12 replies to this topic

[road2freedom]

We are working on a plan to relocate from Florida to Colorado in a few years. I traveled there every week for about a year and a half and loved it and we finally have a plan in place to get us there. If you live (or lived) there, please let me know what you loved/hated, and it would be especially helpful if you have comparative experience from living in the southeast.

[giraffy]

I don't live there, but recently visited.

DID YOU KNOW THEY HAVE NO OXYGEN!?

It's really beautiful, at least where I was (Denver/Boudler area). The weather is CRAZY. I don't know anything else.

Maybe Snork will be helpful, she's lived in Florida and Colorado.

[road2freedom]

I don't live there, but recently visited.

DID YOU KNOW THEY HAVE NO OXYGEN!?

It's really beautiful, at least where I was (Denver/Boudler area). The weather is CRAZY. I don't know anything else.

Maybe Snork will be helpful, she's lived in Florida and Colorado.

But you can get tipsy so much cheaper!

When I was working there, I had an apartment downtown and it was fantastic. I was there for all 4 seasons so I got a good feel for things... even snow in April. I know that city living is not practical when I'm the one paying the rent so we will likely be in the 'burbs or finding some land a bit further out.

[LadyT]

I was born and raised in CO. We moved to Kansas City area 10 years ago, but all of my family is still in CO and we visit often. I have only lived in CO and KS, so can't really offer any comparatives for the southeast, but can tell you what I love/can do without!

LOVE~
The mountains! Hands down, amazingly beautiful. Go there as often as possible.
The Mexican food! We are from a smaller town north of Denver, but they have the absolute best authentic Mexican food. We can't get that here
The climate. I like having different seasons, I like winters cold and summers hot. And I dislike humidity greatly, and CO doesn't have too much of that.
The Broncos!
Activity-there is always something to do in Denver, no matter what time of day or your interests.

DISLIKES
The traffic is horrible. Any time of day, I-25 thru Denver area is a mess. Avoid rush hour at all costs or you could sit there for hours sometimes.
I love Kansas City because it's so high in vegetation and so green with trees everywhere. You don't really have that in CO unless you're in the mountains themselves. It's pretty bare.
CO has gotten very expensive. I'm assuming it may be cheaper in comparison to FL, but for us in KS, the cost of living is much greater.

[road2freedom]

Thanks for the input!

I'm with you on all of the "love" items.

I remember the I25 traffic. It does seem bad for the area and everyone drives very slow from what I remember, but nothing compared to what we get in FL's major cities. Plus, hopefully I'll still have this virtual job so I can avoid the big city during the week. My wife is a teacher so we will try to pick a home close to her new district if we can help it.

My front lawn will attest to my inability to keep green vegetation, so maybe that's a good change.

Cost of living is a concern for me, but only because I'm having a hard time finding a good comparison. Many of the sites I've found are very generic and vary greatly, anywhere from +5% to -1%. I'm trying to wrap my head around what to expect with lower sales tax, but state income tax, and different property tax and licensing fees. I also don't know much about additional expenses associated with cold weather conditions or if the differences even matter given the mild Summers in CO.

[Snork Maiden]

There's really no comparison..

There's CO
and there's FL

[jv01]

I live in the mountains. Moved here a couple years ago. What do you need to know?

The more time you spend here the more you realize Denver sucks. (I mean in comparison to most of the rest of Colorado. It kicks the crap out of most places in other states.) Yeah, it's where the jobs are, but it's not what makes Colorado Colorado. I hope you're exploring the entire state, both before and after you move here, so you can figure out where you really want to be. Otherwise all you're changing is the first digit of your zip code.

I do have to go down to Denver occasionally for errands, and the traffic is a breeze compared to most bigger cities. I-25 rush hour means you go 30 mph instead of 65. Just don't do stupid commutes, which applies everywhere. Sitting in rush hour traffic is the time version of credit card debt.

A different rush hour, which I do have to plan around, is to and from the mountains on I-70 on weekends. Especially bad on Sundays during ski season, but also happens in summer. See, Denver sucks.

[road2freedom]

Thanks snork and jv01.

We're not set on where we want to live yet. Definitely not in or around the main downtown area. I've heard Lone Tree and Aurora are high growth areas right now. I liked Colorado Springs a lot and Pueblo seems pretty nice. We are discussing if we want to buy an existing home, build new in a community again, or buy land further out and build on our own. I'm leaning towards the third option but it really depends on what we can find and where she wants to teach. I'm in a very fortunate situation where I can work anywhere (although I have a few backup options downtown if something were to ever happen to my current job, so it needs to be within driving range).

I don't really know what I need to ask, since I don't know what I don't know. COL is my biggest thing to dig into for now. How are your energy bills? How are the healthcare facilities? Insurance rates? I've never paid state income tax in my life so that's been a pill to swallow. I'm just hoping that other things help offset it a bit.

Maybe list your top 5 things and worst 5 things? I've been searching all over for likes and dislikes and some of them have been very helpful, while others quite humorous.

[jv01]

Income tax is pretty easy to figure here. Basically it's a flat 4.6something% of your federal income AFTER deductions. If the rate seems high, note it's off a lower base than most states, and again it's flat.

