I know it's because it's 101 right now with absolutely no football to speak of...but I've been longing to move to a place like San Diego or Colorado for the better weather and outdoor activities.

My wife has absolutely no desire to leave so I'm pretty much just dreaming here. But IF I could get her interest, which city do you think has the best combination of economy/schools/cost of living etc? I tend to think San Diego is simply going to be too expensive. How does Denver compare to Houston cost wise?

Honest side question - how do the corporations in Denver deal with the marijuana laws? Are you still liable to lose your job/not get hired from drug testing?

I believe Denver is closer to the col in Houston than San Diego is. If I recall correctly, yes you can still lose your job to drug testing much in the same way you could lose your job if you showed up intoxicated or abused prescription drugs.

Edit- I have plenty of friends that moved to Denver straight from college (some teachers), and they are able to live comfortably in apartments. Have friends moving there now (40s college professor) who is having a hard time finding a house because he wants to live near the mountains, and that gets really expensive )

Just moved to Southern California from TX. The weather is near perfect where we live (in between San Diego and Los Angeles). Outdoor activities are obviously a big positive compared to TX. With weather averaging around 78-85 during the days in addition to cool ocean breezes, you can pretty much spend all afternoon and evening outdoors if your schedule allows.

Cost of living is insane, but depending on your salary it can be managed. As I've never lived anywhere other than North TX for the first 40+ years of my life, it's been a nice change. Not sure cost of living will allow it to be a smart long term living situation, but it will be nice as long as it lasts.

In Malibu today, high was 76 degrees.

We made the move from DFW 4 years ago this month to South Orange County and love it. Yes it is expensive but you downsize in certain areas and you get to live outside year round. Windows are open, beach is nearby, shorts and flip flops are the uniform and there are countless activities to do year round.

I'm a native Texan and love our roots there... It's not an easy move to leave a place like Texas but for us it's been a great place here in SoCal. We have great community, church, school and quality of life.

What do you do in Malibu?

What prompted you to move to Orange County?

I've stayed in Huntington Beach once and loved it. I'm assuming it's 3x Houston cost of living?

Tejas ag

I just moved to south county a month ago from DFW...living in rancho mission Viejo. What city are you in? Don't want to buy right out of the gate and ladera ranch was too competitive to easily rent but got lucky due to the aggie connection and found a rental house in RMV.

I just decided to make a change and experience something different. Hope it works out since I moved my school age children from everythkng they knew.

We decided against Huntington Beach even though we did look...but ladera ranch and rancho mission Viejo just seemed more similar to what we are used to.

For the areas we were looking in including Huntington Beach, you will pay about 75% more or double and get about Half the space that we had in dfw. And we always had new homes in dfw and that's just not feasible in many I the areas.

Read the Denver thread (all 30+ pages it it) for a taste of the good life, sans Tex-Mex and BBQ.

Just vacationing, live in Austin.

I'm in Portland, and I would say it's pretty similar to Denver without the harsh winter. We love it up here, but property is pretty expensive. Oregon also just legalized marijuana, and they are working on updating all the other laws now. We'll see how that goes.

East Tennessee here. High of 86 today. Actual seasons. Still get to watch the Ags in person 2X a year at Kyle and other times here (going to Vandy game in Nashville this year). Great weather, great people... only thing I miss is good food. There are not many places here that have good food.. course, I'm very picky.

No state income tax, and property taxes MUCH lower than Texas. I bought a $135,000 house in Leander 4 years ago, and we'll probably be able to get a $200,000 house for the same payment (our dual income is about the same) due to the much lower property taxes.

Welcome to the area... We totally did the same thing when we moved here and leased as well before we made a home buy...

We moved school aged children as well, its a big move. We are in Capo Beach which is a tiny town b/w dana point and san clemente.. it also is apart of Dana Point, the most southern part of it. My office is in San Clemente.

shoot me a note as I know what its like transitioning to an area like this and nice to meet people merrick at project7 dot com

tyler merrick

you know, i just always dreamed of living on the coast and being near the beach, beach communities and after vacationing out here over the years... our kids were at an age that if we were going to do it, we needed to do it... so we did.

no move is easy or perfect and i tell people all the time that you can change your scenery but after a little while that wears off and you still have you and your stuff to deal with ... i dont mean that in a bad way, i just mean that if you do move... do it w/ that perspective.

we have been here 4 years now and everytime we see friends from Texas there or here, they always ask if we're going to stay... the pull is strong from the lone star state and you can make any place you live work, there are pros and cons to every where but we're thankful to be settled in here God willing for awhile.

How tied to Denver are you? I live here in the springs and I feel that the col would be pretty comparable to Houston, although I haven't actually lived in Houston since leaving for college station after high school. Denver metro is only ~1 hourish away as well.

quote:

---

I'm in Portland, and I would say it's pretty similar to Denver without the harsh winter.

---

Don't know if I'd categorize front range Colorado winters as harsh.

Well, I can tell you that during the majority of our winter, we have a higher temperature than Dallas and Houston. Anytime I've been in Denver, there has been a lot of snow.

quote:

---

Well, I can tell you that during the majority of our winter, we have a higher temperature than Dallas and Houston. Anytime I've been in Denver, there has been a lot of snow.

---

Snow doesn't necessarily = harsh. There are some winters here that have a ton of snow, and stays near 40, and some that have almost no snow, but rarely have a day above 0.

