Should I move to Florida?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So basically your SAH wife wants to live near her parents, while you fly back and forth earning the money?

OP here. Haven’t made my way through this whole thread but I find this assumption that it was the husband posting hilarious. I am the wife!!!! And it’s my husbands parents who live here. Welcome to the 2020’s! (Or really any decade after the 90’s)…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it is so fascinating to read all the responses, and what seems to be 95% hatred at the mere mention of florida.
perhaps i have different perspective because i grew up in south florida. and much of south florida, especially miami and fll really doesn't consider itself part of floriduh.
i left dc 2 years ago and feel like i can finally breathe!
i appreciate my time in dc and the many benefits to having lived there, but i'm so glad to be raising my family back in south florida.
and yes, i and many others cannot stand desantis.
but i love living 10 minutes from the beach and going to the beach 2x a week vs 1-2x a year, year round beach (warm enough to swim in, not freezing and rough) and pool weather, NO WINTER ICE OR SNOW!!!, no state income tax, incredible diversity, my kids are already conversant in spanish and portuguese, fantastic food, less cutthroat emphasis on who you know/what you do/what can you do for me, not worrying about signing up for good quality daycare or preschool spots at 6 weeks pregnant, being 2-3 hour plane rides from much of central and south america, having kids in person learning, all the watersports you can imagine, the lush tropical plants and trees, having fruit trees in my backyard like mango papaya and lychee, how greeen and alive everything is in winter instead of brown and dead, blue sunny skies, etc

the thought of being back in dc makes me feel suffocated and anxious.
my 2 cents!

I can understand not wanting to move back to DC, but there are other places to move to than FL.

The beaches in the summer in FL now can be hit or miss due to sargasum seaweed and red tide and hurricanes.

Personally, I don't mind the DC winters. It's not that bad, and I'm from CA. But the humidity is horrible in DC, and FL is even worse for humidity.

My family is here too, so i can't ask for anything more! I'd rather have south florida summers 100x than DC or any winter.
Life is so much easier not having to even think about or own mittens, hats, scarves, boots etc for little kids.
No issues with seaweed for us.

YMMV

I don't mind mittens, but I would literally be a hermit in the summers in FL. It's horrible.

Red tide and sargasum seaweed are an issue, but not necessarily every year. It depends on which way the tides are going, but it's going to get worse every year.

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/weather/2021/05/25/sargassum-weed-sea-and-its-coming-florida/5197878001/

PP here. We live on a bay and have a constant breeze. It feels oppressively hot in the rest of the city, but along a body of water....extremely pleasant. We spend every day after school outside for at least 2 hours...in the shade and with the breeze, it is honestly idyllic.

PP - OP here - I’m looking at the FLL Boynton Beach area. Are you in Tampa?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is literally no amount of money you could pay me to live in Florida, especially under their current leadership, and paying taxes is a basic civic duty and part of the social contract, so my answer would be no on that.

First of all, there is no state income tax, so whatever.
Also, FYI just under half of usFloridians also hate DeSantis. But he will probably be out next president so what will you do then? Finally move to Canada?

Shut it lady. Florida is trash

And you are the epitome of class, are you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically your SAH wife wants to live near her parents, while you fly back and forth earning the money?

OP here. Haven’t made my way through this whole thread but I find this assumption that it was the husband posting hilarious. I am the wife!!!! And it’s my husbands parents who live here. Welcome to the 2020’s! (Or really any decade after the 90’s)…

Ha! Which tells you exactly how much you should take all this advice with a grain of salt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live here, I love it. We were choking in northern Virginia/ DC and it is just easier here. Even with one stay at home parent, we can afford things like horseback riding, piano, ballet, vacations, good camps. At the same time it is way less pressure to perform on the kids, which can be freeing. Agree with the above poster that it depends on where - most Northerners (esp on DCUM) have a monolithic, negative view of the place but there are a lot of different places. Some good, some not so good depending on your politics and passions. Some people would absolutely hate it and I can see that. However I must add, ignore the judgey condescending Florida haters on here- not all of us have biglaw salaries or secure fed jobs and we need to do what is best for our kids. I have concluded that life is WAY easier here - but at the same time it is essential to go somewhere else once or twice a year. We try to go to the mountains for 2-3 weeka in the summer and back to Virginia to Grandma’s for a week at Christmas. We are working on saving for a second house / summer house somewhere up “North” like Asheville .

Yeah it's easier on the kids because the schools are crap there.

I’m honestly confused. It’s not like there aren’t easy school systems in the DMV, or just let your kid be a B student at a W school.

FL schools will have them woefully unprepared for college, unless the plan is UF and be like a local accountant in Tampa or something. Which is fine but vulnerable to economic tides more so than more comprehensive education.

Interesting my cousin graduated a north Florida public school . Went to Harvard undergrad abd Harvard med school. Must be dem genes I guess

It’s actually rural affirmative action. I benefited from it too (From Florida).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:HHI is $415 for the first time this year. Maryland taxes are killing me. COLA in DMV is a PITA. I could fly up every other week and do my job fine from south Florida. In laws are down here. Income tax alone would save me $24k!

