CA Moms: Do you plan to stay in CA?

[ha98ed14]

I know there are a lot of folks on here who live in CA. I am having my own internal debate about whether we should put down roots here permanently. I am a transplant from back east and all my family is in NJ & CT. DH is native and his family is here. For us, the benefits of staying are DH's job security and good benefits. The downside is that CA is a hard place to live comfortably if you are not earning 6 figures, which neither of us will with our choice of professions. So, I am doing a poll. I am particularly interested in the plans of young families who don't or won't ever make 6 figures.

[niccig]

No choice. DH's job is in the entertainment industry. We were talking of leaving and DH telecommuting as his company has allowed people to do that in the past. A couple of months ago, they had layoffs and first to go were the telecommuting staff. I can see us moving when DH no longer wants to/can do his job.

I think you could relocate. You can be teachers in any state. The question though, is do you want to. I think there's been a few people here on the board that have left CA because of cost of living, and they're very happy to have moved.

[katydid1971]

FWIW DH makes 6 figures and we still decided to leave CA. We both are very conservative with money and felt we were better off leaving CA (and his family, mine is in another state). We have a house payment we can afford plus an 8 month emergancy fund, college savings plans for both DCs, 401k, and retirement savings while I stay at home. Another plus is even though Oregon is having money problem they are nothing like CA. A friend told me they are talking about putting 50 kids in her 5th grade class this year.

[catroddick]

DH and I are each 3rd+ generation Californian, with all our family here. DH is credentialed, but hasn’t been able to get a teaching job over the past 4 years. At times it is very tempting to think of moving (I'm a Sagittarius), but in reality there is no way.
I’ve already moved too far from the Pacific Ocean now that we live inland. I can’t go any further East.

[amandabea]

Well, I answered "No. We plan to leave for reasons unrelated to finances.", which wasn't really the best answer, but I didn't know what to respond bc we're really not sure what we're going to do, but we think we will move in the next 5-10 years.

If we leave the state it will be for my job, which I guess is related to finances. DH's preference is to stay in CA. Both he and I are native Californians, and are unsure of what other state we could live in from a comfortable weather standpoint, but at some point we may not have much of a choice. DH is self employed PT at best and my job is our livelihood.

Ugh, I have more to say, but I'll have to come back

[wellyes]

I'm not in CA so I didn't vote but - are NJ and CT really that much cheaper? I know where I live (outside Boston) a $150k income is considered solidly middle class.

[wencit]

I plan to stay in CA, but only because 1) both DH and I are in the engineering profession, so the vast majority of our jobs are here, and 2) my family is still here. If both those didn't hold true, I would be majorly tempted to move out of this state, maybe to Austin, TX. What can I say, I like warm weather. ;)

[kransden]

While I am not who you asked for, I am going to give my viewpoint :). I live in Phoenix, and there are LOTS of CA transplants here. The one thing they all agree on is they can't move back. Why? They can't afford it anymore. They have adjusted to living here, and don't want to scale back their lifestyle to that extent. Just something to think about.

[egoldber]

Well, we are very strongly considering moving back, so there's a monkey wrench for you. ;) We "upgraded" to a larger house, but honestly it's more house than we need.

But we would only do it with certain caveats: a particular income, company that pays relocation, etc.

And depending on where on the East Coast and where in CA it is not that much more expensive in CA. And the weather is soooo much nicer.

I also would only do it if we could homeschool or pay for private. I am happy-ish with the schools here, but I suspect I would not be there.

[maestramommy]

Well, we left last summer. Technically we had the income to stay, although I don't know how comfortable we would be if we actually bought a house in the town we were living (Torrance). And we weren't confident about the schools to begin with. Neither of us are originally from CA, although my parents are there now and likely to stay forever. That was the hard part of moving. On the upside, Dh's family is all on the east coast, I have some cousins on the east coast as well. So it's not like we're living in the middle of nowhere totally alone. Of course, we don't see them regularly, they don't exactly live next door. So my first year here was pretty hard. I hope it gets easier over time.