As far as Denver goes, it's pretty consistent year to year and never gets super cold

Hmm, have seen 24 below zero in summit county, 55 below with the wind chill. It happens, not often and not for extended periods. Fun running out of an outdoor hot tub in those temps. Two steps and your hair and shorts are frozen.

San Fransisco tomorrow for the Astros Giants game, high of 62.

I understand that snow doesn't necessarily mean harsh to some people, and that the most snow generally comes at around 32, but I don't particularly care for large amounts of snow or harsh temperatures, which I've experienced both in Denver. A mild climate is one of the reasons we chose to move to Oregon over Colorado.

How you enjoying Colorado Springs? We visited and enjoyed manitou quite a bit.

To the OP, join the club.

aggiespartan, I take offense to you saying the 160 days of rain in Portland compares to Denver! We have way more sunshine (according to wiki, 1,000 more hours a year), even throughout the winter. Many days in Jan and Feb are still sunny and pleasant to be outside. Denver is one of the few northern cities where the winter isn't harsh. I see it time and time again though, most people's opinion who don't live here is that the winters are cold and snowy. Because they came a few times, and that's what it was like. Until you live a winter here, I guess it's tough to convince. But here's the facts; the snowiest months in order are March, November, December, then Jan/April, then Feb/Oct. Those top 2 snow months are warm with highs averaging mid 50s, and account for almost 40% of the yearly snow. Add in april and a typically mild december, and that's 70% of your snow. A snow day in these months often turns to 50 deg. sunshine the next day, or even the same day. Having snow for 3+ days in a row does not seem common in my experience, in fact maybe it's happened once in my 3 winters here.

Anyway our winter is totally worth not having rain every other day IMO.
But Portland is definitely on my bucket list to visit one day. It looks like a cool city.

And OP, you'd love the summer temps in CO. I am working on a shed the last month or so in my backyard, I can work 7 until noon, be in the shade, and it's actually cool. Then again by 7 pm, it's really nice outside even on the hottest days. We've hit 90 deg+ only a handful of times this summer.

I was in your boat 5 years ago. Wife and I wanted to leave Houston. We got out a map. Denver didn't take long to be high on the list. I have several relatives here. We decided we wanted to do it in fall of 2011. Put house on market in spring 2012, sold in June, so we moved. Neither had jobs lined up here. (no kids at that time).

Both found jobs quickly, and never looked back. I'm in O&G, she's a H.S. counselor. Just do it.

COL I think is very similar to Houston. Where you pay a little in income tax, you save a ton in property tax. It's less than 1%. so a $400K house sets you back maybe $3200/yr. Gasoline is usually maybe a dime or two higher per gal. Utilities are cheap, our 3900 sqft house averages $100 a month for gas and electric. Our 1700 sqft house in Houston had the same average, which of course was killed from May-Sept.

Yea, I came here from Minot ND where you wouldn't even see the bare ground from end of Oct/beginning of Nov until late Apr/early May.
Drey, I love it here, already trying to work my next assignment so I'm able to stick around.

I think people really have a false impression of how much rain we actually get. Oklahoma City and Houston both average more rainfall per year than we do. It doesn't rain all summer, and this winter, we had more sunny days than rainy days. We also don't have downpours, so you can still be quite active even when there is a rainy day, but to each his own.

Maybe so. Our rains are very short too, only fraction of an inch. But 1000 less hours of sunshine must mean something; if it's not rain, that means it's cloudy and dreary. Not my thing.

Saying you have less rain than Houston isn't very convincing.

Stop letting the Denver-weather-is-great secret out of the bag. Though we can always use more Aggies.

We were recently in the same boat. Absolutely had to get out of Houston. Luckily, my company had a project come up in Billings, MT. The first part of the project brought us to Kansas City. We will be moving to Billings by the end of the year.

Our plan is to never move back to Houston, it's to much of a grind and the weather absolutely sucks. Hopefully stay in Billings full time...that would be my first choice. I absolutely wouldn't mind Kansas City either. We've really enjoyed it here.

Yea they are terrible.

/quit moving here

3900 sq ft house

100 dollar electric bill? Prove it...

I'll never move back to Houston either. East Tennessee is too nice. Plus, it's in the 80's this week while Texas roasts in triple digits. Yes, please.

We plan on moving back to Texas as soon as we can. We love it up here, we just don't love the people. Montana may be the last frontier, but because of that, it has plenty of drawback.

Also, not fond of triple digits in the summer and sub zero Temps in the winter.

Prove it?

Ok..
Last month's bill, in the middle of summer. Winter is much less, so it averages about $100 (maybe more like $110-$115) But gas is less than $100 ($20-$40 in summer, $80-$100 in jan/feb), so together they are maybe $150-175 average every month. I rounded up and said $100 each.

Why is is this so hard to believe in a climate that only hits 90 like 30 days a summer? And then cools to 60 every night? My a/c doesn't run between about 7pm and noon the next day.



Now how do I prove my house size? Here's the model.

2,526 on top two floors, and 1,360 in basement, which ours is mostly finished, and all of it is cooled/heated.

That sounds like a good deal to me

You are a better earth person than I am.

My bill is much higher but you are using your energy much more conservatively than I.

Nice work on the energy bill Strat. I wasn't trying to be a dick I was just shocked.