South Florida is very expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live here, I love it. We were choking in northern Virginia/ DC and it is just easier here. Even with one stay at home parent, we can afford things like horseback riding, piano, ballet, vacations, good camps. At the same time it is way less pressure to perform on the kids, which can be freeing. Agree with the above poster that it depends on where - most Northerners (esp on DCUM) have a monolithic, negative view of the place but there are a lot of different places. Some good, some not so good depending on your politics and passions. Some people would absolutely hate it and I can see that. However I must add, ignore the judgey condescending Florida haters on here- not all of us have biglaw salaries or secure fed jobs and we need to do what is best for our kids. I have concluded that life is WAY easier here - but at the same time it is essential to go somewhere else once or twice a year. We try to go to the mountains for 2-3 weeka in the summer and back to Virginia to Grandma’s for a week at Christmas. We are working on saving for a second house / summer house somewhere up “North” like Asheville .

Yeah it's easier on the kids because the schools are crap there.

I’m honestly confused. It’s not like there aren’t easy school systems in the DMV, or just let your kid be a B student at a W school.

FL schools will have them woefully unprepared for college, unless the plan is UF and be like a local accountant in Tampa or something. Which is fine but vulnerable to economic tides more so than more comprehensive education.

Interesting my cousin graduated a north Florida public school . Went to Harvard undergrad abd Harvard med school. Must be dem genes I guess

It’s actually rural affirmative action. I benefited from it too (From Florida).

Or could be high SATS and great MOATS.

[Anonymous]

Financially it doesn’t seem smart. It would make more sense to move to VA.

1. Flying up to DC every other week will not be cheap. You need to factor in the cost of air travel for that many weeks. You will also need to factor in lodging, meals etc.

2. If your kids are in a good public school now and you’ll have to do private that is a big financial hit.

You may not end saving 24K at all and your expenses may go up.

Professionally, you’ll be stuck and limited to roles within companies that allow that type of teleworking. You will need to research the tax rules because if you are evenly splitting between DC and Florida, you may not get to choose that Florida is your taxable workplace. Real estate is more stable in the DMV than Florida. Florida goes through volatile cycles of boom and bust. You would be buying in a boom cycle. Florida is much more vulnerable to climate change with flooding and storms. You need to be very careful where you buy. It’s pretty flat so many areas are susceptible to flooding with heavy rains.

I would direct as much money now into retirement and college. I would sell the MD house and buy something in Virginia, probably Fairfax not Great Falls. I’d get a less expensive fixer upper in a neighborhood where people are remodeling and remodel it. I’d wait for the Florida real estate cycle to bust and then consider relocating if you really like Florida.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HHI is $415 for the first time this year. Maryland taxes are killing me. COLA in DMV is a PITA. I could fly up every other week and do my job fine from south Florida. In laws are down here. Income tax alone would save me $24k!

South Florida is very expensive.

Good luck finding a house in a desirable neighborhood or near the water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who lives in Florida, I guess there are some savings, but we pay A LOT in home insurance because of the hurricane coverage. Our $1M home costs us $10K a year in home insurance, our property taxes, $13K.

And this is only going to get worse. Plus, the rest of the country will, at some point, get sick of subsidizing Florida's rebuild when hurricanes and floods of ever-increasing frequency and severity continue to decimate it.

Climate change is really going to hit FL hard over the next 20 to 50 years. They are already seeing the impact of it.

I have to say, given what we know about climate change, I think that people who move their now need to have their heads examined. Or pick up a newspaper every once in a while.

You do realize that people live inland in Florida, as well as on the coasts...right?

My house is 3 years old and costs $900 a year in homeowners insurance.

[Anonymous]

I absolutely hated it. No, I would not!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HHI is $415 for the first time this year. Maryland taxes are killing me. COLA in DMV is a PITA. I could fly up every other week and do my job fine from south Florida. In laws are down here. Income tax alone would save me $24k!

South Florida is very expensive.

Good luck finding a house in a desirable neighborhood or near the water.

Yup. My parents have a winter house in South Florida and it's not terribly big and has no land to speak of, and they paid 1.7 a few years ago and prices have doubled since covid. We lived there all of last year for open schools and it is NOT a cheap.place to live. Also even though they have no state taxes their property taxes are sky high.

I will say it's a spectacular place to live. We'll be headed back if these schools around here fuc% around.

[Anonymous]

Call me lady it doesn’t make sense

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who lives in Florida, I guess there are some savings, but we pay A LOT in home insurance because of the hurricane coverage. Our $1M home costs us $10K a year in home insurance, our property taxes, $13K.

And this is only going to get worse. Plus, the rest of the country will, at some point, get sick of subsidizing Florida's rebuild when hurricanes and floods of ever-increasing frequency and severity continue to decimate it.

Climate change is really going to hit FL hard over the next 20 to 50 years. They are already seeing the impact of it.

I have to say, given what we know about climate change, I think that people who move their now need to have their heads examined. Or pick up a newspaper every once in a while.

You do realize that people live inland in Florida, as well as on the coasts...right?

My house is 3 years old and costs $900 a year in homeowners insurance.

Inland is where the poors live, it’s really grim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is literally no amount of money you could pay me to live in Florida, especially under their current leadership, and paying taxes is a basic civic duty and part of the social contract, so my answer would be no on that.

+1 to all of this. Taxes are not killing you. Please.

FWIW, my ILs moved to FL and had to move back because it was impossible to make non-racist friends. They are really great at making friends and shifting topics and keeping things surface level nice with awkward conversation partners, but FL was beyond even their skills.

My mom too. The final straw was when the 85 year old woman next door got a concealed carry permit because of antifa.