[scmama]

We are staying. We are in so cal and both DH and I were born here. I would love to move some place different, although that's not going to happen. Both DH and I are very close to our families. DH's parents' live just down the street and my parents are 45 minutes away. DH would NEVER leave. He has his family, his friends, and is comfortable here. I love my family and friends, but I would not mind moving, but I am more willing to start over I guess. Now that we have DS, I really wouldn't want him to grow up without our families seeing him on an everyday basis. If we could move, we could get a much bigger house, etc. I work at an elementary school and see how materialistic these kids are and I hate that I have to raise DS here.

[kijip]

We live in a fairly high COL area (though not as bad as S. California or San Francisco) and the one thing we were always confronted with when we considered moving is the availability and the relative pay of the jobs. Here in Seattle for example a family with one young (ie not teaching 20 years) teacher working would be hard pressed to buy a house...so while the housing here is less than where you are, so are the salaries. And that was always the issue with moving away from Seattle for us. We would NOT earn what we earn here in most lower COL places and in some cases we would be hard pressed to even FIND jobs. It depends on your field too...all of the places where jobs are plentiful in my field are high COL places.

[ThreeofUs]

Well, we left a few years ago, even though we were both making or about to make 6 figures. Like pp's, we had the income and the good will of our employers, who tried their best to keep us there.

But what it really came down to was wanting to be nearer to family, in a better situation for having/raising children, and living a different lifestyle. Don't get me wrong - we LOVED living in Santa Barbara and I miss the beauty and the ocean still - but at a basic level it wasn't right for us.

I think that's what you have to decide: are you Californians or not? California has gone down before and come back up; chances are it'll come back after these tough times. (And you can probably take advantage of the local depression to make your living, etc., situations better. Think of it as an opportunity.) If, otoh, this is one of a litany of "why I want to live elsewhere"s, then maybe you're not a California person or family.

[Laurel]

I am a fifth generation Californian. No way I am leaving, especially now that I own a home here!

[vludmilla]

I'm not in CA so I didn't vote but - are NJ and CT really that much cheaper? I know where I live (outside Boston) a $150k income is considered solidly middle class.

Indeed. I wonder about this too. I am in the NYC metro area (Westchester county) and 150k is lower middle class. Decent housing costs at least 650k and many houses at that price have 40 year old baths and kitchens or are super tiny. Property taxes are considered very cheap when they are 12k a year but 18k a year is much more like the average.

[maestramommy]

Indeed. I wonder about this too. I am in the NYC metro area (Westchester county) and 150k is lower middle class. Decent housing costs at least 650k and many houses at that price have 40 year old baths and kitchens or are super tiny. Property taxes are considered very cheap when they are 12k a year but 18k a year is much more like the average.

I have a friend in SoCal who lives in Lawndale. Her Dh works for Nestle and was was going to get transferred to NJ. They checked it out and turns out it would cost more to live there, so they decided not to move, and her Dh changed depts.

[Kitten007]

My family has lived here for over 25 years. I don't know my extended family in Texas and my mom would die if I took her first grandkids away from her.

Money is somewhat tighter...and thanks to all you wonderful ladies I have started to spend my money wisely. Hopefully we can finish paying off these cars and credit cards and live a little better.

Husband's job opportunities are pretty much here only because he is ex-Navy and got a job working on submarines after he left.

I love the weather here and can't imagine living anywhere else.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

i was raised in Northern CA (bay area). went to grad school in the northeast, met DH, and then after we married & i graduated I got a job in Southern CA (Los Angeles). i've always loved CA because of the diversity of the people and the general open-mindedness of people, and of course the great weather and tne nature (ocean, parks, etc). however, after a year or so we soon made the decision to leave because we felt we could not afford a decent house anywhere we could find decent jobs. at the time both my husband and I earned six figures and had a decent amount savings yet we did the math and realized we couldn't afford to buy a decent house, let alone afford to have kids (houses in the area were $800k+, daycare costs in the area were typically $1,800 per month, per kid)

I guess it's different if you live in places like Fresno or in the desert (Barstow, etc) where housing prices aren't that expensive to begin with. But if you live in Los Angeles or the Bay Area (where most of the jobs are, for us at least), then you are forced to deal with ridiculous housing prices, and as a result, extremely high prices of everything else (childcare, private school, etc).

