Leaving NY

[HeatherC]

How is the COL in Delaware? Would that be an option? Still driving distance. Or Vermont? Gorgeous state and just “next door.” Not sure what housing and salaries are for teachers though. Another possibility is Maine. Just a thought.

 

[mmouse37]

One consideration I would have about some other areas of NY are the rates at which people are leaving the state. The town we moved from had a 22% population decrease from 2010 to 2018. And 37% since 1990. I don't even think teaching jobs were secure because they were trying to merge with other districts while we were still there. If you do need/want to move, it's quite difficult selling a house where the population has dropped so drastically that there aren't any people looking to buy.



We also live in a rural area near Winston-Salem, NC. We picked this area by doing research online and then making a trip to drive around and check out the places we had on our list. I would highly recommend that to the OP. Some places may sound great (especially with school ratings), but when we saw them in person the traffic or the feel of the area was a very quick "no" for us (Charlotte suburbs).


Yes, people from NYC tend to refer to the entire state as "Upstate NY". I always thought it was funny when my NYC family would refer to an area as "upstate NY" (less than an hour out of the city) and my Central NY family would refer to the same place as "downstate".

We live about 30 minutes north of Manhattan and people tell us we are Upstate...I just laugh.....to me anything North of Albany is Upstate.

OP, we had 3 sets of friends recently move to Myrtle Beach, SC. We just went down there for a week to visit (and also visited Hilton Head) and the houses are much less than expensive than NYC/suburbs. If we didn't have all our family literally within a 3 mile radius of us I would pick up and move South.

MJ

 

[mjkacmom]

How is the COL in Delaware? Would that be an option? Still driving distance. Or Vermont? Gorgeous state and just “next door.” Not sure what housing and salaries are for teachers though. Another possibility is Maine. Just a thought.

It’s great for the northeast, my SIL grew up here in NJ and currently lives in a Virginia DC suburb, they’ve visited DE several times looking for a place to retire. Not far from Philadelphia, 2 hours from NYC, still close to beaches.

 

[QueenIsabella]

We live about 30 minutes north of Manhattan and people tell us we are Upstate...I just laugh.....to me anything North of Albany is Upstate.

OP, we had 3 sets of friends recently move to Myrtle Beach, SC. We just went down there for a week to visit (and also visited Hilton Head) and the houses are much less than expensive than NYC/suburbs. If we didn't have all our family literally within a 3 mile radius of us I would pick up and move South.

MJ

Former resident of Saratoga County--you're right, anything south of Albany is NOT "upstate"!

We moved to New Hampshire in 2008, then to North Carolina in 2015. Our current house cost less than 10% more than our NH house. NH house: standard 2000 sq ft faux Colonial, absolutely nothing special. NC house: over 4000 sq ft, not including the garage, sunroom, and pool maintenance room (aka, DH's workshop). My MBR closet is bigger than my old MBR, and the MBA closet is bigger than my old MBA. We have a heated inground pool, live 3 miles from the beach, and back up to a golf course. Best of all: no furnace! We don't need one! (we do have a heat pump, and don't even ask about our A/C bills, but...).

We still keep up with our NY friends, and I read the NY Post every morning. It's heartbreaking, we truly loved upstate NY, it's beautiful country, and they just can't seem to catch a break.

 

[LuvOrlando]

PA eats away at you with high taxes and high food costs and oppressed wages.

Can I ask where you are? Your post is super interesting because I'm in Pa over 20 years and the cheap cost of living for everything, especially all my insurance for cars and property and more so taxes, is still noticeably low to me. When I moved here from NYC it was like getting a raise and the cost of groceries is staggeringly low, so much so that when I go up to Ma it's sticker shock every single time.

https://www.revenue.pa.gov/GeneralT...r items exempt from the,tax rate is 6 percent.
Major items exempt from the tax include food (not ready-to-eat); candy and gum; most clothing; textbooks; computer services; pharmaceutical drugs; sales for resale; and residential heating fuels such as oil, electricity, gas, coal and firewood. The Pennsylvania sales tax rate is 6 percent.

The ONLY thing I notice is higher is gas because we have more tax on gas, but I can go to NJ when it's an issue, and you are right that there is no oversight for gas because the price changes station to station.

 

[Poohlove]

This is a very appropriately timed thread for me. Recently I have been thinking of relocating also, I currently live in South Jersey and have been looking at South Carolina. There is a lot to consider for sure!!