Tax burden and cost of living by state

Each year I always work through my budget and look to see how much we’re spending as a family on our living expenses. As a home owner in NJ with 2 kids our current living expenses are about $80,000 per year. Of that 80,000 our state and local taxes are about $18,000 ($10,000 of that is property taxes). Over the past year there has been more and more development going on in the some of the towns in the area I live with talk of low income housing units (NJ is #3 when it comes to immigration). The area is already overcrowded so with them looking to stuff more and more people in this area I’m concerned of a number of things including a commute going from 1 hour to 2 hours. If things get really bad as I suspect we would definitely consider moving out of this state.

I was hoping to get input from others on this issue, specifically how do you like where you are living.

Upstate NY… Tioga County NY, to be exact.

Sometimes I miss more sophisticated places. Most of the time I don’t.
Local representatives are Republican but the state is Democrat due to the city. So … high tax and ridiculous laws do exist here.

Overall though … I like it here.

What is your overall cost of living and tax burden? (If you don’t mind saying:)

For me, and of course I know for some where having a job and a family rooted is a challenge to consider moving, but I look at specific things like Gun Laws, blue or Red State, taxes, property, demographics, climate, environment and quality of schools! Out of all those variables to consider I boil it down to certain states, like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South and North Carolina, Texas and Tennessee that I am singleling out as places I consider to be good bets for a decent life. I like smaller towns where being part of a community has better wholesome rewards.

I don’t know. For one thing… I dont own property and could not tell you what property tax is. My only child is grown and I’m divorced. So my case would be much different than yours.

But there are plenty of web sites that will tell you such things.

Yeah I’m going to have to start doing research on that.

Here’s tioga county NY (not to be confused with tioga county in PA just south of here.) There is some tax info there.

Personally I don’t like the direction Texas is heading, with the massive amount of immigration they are having their property taxes are going to be as bad as NJ in a few years. Since I’ve been in NJ all my life (other than my time in the military) I feel very compelled to move west.

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Very informative web site, thanks.

Of course it can be a catch 22 but Idaho fits your bill in many ways, still very white, VERY conservative, a beautiful state, not overcrowded, lower than average property taxes, but not the best job market if you’re still working.

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-property-taxes/11585/

NJ is the absolute worst in effective real-estate tax rate! I’ll will definitely put Idaho on my list. Personally I would be looking for housing costs under $200,000 and property taxes under $2,000. Do you live in Idaho?

I do not live in Idaho, but I have a conservative friend that lives in neighboring Washington which you probably know is liberal and he escapes to Idaho regularly and has told me a lot about it.

The property tax link I posted for you examples a $194K home with property taxes below $1,500.00

I saw that, thank you.

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Just keep in mind though Texas is a pretty big state, and has a life time to go before it’s anywhere near California to turning blue, a lot can happen between those times!

I spent a lot of summers in Idaho and it’s a slice of heaven, and it just depends on what type of life style you are going to live such as living in a big city or rural. But I can tell you a lot of places to check out. Another is Utah, but I am not sure what the property taxes are and their laws on alcohol are a bit different than most states!

I agree that it would be a long time before Texas as blue as CA, but the fact is that they are very high in immigration and that typically means low wage workers with lots of kids, which means high property taxes.

You know this is one of the good things about being members of any type of social forum. Being able to find out first hand experiences others have had in different states helps in gaining information.

I am not sure about the immigration part, Texas is one state that has been proactive in stopping it with a Republican Governor! I would have to do more research into this issue as it relates to the state of Texas.

Agree! You caught me at the right time because I am too am doing research in where I want to live, as I am planning on returning to the states soon after living in Asia for many years.

Right now Texas is number 7 in immigration and it borders Central America. So many of these migrants are being dropped off in various towns in TX. If this goes on for another 10-20 years TX is going to be a mess.