Car registration is expensive if you have a new Lexus, but much more reasonable if your car is a few years old. (But by all means, buy a new car every year so my costs stay low.) We don't have "car property" tax or separate county/city taxes on cars that some states have. Real-estate property tax rates are apparently among the lowest in the country, although Alabama has us beat. Most areas have no sales tax on groceries. Where I live is an exception, to pay for the "free" bus system.

I'm shocked at how cheap my car insurance is. (I don't have collision, but my liability is well above the minimum to cover my suable assets, and I do have comprehensive and uninsured.) Out-of-state tickets don't go on your driving record. You can find high-deductible health insurance for well under $100/month.

I'm not sure the tax burden is particularly low here, but we're nowhere near the high tax states (CA/NY/NJ/IL etc) and it does seem like the state and county governments are efficient and dealing with them is straightforward.

Groceries are noticeably cheaper than in Chicago, the last place I lived, by like 20-30%.

Energy bills... Everything here is Xcel Energy, and they provide both electricity and natural gas in one bill. To the extent I can decipher my bill, the actual rates are a fair amount less than I was paying in Chicago. Your usage patterns really depend on where you live. Where I live I've forgotten what "air conditioning" and "humidity" are. If you have a big house in the mountains you will be paying a lot to heat it.

I'm not sure I can came up with five dislikes. One is that if you are in a rather specialized field, it may be difficult to find work similar to what you used to do. One "like" that I appreciate that may not be mentioned much is that the state is rather politically balanced. You don't see one party try to shove its agenda through without consensus. Just about every political special-interest group is represented here, and they all seem to cancel each other out. Each party has to cater to a wide variety of interests within its own party.

Again, Denver is not Boulder is not Colorado Springs is not Fort Collins is not Pueblo is not Grand Junction is not Durango is not Vail. It's easier to compare areas than to describe the whole state.

[road2freedom]

Thanks for all of the info. It sounds like the state income tax will balance out with other factors. I agree with your point about different cities. It's hard not to group them but, they are vastly different. Diverse politics is good and anything is better than the weird crap we encounter in FL.

Can you elaborate on "But by all means, buy a new car every year so my costs stay low"? We usually trade in ever 3 years and I don't foresee them being more than 40/50k ever. One thing I remember that I didn't like was having tags on the front and back of vehicles, but that's just a small personal preference.

Our energy bills now range from $250-$350/month for a small house for electric/water. We don't have oil and gas is not very common, but is available. I was astonished to see how many places did not have air conditioning. I may have to get it anyway as a crutch... haha. I will not miss the humidity at all. If you've ever been to the Botanical Gardens there and visited the humidity room, that's Florida in a nutshell. I used to have to adjust to it every week when I left the airport and it made me realize how different we are.

My industry seems to favor a virtual workplace for the cost savings and simple fact that we have customers all over the country and world for that matter. Plus they like to make us work crazy hours during peak seasons and that's much more likely when we can plug in from home. I'm actually assigned to a California based team oddly enough. Hopefully I'll be in this job for years to come but three other major players in our industry offer virtual roles and one of them has an office in downtown Denver and I think they still have another office in Broomfield.

One thing I should also ask about I guess is schools. FL ranks last for funding but performs pretty well considering. I'm not a bragger but my wife is an awesome teacher and is very dedicated. Her students and their parents absolutely love her, even the difficult ones, and they always perform well. I'm sure she will be checking things out in more detail as the time nears but if you have any experience or details to share about the schools, it's most welcome.

At this point, we are moving come hell or high water. Our primary plan puts us there in 3-4 years and all of the contingency plans put us there as well. It's just a matter of paying some things down and waiting. I'm really learning to test my patience now...

Edited by road2freedom, 16 May 2012 - 06:39 AM.

[jv01]

Car registration is on a sliding scale depending on the age of the car. It starts around 2½% of the KBB value for new cars and drops to well under 1% for cars that are more than about 5-6 years old. So people who buy a $30k car every few years subsidize people like me who run theirs into the ground

It does vary by county a bit also, but you still pay only one bill a year. The Front Range counties have emissions inspection; my county doesn't. We don't have equipment inspection like many eastern states do.

I paid something like $350 to register and title a 2003 SUV when I moved here. I bought the car right after moving so there was sales tax in there too. Renewal was around $110.

Schools are administered at the county level, and some of the Front Range counties are consolidated. This is far more efficient than many places with small, overlapping school districts and bloated overhead and administration/pension costs. I think CO is near the bottom in per-pupil funding, but above-average in results. Not to start a political argument, but there is little correlation between the amount of money you throw at schools and the results.

[road2freedom]

Haha, okay I'll try to keep ours new just for you. The fees don't sound too terrible. I don't think we've had emissions testing here in... 15 years. That'll be an interesting refresher if we live in a county that requires it.

Not political at all - and I agree. I was more interested in if their funding is sufficient or if there are constant cuts and corners cut to make ends meet. Things have gotten pretty barebones in FL and it has become pretty demoralizing for teachers, not to mention the additional financial burden placed on them.

[TheBanker]

I've been to Colorado several times on business and really enjoyed it. It's a beautiful state, and from what I can tell, the most of the people are all pretty cool.