Cost of living Surprises

[REWahoo]

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Originally Posted by Lakerat Nomore Oh, and the taxes are horrible here.....

[REWahoo]

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Originally Posted by OKLibrarian *nods* OK is not all that different from TX (just more tornadoes and a far better football team, really)...

Sat., Oct. 7, 2006 Texas 28, Oklahoma 10
Sat., Oct. 8, 2005 Texas 45, Oklahoma 12

[OKLibrarian]

And UT's never had rebuilding years? A temporary lull, 'tis all...

[lazygood4nothinbum]

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Originally Posted by Tommy LGFNB, any suggestions as to what parts of Florida have reasonable costs of living and still have some Fort Lauderdale / Miami lifestyle.

sure do tommy. in fact i've got about 3000 miles to use up on the t-bird before the lease is up so i'm gonna do a florida tour checking out just that.

one place i want to hit is daytona beach (& its surrounds), which has taken over from fort lauderdale as spring break headquarters. this is about an hour & a 1/2 south of jacksonville (jax). according to realtor.com $250k buys a decent house just blocks from the beach. (just checked again: it also shows over 700 houses for sale under $200k but i don't know what the areas look like yet.)

other affordable coastal metropolitan areas include jax and tampa/st. pete. an inland fun area would be gainesville. just last week i spent time in new port richey which i will also keep in mind. it is just an hour north of tampa and very affordable, nice area. if you want to party you can drive to tampa for the day or check into a cheap motel for the night.

but even ft laud/miami might become better affordable if this state ever gets its act together and does something to fix insurance or at least taxes. this is currently in the works. but for most of us already here, that would be the cost of living surprise of the century.

[whitestick]

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Originally Posted by Lakerat Nomore whitestick, You sure make life in Texas sound horrible. You beat REWahoo hands down. One wonders why you are still here.

Don't misunderstand me, I love it here, and really enjoy being here. As REWhoo and you point out, there are some realities of being in Texas, and the OP did ask for any Cost of Living Surprises. I personally think that untill our gutless politicians start making decisions that are needed for quality of life, rather then putting money in their pockets, we will continue to have some of these problems. I don't expect that they will, but the facts are that as we are having water shortages due to all of the watering of unnatural landscaping for the area, and people continue to move here, the problems will only exacerbate.
Now, as to living here, I think the summers are great, of course it does get hot, but if you eat some jalapenos and habeneros mixed in with your eggs for breakfast, the rest of the day seems fairly cool. I love how the winters are realtively mild. In fact, at the end of March, and I'm able to drive around town with the convertible top down, in comfort, and feel the warmth of the sun on my face. In spite of my previous comments, there are 4 seasons here, and the trees do turn nice colors in the Fall, if for only a few weeks.
It's just not right for the rest of you. You have been warned!

[Bikerdude]

Health insurance and taxes. I guess that should not be a surprise.

[chinaco]

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Originally Posted by whitestick ... I personally think that untill our gutless politicians start making decisions that are needed for quality of life, rather then putting money in their pockets, we will continue to have some of these problems. I don't expect that they will...

Texas does not have a monopoly on snakes and scorpions... ahem I mean politicians.

And by the way, they are not gutless... on the contrary they have rather large guts from gorging on tax dollars. Now if you said mindless... I would agree. A scorpion has a very small one track mind... how to sting you!

Seriously... How many local politicians do you really have faith in? The lower on the ladder, the more inept. The only good thing about local politicians is their mayhem is localized!

Sorry for the rant. We have a number of incompetent boobs running our local government. It is no wonder, really capable business people won't accept the low pay. Plus competent people have other opportunities to grow thier ego.

Opps sorry again. I better stop while I am ahead

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

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Originally Posted by 73ss454 If you plan on moving anywhere in Florida and will buy a house, plan on getting spanked with property taxes.

True enough (not to mention high property insurance rates), but they will not rise more than 3% per year, by law. That plus the lack of state income tax make for a decent, if odd, tax environment overall in most places down here.

[whitestick]

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Originally Posted by chinaco The lower on the ladder, the more inept. The only good thing about local politicians is their mayhem is localized!

Your implication is that the higher on the ladder, the more ept. When you look at the shining examples at the federal level (on both Dem and Reb), I believe that the lower ladder training is actually proof that the more inept at leading anyway, the higher they go. It's the popularity cotests (I mean elections) that determine if they get on the ballot, and the back room dealmaking that determines if they stay. The really stupid ones eventually get caught.
Unfortunately as Plato said "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
And most of us, myself included, don't really want to participate in politics. So I guess we are all guilty, and deserve what we get - doesn't mean that we have to like it though.