Willers
Full time employment: Posting here.
- Joined
- May 13, 2013
- Messages
- 737
Yup, we live in one of those towns.
When still working we used to leave the area every year for the last week of Carnival, leading up to Mardi Gras. The congestion, traffic and general insanity around here is over the top and simply beyond belief during that time.Yes, a tourist area can have its challenges. We've learned to manage the chaos during the peak seasons when the population doubles and really take advantage of shoulder seasons and weekdays. I totally understand why it isn't for everyone.
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The question is... less expensive as opposed to what ?
I hear about retired Americans moving to developing foreign countries to save money.
But when the details are given... they could have moved to lots of areas in the USA and saved more money.
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Great buy, but did the seller have big dark glasses and look kind of shifty?You have to know where to shop. Yesterday I bought 5 oranges for a $1, from Cal Poly farmers market, made two fresh squeezed orange juice for less than a dollar. 4 corns for $1. Large onions for 50c a pound. I paid $5 for a bunch of stuff. Unbelievable. HCOL area here.
Great buy, but did the seller have big dark glasses and look kind of shifty?
For those who might consider this, I was recently looking at a list of the least crowded ski areas. Here's the top ten:
10. Moonlight Basin - Montana
9. Crested Butte, Colorado
8. 49 Degrees North Mountain Resort - Washington
7. Sugarloaf - Maine
6. Revelstoke - British Columbia, Canada
5. Sun Valley - Idaho
4. Steamboat - Colorado
3. Grand Targhee - Wyoming
2. Big Sky - Montana
1. Telluride - Colorado
That is true if you live in the eastern end like Simi Valleyor, in OjaiCloser to Santa Barbara is much nicer, I would move out of Ventura County if I was living there. All I could think of is heat. My sister still has a house there, but she might sell them when and if the tenant moves out.
I sure hope we can find a way to keep expenses in line when we move to a higher COL city/state too. Hard to imagine how that could be with a higher COL and a considerably more expensive home, but we expect to enjoy the new city, and the OP gives me some hope. Thanks.
You can compare city to city costs by category on bestplaces.net. I picked Castro Valley, a Bay Area suburb and Oklahoma City, just at random, and most of the difference is in housing -
https://www.bestplaces.net/compare-cities/castro_valley_ca/oklahoma_city_ok/costofliving
In our HCOL area, I spent under $40 on groceries last week, mainly 10 pounds of chicken breasts on sale for $1 a pound and around $20 for 30+ pounds of assorted produce at a Filipino market.
According to that calculator, the town from which I moved is 35.5% less expensive to live in than my current residence. That's about a 50% error for us. I guess those free calculators may be worth what we pay for them...
We considered moving to a smaller city two years ago. Not for the COL, but for the lifestyle.
So very thankful that we did not. DW had some serious medical issues that would have required mulitiple five hour or six hour trips (each way) for specialized medical treatment and a hospital stay.
We are very conservative and live in a ultra LCOL area. In our travels to HCOL places, I just don't want to spend that much money to live somewhere with a lower quality of life. We have a great lake house across town on a beautiful deep water lake. Our city home is very large and was purchased as a foreclosure for a great price.
My sister had a 2 bedroom condo in a premier HCOL Rocky Mountain community, and boy did those Aussies pay big money to rent her place. She traded up to a 3 bedroom townhouse in the same condo development.
Sis got tired of fighting the Rocky Mountain weather and knew her skiing days were numbered. She sold the condo the first of 2008 for an absolutely ridiculous amount. She took part of the money to buy a megamansion in the North Carolina mountains in a golf/equestrian neighborhood. And she bought a Learjet 45 to fly to the mountains. And they are perfectly happy since many retirees from her city are close by.
That's an interesting list. You posted it from a recreation perspective, but it is also interesting to look at from a "living in the vicinity" perspective.
Grand Targhee is nestled between Wyoming and Idaho; viewed from Idaho, the western face of the Grand Teton is drop dead gorgeous.
Unfortunately, that area (even on the Idaho side) is generally quite expensive from a cost-of-living perspective. Don't quote me on this and with respect to the Wyoming side, but I read recently that Jackson had the greatest income disparity in the United States because of the spread between billionaires and commoners living there.
There are areas with a much lower cost of living in the Rocky Mountains that have both smaller ski resorts as well as reasonably ready access to some of the famous destination ski areas noted above -- though not necessarily when the wind is howling, the snow is blowing, and the interstate is closed.
I have only lived in HCOL areas since I’ve becoming an adult. This is one area I will not skim to save money.