It's funny, once we moved to TX, i was unemployed for several months, we had just spent most of our savings on our house down payment, yet we were able to afford many luxuries we could not afforded in CA..even though we were down to *half* our income. it was really a shocker.

the thing that i really miss most about CA is being near my family..my parents, brother and some aunts/uncles still live in Northern CA. If i could pick anywhere to live I would live there since I really love the area, has great weather and it is close to family etc. However, it's just too insanely expensive. I personally found it frustrating realizing that in CA I would be forced to pay $1 Million for an 1,800 sq ft home that was built in the 1950s, and after having kids we would be forced to maintain 2 six-fig incomes just to pay the mortgage, bills, etc.

btw-i agree with the poster who said that in places like Boston, NYC, SF, Los Angeles etc a $100k, $150k income is no big deal, practically considered middle class. Because, in those areas, a six-figure-income is essentially required to afford the average cost of living. I'm sure in many parts of the US, six figures may seem like a lot of money, but in those areas, it really isn't.

[Tondi G]

Both DH and I were born here and all of our family are here. We live in a very expensive area and would love to own here but it just isn't gonna happen. It's a real bummer to think there isn't a snowballs chance in hell that we could own something in the neighborhoods we grew up in. Even moving over the hill to Burbank will be a stretch, if we end up finding something we can manage (mortgage wise). DH has had opportunities to move to Houston TX and Charlotte NC and we entertained it for a minute and then decided it would be so hard to move away from family and friends. Our children see my mom almost every day and MIL at least once a week typically. They love my sister and the cousins they have here. I think our families would freak out if we told them we were moving out of state! So we're sitting back, crossing our fingers that the housing market here continues to decline so that when the time is right we can jump in and buy a home of our own! You can't beat the weather... don't know if I could handle life with snow. I am such a california girl.

[Snow mom]

Okay, I'm not sure if it's legal for me to vote or not ;) I grew up in SF. It's an amazing city and I love it. I don't think there is another place in the world that even comes close. That being said though, I left for college and I decided not to even try moving back. Everyone I knew who returned after college was either living with their parents or having their rent highly subsidized by their parents. I still know a few folks living with their parents there (and I just turned 30). It's just too expensive for me. Both DH and I are biologists, and not in fields that pay well. We've tossed around the idea of moving into my parent's second home in SF. Now that we have the coveted grandchild I think they would let us but I just can't stomach the high cost of living. The biggest problem I've had finding somewhere I love to live is weather. I've lived all over the country and I can't find a place that suits my weather preferences.

[ged]

We think about it often...but I am a California girl, born and raised...and I honestly don't know if I can handle the change in weather. The weather here is so pleasant and easy! Nonetheless, if an opportunity presents itself, we might move somewhere else. DH went to college in NC, and would love to go back. He grew up in CT, and neither of us really want to go back there. My family is here in CA.

[elektra]

I can't imagine living anywhere else. And now that DH and I bought our first house (and maybe our last) it's even more reason to stay. Both of our families are here too.
Well my brother does live in NYC but my bet is he will be back someday.
We love our new house and we probably paid twice what a similar house would be elsewhere, but we don't have plans to move at all.

[mommyp]

We will stay, but it's tight. We just bought a house and are putting down roots here. All our family is back East (in Canada). We are really happy with our jobs and our lifestyle, we just have to make sure our money goes where it's needed and cut back in other areas. It's doable for us. I work part-time, it would be very hard on one income although we'd still be okay.

[niccig]

You need to add a category "will leave at retirement age." DH and I say we will sell the house, move somewhere cheaper and hopefully with the money from our house here, we'll be able to buy something with cash and have cheaper standard of living.