Do you ever think about moving out of state?

clarkenstein

JORBA Board Member/Chapter Leader
JORBA.ORG
You see it come up here once in a while - people sometimes hint at it - but do you ever think about moving out of state?

If you are thinking about moving, where are you looking to move? How close are you to actually doing it? And most importantly, why? Kids? Tired of taxes? You just gotta smoke sick amounts of weed?

Fogerson has been gone a while, anyone still keep in touch with him? He still liking it on the left coast? @Pearl how’s the move been so far? @rick81721 - you don’t count yet. You’re still here in my book sorta.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Yes, every time we travel, but in reality no, not really.

If you are moving due to finances, then go for it, it's totally understandable.

Otherwise I think happiness is where you make it. I can envision a time in the future when the kids have all gone off to college where we just travel & roam wherever we want. I can work from anywhere. But the kids keep us here. So we're not going anywhere soon. Then there are the parents, strung between NJ and Canada.

We will almost certainly retire in Canada because the US sucks for that part of life.
 

MissJR

not in the mood for your shenanigans
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Richmond, VA. 2020 or bust.

Honestly, I'd really like to move in the next few years. We really like the city and I'm rapidly growing tired of NJ... Although, there's a lot here, I'm looking for a new adventure... New chapter in life.
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
so change jobs to go someplace else? or go someplace else and get a job?

i guess when they make you cfo out in centennial, co, ya gotta go.

other than that, lateral out of nj? nah.
 

jmanic

JORBA Board Member/Chapter Leader
Staff member
JORBA.ORG
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I don’t even think about it,
but would love to.
87% of my wife’s and my family are within 90 minutes, that’s our anchor.
10 years ago we might have been able to set up shop on the left coast or abroad, but that ship has sailed at this point.

Plus being near the city and becoming accustomed to all that has to offer?
We are probably broken for anywhere else.
 

Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
You see it come up here once in a while - people sometimes hint at it - but do you ever think about moving out of state?

If you are thinking about moving, where are you looking to move? How close are you to actually doing it? And most importantly, why? Kids? Tired of taxes? You just gotta smoke sick amounts of weed?

Fogerson has been gone a while, anyone still keep in touch with him? He still liking it on the left coast? @Pearl how’s the move been so far? @rick81721 - you don’t count yet. You’re still here in my book sorta.
This can be an annoying topic because people will defend where they're from, just like they'll defend belonging to whatever religion their parents belong to. And everyone is different.

These are the reasons why I'm interested in leaving:

Why:
1) NJ is expensive. Not just HCOL while here but in retirement it will suck you dry. Why pay 12k in taxes here when you can pay 3k in a place with similar or better living experience? I can't imagine Rick has his residency in NJ... NJ does not really fit into my finances long term unless I want to work much longer and harder than I'd like. I'm already struggling with work/life balance.
2) Northern NJ is an absolute grind. Traffic, high population tends to have people assholeish. We can pretend we're just hard and really awesome people but I realize that people I get to know from other less populated areas are much genuinely friendlier.
3) Food, very often I feel in NNJ I'm in a weird wasteland of food. This may sound odd but if I want authentic Vietnamese I have to travel awhile, same with middle-eastern unless it's $$. Most restaurants are generic and not very creative. I wonder if part of this is high property values keep down experimental businesses. We have no "trendy" food scene, at least not where I am now.

If you want garbage Italian food and pizza we have tons of that. I don't eat pizza, I don't eat bagels, I won't die not having Taylor Ham. If I never see another Pizza/Italian food place for the rest of my life I'd be OK.
4) Car centric. We have no real cities where you can live primarily without a car, at least any I'd want to live in. The towns with downtown areas exist mostly because they're old train towns and they are very expensive and the restaurants are "date night" restaurants I'm not interested in.
5) Weather. I dislike the cold and always have.

Would it work:
1) People in other parts of the country do in fact have jobs. Some of them pay quite well. I'm not tied to my job, in fact ready to leave.
2) I don't have much of a super connection to my family so I don't mind leaving. The GF actually likes her family but we're looking at being somewhere within reasonable visitation distance for holidays etc.
3) We're DINK, so financially we don't have a huge amount of risk moving into a different job. We're looking for really, really nice houses in the 300k range. Not having some huge mortgage and property taxes help the financial aspect of moving.
4) Outside of friends, not sure what I'd miss in NJ. We don't take advantage of NYC anymore. Outside of good/great mountain biking I can't think of too many positives over other states?

Where:
Right now we've settled on Richmond, VA, reasons are:

1) Walkable city that's a nice size. Very diverse neighborhoods with people that don't seem like foreigners.
2) OK after work mountain biking in-town, horrible mountain biking within a short distance, awesome stuff with some travelling. Great road/gravel riding within distance.
3) Temperate climate. Not too bad in the winter, not too bad in the summer. I'll take a heat wave in the summer if I don't have to deal with the snow. I really, really hate the cold.
4) 95 passes through it so very easy to travel to north (NJ) or more south, close to other highways. Easy to get in/out, little traffic.
5) Great food scene.
6) Good job market.
7) Inexpensive. Not dirt cheap like moving to Greenville, SC or something but still inexpensive. Property taxes are low.
8) Not too far from air travel, not too far from other major cities to visit.

