Actually, I'm NOT moving because of the cost of living. You see, I moved from Michigan where the property taxes and real estate are outrageous to Missouri where my taxes are a mere fraction and the house that I bought on an acre of land right in the middle of the town is 4 times more house for pennies on the dollar elsewhere. Now that I'm here and know how much people are paying for homes in other areas, there is no way I would move away from where I am. I considered it a couple years ago, but I realized that we would never be able to afford to live anywhere else, so here we stay. Yes..the cost of living has influenced where I live.

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We are leaving CA at the end of the year for this reason. I can stop working and we'll actually be able to afford a house.

three years ago we were renting a really beautifull apartment and ina wonderful city. brand new school, great area--perfect. cost of buying a home, 200,000 too much for us to afford. and the taxes were unbelievable. just buying groceries there was 50$ more expensive. so when we decided to buy a home we didnt even consider doing it there and moved about an hour away, in the country. we love our house but we still talk about moving back when we are debt free and dh is out of college.

Yup. We'll most likely be moving about an hour out in the next year or so because we can't afford a bigger house in this area that's in a good school district. It likely won't affect my husband's job too much because he's a commercial salesman and he's in his car a lot anyway, but we will have to change churches which is something I'm not looking forward to at all.

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Stephanie
Mom to: Caleb (8/03), Ian (9/05), & Lucas (11/08)

Fortunately my family lives in an area where the cost of living is already low, so we haven't had to consider relocating due to cost of living. However, my BIL is having to do this. He lives outside of NYC, makes a great salary, and can barely get by. The cost of living and taxes are through the roof. He will be relocating to Arizona (around Flagstaff) within the next few years. He's researched the area and says the cost of living is much cheaper there than where he's at right now.

My Sil and family live in Boca Raton Fl, w/o the Boca income. He lost his job a few yrs back and has not made the same salary since. She very much wants to get out of there not to mention the Hurricanes! I think she is looking to the carolinas. However he seems to be stalling. So I will beleive it when I see it.

DH was offered a really good job, bt it was in San Jose, CA. We checked out COL and in order to have a house like ours out there, we would have had to spend almost $1million!!! And even then, it wouldn't have been as nice. Plus, his salary would have been more than it is here, but they would have had to triple what he was making here, in order to be comparable and that just wasn't going to happen.

Colorado has a fairly high COL, especially where we live, but we love it here. I don't know that we would move because of COL, but if we did move, I'm sure it would have some factor in deciding where we would go. DH and I have talked about buying some land (about 5 acres) and building a house. Even buying in the country, we would have to build a house half the size of our current one in order to keep it in the same price range. Grr!!

We are hoping to win the lottery soon so that we can afford to build our house.

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www.myspace.com/vioburn

Frugal is being wise with your money and resources and cheap is forcing everyone else to.

Check out my blog, I'm starting to add more to it, as I can...www.ginnyv.com

we were lucky we bought our house 25 min from the nearest larger town and that was 12 years ago when we were real young it was how we could afford a house.. boy are we thankful we live in an awesome school district nice friendly safe quiet community that we would not change for the world....but if it had been the reverse we definately would move to a smaller cheaper farther away community we have seen first hand how great a move it is.....yeh it costs us more in gas for dh to go to work but its so worth it we just cut in other areas.

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SILENCE IS GOLDEN BUT DUCK TAPE IS SILVER.

I would never leave due to the cost of living.Unless I am proven otherwise,I think Indiana is one of the cheaper states.

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~~Sharon...wife to Bill for 17 yrs and mom to Kevin,16; Stephanie,14 and Tyler,8~~

Just go into it knowing that by moving to a more affordable area,you might have to give up things you take for granted. Like good shopping might be a 40 minute drive away, you might find affordable housing but the utilities are high (our city water/sewer bills are high), your'e school district might not be the greatest, smaller towns take the hits when it comes to school budgets and funding. There might not be a Starbucks or fast food place near you or even a Superwalmart or Target. Your'e commute to good paying jobs might be a long one too. Those are things you have to take into consideration.

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"Go on, get outside, get the stink blown off ya!!"