Selling house

[dfrecore]

Also, think about the amount of public land.  Dispersed camping is free in many state and national forests, which reduces the need to spend money on hotel rooms for weekends away.  This can save hundreds of dollars every year and is a very good reason not to move to Texas.

Only if you camp! Give me a hotel room any time...

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Make sure you compare whole CoL and not just income tax. I think a lot of people tend to forget to factor in the cost of things like groceries and utilities when trying to decide where to move. If everything costs 2x as much, you're not going to save any money by moving to avoid income tax.

I agree.  We left CA last summer, ended up in SC.  Very happy with our choice (we have family nearby), taxes seem similar, but the price of nearly everything was cheaper here - houses, property taxes, gas, electricity, groceries, internet.  The only thing that was the same price-ish was auto insurance (and with 2 teens, it's a killer).  But we save so much on gas, it's worth it.

The one biggie that's quite a lot more expensive - college!  Even CC is expensive here.  Of course, I like to say that in CA, I helped pay for EVERYONE to go to college, while here in SC, I'm only paying for MY kid to go to college.  She also works at Papa John's and is taking a few courses at Purdue Global for 100% free.  But they don't offer the degree she wants, so can't finish there.  But it sure is helping.

It's still shocking to me how much cheaper it is, I never realized how expensive CA was until we left (I was born and raised there, never lived anywhere else).  We've saved a boatload since we moved.