We are considering this right now! My husband has a cousin who lives in Kentucky and the cost of living there is so much cheaper than here in Connecticut! The only thing holding us back is that our older son is doing so well in high school here and making high honors. There is not a technical high school like that there, and we have family here to that would miss us. I actually laughed at the prices of real estate (some not all). I mean a whole house plus yard for like $50,000. Unheard of in the state I live in now. We may go visiting for like a week in the summer to check it out.

We consider it almost daily. But doubt that it will ever happen. For us just to move outside the city we live in would significantly lower alot of the taxes we pay as well as give us the ability to buy a home three times the size of our current one for half the price of the one we have now. Problem is to go means we would have to sell our current home and the housing market here is at a stand still. Our county assessor last year upped the values of homes in this town to way over the national market value as every govt. entity was squawking for more money and upping a home value by 30,000 meant each property owner had another thousand or so tacked to their property taxes. While everyone fought the increase, very few people were able to get their values reduced. Sadly it has been the trend for several years here and has caused home sellers to either lose money in order to sell or for homes to sit on the market for years. (We bought our 2 bedroom bungalo in 1995 for 35,000, today it is valued at over 100,000 and we have done nothing to it in the form of major projects. We also cannot get that price from it. And interestingly enough we pay more in taxes on it every year now than we do on our house payment each year.)

We also live in a state that ranks in the top 10 for highest taxes in the nation, but they have us both ways. You can't afford to live here, but you can't afford to leave here either. Unless you are independently wealthy. The taxes in this state alone make sure you cannot ever get any money put away, and now add the recent out of this world hikes at the pumps and stores and utility companies with no raise in pay and you find yourself not worrying about the future, but instead today.

Sadly we are like most people. Unless we sell our home we have no way of purchasing another one. So not only will we not be leaving the city any time soon, we also will probably never leave the state either.

Please tell me our current economy can't last forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello all. I am new to posting but this one caught my eye. My DH and I have been wrestling with staying put and adding on or completely moving. In Florida, property taxes and homeowners insurance has about run us ragged! Both have nearly doubled for us in the past five years (since we have owned our home) but so has our family size. We live in an 1100 sq ft. home 3BR/2BA. I have a boy and two girls. Kind of crowded but I really don't want to trade the school district. There are so many things to consider! Here in FL, we do not have state taxes (yet). We could move about 20 minutes away to AL and have twice the house but we would also pay state taxes and lose the GREAT school district my son is now in and soon my two daughters. I have moved 29 times in my 31 years of living and would REALLY like to stay put to give my children long-lasting relationships and community friendships. The town we live in is pretty small. EVERYTHING is expanding our way though and soon Jay will be as big as Milton or Pensacola. (Even though we just got our first Subway a little over a year ago-the only "fast food" within 15 miles.) It's a hard decision. As a realtor, I also get the inside track on foreclosures, etc., and LOW priced homes but everything has doubled in price since we bought our home, thanks to Ivan and Dennis (hurricanes). The average $150,000 home has principal and interest payments and then you have to add on around $200 for property taxes and insurance. All I can say is good luck in that decision as my DH and I have been thinking about it for the past two years and still have not come to any good conclusion! ;0)