]

Originally Posted by Spring Hillian

I didht have you pegged as a p/u driver. :-)

Parts of FL meet the boobs and yachts category. Plenty of it in S.Fl.

I cant honesly say whether or not taxes would make a difference but it would depend on what
a differnt place offers. For me it's simply a bonus of living here since many parts (not all) of FL meets
my wants and needs.

No, I was not/am not in the real estate biz. I was a paralegal in FL for 20 years but have been
in advertising/marketing for the past few years. Much more flexible and has given me more free time.

No? You have me pegged as a Volvo or Suburu guy didn't you?

[0nyxStation]

Originally Posted by StreetSmarts

what part of FL do you live in?

Hillard Springs

[Disney_Geek18]

Originally Posted by smarino

.

Coming from Volusia county, which has a really marginal bus system, Orlando's looked doable to me on my last visit. The buses were generally new and had soft upholstered seats. They looked and felt more like charter buses compared to the uncomfortable buses we have here, and Orlando does a much better job of routing them and stuff. I was quite pleased w/ my time on them. The Mouse is not an attraction for me, and the downtown looked to at least be trying to make something happen, w/ a little success here and there.

I am in Volusia County as well, and I agree with you about the Votran bus system. Most routes are hourly service when they need more, buses are running full and Votran for some reason doesn't purchase 40 ft buses (or even larger ones). Service ends way to early in the evening (ex: the last 23 leaves Orange City for Deltona at 5:30pm), very limited night service (handful of Daytona area routes), very limited Sunday service (again, only a handful of Daytona area routes). For SunRail connections on the Westside, they have 3 routes, running peak service only. So you ride to DeBary in the middle of the day, the nearest Votran stop is a couple miles away.

I will say, the Votran buses themselves are new (except for the 10 or so early 2000 models which are slowly starting to be sold off), and clean. And I heard the county is considering spending a $10 million investment into Votran to increase a couple routes to 30 minute headways (the 7, 11, 20, and 60) the latter 2 would be great, they run full just about all day. They should really put some money towards more SunRail connections. But I won't get too into some fixes I would do with the system.

[Bellamouse]

Originally Posted by StreetSmarts

I didnt say that, I said I would never let taxes affect where I choose to live. I can see coming from Manhattan, spending half of your income on a crappy apartment. But If I were this person, its not like I'm going to say, well....... I really want to live in NC but I'm going to choose FL because FL doesn't have a state income tax, saving me 7% of my income. Thats what I'm saying.

You said only seniors care about taxes when it comes to choosing a place to live. You weren't talking about just yourself.

And I wasn't talking about Manhattan. *I was talking about Chicago, average "suburbia" Chicago, not the fancy downtown area. *

You must be young and not in a very high tax bracket - heck you probably get the "earned income credit" (another joke) so you don't feel the real squeeze of the tax noose...

I'm here to tell you that the savings here in FL is much more than just 7%. Although that is a lot - can you imagine how much you would have if you put that 7% into a 401k or something?

There is a huge difference in one's quality of life when you can keep more of the salary you work hard for. More vacations, things you need, more going out for dinner or whatever. All that is severely curtailed when you live somewhere with high taxes. When Illinois raised the state income tax from 3% to 5%, that took an extra 2500 out of our pockets each year. That was our vacation budget. So no vacation for us! Taxes matter a GREAT deal to those that pay them.