We travel south multiple times per year scoping out places to live. We've looked at:
TN including Nashville, Chattanooga & Noxville
SC - Mostly Greenville
NC - Asheville, Greensboro/Winston-Salem/Raleigh/Durham.
AZ - Phoenix/Tucson.

Passed through a million other cities & towns of course through various states but the above is what we looked at more and more but ruled them out.

When:
@MissJR stated 2020. Everything we own is currently for sale. Anyone want a cat?
 

stb222

Love Drunk
Jerk Squad
Yes, moved to PA 2.5 years ago. 1.5 miles from the NJ line. Even though it is one of the most expensive parts of PA, Income tax is a 3% (roughly half of where I was in NJ) and property taxes are 25% less.
So still have the everything Philly and NY metro has to offer without the retard status taxes. Not to mention a host of dumb NJ laws that we don’t have in Pa. oh, and NJ won’t be getting a part of my retirement savings. Get out now, it is only going to get worse.

It is like moving back to America. Do it.

FWIW, I like NJ and when we first started house shopping (we needed a bigger house), we were looking in NJ. Our taxes would have went from around 7-8k to 10-11k for the next size house. I asked myself what am I getting for the extra money and the answer is nothing. Two weeks later we were under contract in PA. That being said, it is cheaper to close in NJ, PA takes 1% of the purchase price at closing, where NJ does not. It is part of the way NJ gets you in.

Also, the exit tax doesn’t apply unless you are making capital gains of more than 1M on your house sale (it may be 750k). But nothing came out of the 30k i made , lol.
 
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chemgirl

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
As soon as my youngest graduates high school I'm out of this state!!
Ideally I would have a place in PA and one in Washington (for the riding). But I'll probably end up moving to where ever my kids settle (who we are NOT encouraging to go to college in NJ).
I think most people stay in NJ for family. It really doesn't have it all. And it's ridiculously expensive. Seattle is expensive but the taxes are a mere fraction of Jerseys.
 

Tim

aka sptimmy43
I have a different perspective than most on here. I am from the Midwest and went to college in PA. I ended up here for work, met a girl, you know the rest. I'd leave in a heartbeat. I agree with the above sentiments that people here are generally assholeish, traffic sucks, taxes suck, etc. If you like pizza and bagels it's your heaven. I am actually not a big fan of heat so I don't want to go south but I would move west if the opportunity arose. There is no way I will stay here past retirement (30+ years from now).

If you're from NJ then don't take offense. It's not all bad. There are a lot of decent paying jobs here. You can earn a good living. The high cost of living takes it's toll, though.
 

A Potted Plant

Honorary Sod
Most of the people in NJ suck, but it's hard to beat. We have everything.

*NJ salute*, "Fuck you to buddy" and to out of staters, "get out of the left lane and get the hell out of my state."

I just like the no BS I don't need to be inflated with BS hospitality and anything else that's fake. What you see is what you get in NJ people suck everywhere we're just keeping it real.
 

A Potted Plant

Honorary Sod
In the OOS thread I mentioned I was switching positions at work and it comes with the option of moving to El Paso Texas or Louisville Kentucky both of those are nopes I'd go to Colorado but mehhh. When I retire I'm going to my parents home country if my wife let's it.
 

stb222

Love Drunk
Jerk Squad
In the OOS thread I mentioned I was switching positions at work and it comes with the option of moving to El Paso Texas or Louisville Kentucky both of those are nopes I'd go to Colorado but mehhh. When I retire I'm going to my parents home country if my wife let's it.
The riding is actually ok in Louisville. It isn’t by mistake that they hosted a World Cup CX and this years nationals.
 

Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Went to CX Nats in Louisville this year. I wouldn't move there for various reasons but I definitely thought "This is a horrible fucking city to visit, probably pretty decent to actually live in"

The Tacos were legit. Have I mentioned NJ tacos suck?
 

Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
One thing to think about with the "I'll leave when I'm retired" thought, is it may be much harder by then. If you spend most of your life in NJ, raise your kids here who may put down roots, etc it may be much harder to pickup and leave to go elsewhere.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Who do you guys hang out with that you think everyone in this state is an asshole? I like my friends. Maybe you guys need new friends.

I've traveled for work to a bunch of cities in the US. I can agree that yeah, there are assholes everywhere.

I'm also mostly underwhelmed by food in NJ - as a general rule. There's plenty of good food to be had, if you're willing to travel/look for it. But there's a lot of very mediocre food here as well. The cost of real estate makes taking a risk on a fringe restaurant prohibitive. In my travels, I have found that the mid-level cities have a really good food & coffee scene. They're also often in barren areas that may or may not survive.

If you do not take advantage of NYC then NJ becomes much less awesome.
 
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